National
AIDS 2012: Laura Bush stresses women pivotal in fight against AIDS
Former First Lady and Aung San Suu Kyi address International AIDS Conference
Former First Lady Laura Bush at AIDS 2012 (Blade photo by Michael Key)
Former First Lady Laura Bush stressed on Thursday that women continue to play a crucial role in the global fight against HIV/AIDS.
“When you look around the world, you see that women are in the forefront of life changing progress,” she said during her speech at the International AIDS Conference at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. “Women have been central in the fight against AIDS.”
Bush cited a woman with HIV whom she met with her husband, former President George W. Bush, in Africa last December that had been shunned by her family after her husband passed away. A faith-based organization subsequently taught her how to make purses from recycle materials. And she now supports her children and the family that had once ostracized her. “Her story is a powerful testament to why we must do more to promote the good health of women everywhere,” said the former First Lady. “The health of women affects families, communities and whole countries. Healthy mothers make healthy families.”
Bush also referenced her mother-in-law, former First Lady Barbara Bush, as someone who helped change attitudes about HIV in this country. She noted that the former First Lady held babies and hugged people with AIDS and met with families of those who had lost loved ones to the epidemic at a time when stigma against those with the virus was rampant. Barbara Bush also visited the AIDS Memorial Quilt on the National Mall.
“Her graceful example challenged all Americans to confront HIV/AIDS with care and compassion, rather than fear and judgment,” said Laura Bush.
She further categorized the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief that her husband announced during his 2003 State of the Union address as a blueprint to fight other global epidemics. PEPFAR committed $15 billion over five years to fund HIV prevention efforts, anti-retroviral drugs for those living with the virus and programs for children orphaned by AIDS.
Laura Bush stressed that both she and her husband have seen “first-hand the devastating toll of AIDS” during several trips they made to Africa during and after his presidency. She further recalled a young girl wearing a lavender dress that she and her daughter Barbara met at a Botswanan pediatric clinic a few months after the then-president announced PEPFAR.
“This precious little child lay on an examining table so frail and sick; her mother’s last hope was to make her beautiful,” said Laura Bush, who visited the same facility three weeks ago. “Today with access to anti-retrovirals, that little girl would have another chance at life.”
Statistics continue to show that women and girls remain disproportionately impacted by HIV/AIDS.
UNAIDS noted that 1.3 million women and girls became HIV-positive last year. The agency further reported that 63 percent of those between 15-24 living with the virus are young women — and 60 percent of those with HIV in sub-Saharan Africa are women and girls.
Laura Bush noted that rates of cervical cancer are nearly five times higher among women with HIV. The George W. Bush Institute, PEPFAR, Susan G. Komen for the Cure and UNAIDS last September pledged at least $75 million over five years to fight cervical and breast cancer among those with the virus through the “Pink Ribbon, Red Ribbon” initiative that Zambian First Lady Christine Kaseba and other female African leaders have endorsed. The former First Lady said more than 14,000 Zambian women have received these screenings – and nearly 40 percent of them live with HIV. Nearly a third of them tested positive for pre-cancerous or cancerous cervical cells. Of those, more than 80 percent were able to receive immediate treatment.
“In our fight against AIDS, we’ve learned that any measure of success requires sustained leadership at every level,” said Laura Bush. “By working together, we can give hope to mothers and fathers, to sisters and brothers, to wives and husbands and sons and daughters so they and their families can live full and productive lives.”
Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi also spoke about the need to end stigma against those with HIV.
“Our people need to understand what HIV really is. We need to understand that this is not something that we need to be afraid of, that people who have contracted HIV need not to be discriminated against, that they’re not a danger to society at large,” she told AIDS 2012 delegates in a videotaped message. “Once this message has gotten through, we will be able to base activities on the natural compassion of human beings and of course as the great majority of people in Burma are Buddhist, there’s a special emphasis on the value of compassion. Based on this and based on wide community education, I hope that we will be able to become one of those innovative societies where we approach a problem as human beings — as intelligent, caring human beings. In this way, we will be able to handle not just the issue of AIDS and new ideas, but issues related to those who are subjected to particular suffering and particular discrimination.”
CARE President Dr. Helene Gayle noted that Suu Kyi, who won a seat in the Burmese Parliament in April, delivered a video address at the 2000 International AIDS Conference in South Africa. The Nobel Peace Prize recipient, who remained under house arrest for the better part of two decades until late 2010, held her first public event after the country’s rulers released her at an HIV/AIDS center.
“This was a powerful message to her people and to those living with HIV that their champion was again free and was going to work hard to improve their situation,” said Gayle. “She is a global icon for democracy and human rights and she is also in her dignified and quiet way a powerful AIDS advocate.”
U.S. Federal Courts
Federal judge blocks Trump passport executive order
State Department can no longer issue travel documents with ‘X’ gender markers
A federal judge on Friday ruled in favor of a group of transgender and nonbinary people who have filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s executive order that bans the State Department from issuing passports with “X” gender markers.
