Trump Gives Final World AIDS Day Speech, No Mention of LGBTQ+ People
December 3, 2020Donald Trump delivered his final World AIDS Day speech, failing to mention LGBT+ people for the fourth year in a row. Trump recognised “untold suffering on millions of people both here at home and abroad” as a result of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, but ended his administration without ever once drawing on the annual statement to recognise LGBT+ people are disproportionately affected by the disease.
According to ‘Washington Blade’, Trump highlights his administration’s “Ending the HIV Epidemic” plan, which he announced during his 2019 State of the Union address. The cross-agency initiative under the Department of Health & Human Services seeks to eliminate at least 90 percent of new HIV infections in the United States within 10 years with a PrEP-heavy focus on diagnosis, treatment, prevention and response.
“Through these and other initiatives we are bringing to a close a painful chapter in human history,” Trump says in the proclamation. “For the past many decades, HIV and AIDS have inflicted untold suffering on millions of people both here at home and abroad. But by the end of this decade, we will have eliminated this scourge from our country and released much of the rest of world from its deadly grip.”
Trump vaguely references the disproportionate impact of HIV/AIDS on marginalised communities with a sentence concluding “it is all too clear that this deadly disease disproportionately affects racial and ethnic minorities.” But none of these racial or ethnic minorities are enumerated, nor are any kind of sexual minorities, such as LGBT+ people.
Although Trump’s recognition of “racial and ethnic minorities” is a step up from previous statements, which failed to recognise HIV/AIDS as a social justice issue in any capacity and not just a disease, Trump throughout each of his four years in office has declined to offer that recognition to LGBT+ people.
In contrast, Obama in his 2016 proclamation spelled out HIV/AIDS predominantly affects “gay and bisexual men, transgender people, youth, black and Latino Americans, people living in the Southern United States, and people who inject drugs.”
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