The Associated Press notes U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick in Boston issued a preliminary injunction against the directive. The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents the plaintiffs, in a press release notes Kobick concluded Trump’s executive order “is likely unconstitutional and in violation of the law.”
“The preliminary injunction requires the State Department to allow six transgender and nonbinary people to obtain passports with sex designations consistent with their gender identity while the lawsuit proceeds,” notes the ACLU. “Though today’s court order applies only to six of the plaintiffs in the case, the plaintiffs plan to quickly file a motion asking the court to certify a class of people affected by the State Department policy and to extend the preliminary injunction to that entire class.”
Former Secretary of State Antony Blinken in June 2021 announced the State Department would begin to issue gender-neutral passports and documents for American citizens who were born overseas.
Dana Zzyym, an intersex U.S. Navy veteran who identifies as nonbinary, in 2015 filed a federal lawsuit against the State Department after it denied their application for a passport with an “X” gender marker. Zzyym in October 2021 received the first gender-neutral American passport.
The State Department policy took effect on April 11, 2022. Trump signed his executive order shortly after he took office in January.
Germany, Denmark, Finland, and the Netherlands are among the countries that have issued travel advisories for trans and nonbinary people who plan to visit the U.S.
“This ruling affirms the inherent dignity of our clients, acknowledging the immediate and profound negative impact that the Trump administration’s passport policy would have on their ability to travel for work, school, and family,” said ACLU of Massachusetts Legal Director Jessie Rossman after Kobick issued her ruling.
“By forcing people to carry documents that directly contradict their identities, the Trump administration is attacking the very foundations of our right to privacy and the freedom to be ourselves,” added Rossman. “We will continue to fight to rescind this unlawful policy for everyone so that no one is placed in this untenable and unsafe position.”
State Department
HIV/AIDS activists protest at State Department, demand full PEPFAR funding restoration
Black coffins placed in front of Harry S. Truman Building
Dozens of HIV/AIDS activists on Thursday gathered in front of the State Department and demanded the Trump-Vance administration fully restore President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief funding.
Housing Works CEO Charles King, Health GAP Executive Director Asia Russell, Human Rights Campaign Senior Public Policy Advocate Matthew Rose, and others placed 206 black Styrofoam coffins in front of the State Department before the protest began.
King said more than an estimated 100,000 people with HIV/AIDS will die this year if PEPFAR funding is not fully restored.
“If we continue to not provide the PEPFAR funding to people living in low-income countries who are living with HIV or at risk, we are going to see millions and millions of deaths as well as millions of new infections,” added King.
Then-President George W. Bush in 2003 signed legislation that created PEPFAR.
The Trump-Vance administration in January froze nearly all U.S. foreign aid spending for at least 90 days. Secretary of State Marco Rubio later issued a waiver that allows the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS relief and other “life-saving humanitarian assistance” programs to continue to operate during the freeze.
The Washington Blade has previously reported PEPFAR-funded programs in Kenya and other African countries have been forced to suspend services and even shut down because of a lack of U.S. funding. Two South African organizations — OUT LGBT Well-being and Access Chapter 2 — that received PEPFAR funding through the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in recent weeks closed down HIV-prevention programs and other services to men who have sex with men.
Rubio last month said 83 percent of USAID contracts have been cancelled. He noted the State Department will administer those that remain in place “more effectively.”
“PEPFAR represents the best of us, the dignity of our country, of our people, of our shared humanity,” said Rose.
Russell described Rubio as “ignorant and incompetent” and said “he should be fired.”
“What secretary of state in 90 days could dismantle what the brilliance of AIDS activism created side-by-side with George W. Bush? What kind of fool could do that? I’ll tell you who, the boss who sits in the Harry S. Truman Building, Marco Rubio,” said Russell.
U.S. Military/Pentagon
Pentagon urged to reverse Naval Academy book ban
Hundreds of titles discussing race, gender, and sexuality pulled from library shelves
Lambda Legal and the Legal Defense Fund issued a letter on Tuesday urging U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to reverse course on a policy that led to the removal of 381 books from the Nimitz Library of the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md.
Pursuant to President Donald Trump’s executive order 14190, “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling,” the institution screened 900 titles to identify works promoting “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” removing those that concerned or touched upon “topics pertaining to the experiences of people of color, especially Black people, and/or LGBTQ people,” according to a press release from the civil rights organizations.
These included “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” by Maya Angelou, “Stone Fruit” by Lee Lai, “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas, “Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong” by James W. Loewen, “Gender Queer: A Memoir” by Maia Kobabe, and “Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul” by Eddie S. Glaude, Jr.
The groups further noted that “the collection retained other books with messages and themes that privilege certain races and religions over others, including ‘The Clansman: A Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan’ by Thomas Dixon, Jr., ‘Mein Kampf’ by Adolf Hitler, and ‘Heart of Darkness’ by Joseph Conrad.
In their letter, Lambda Legal and LDF argued the books must be returned to circulation to preserve the “constitutional rights” of cadets at the institution, warning of the “danger” that comes with “censoring materials based on viewpoints disfavored by the current administration.”
“Such censorship is especially dangerous in an educational setting, where critical inquiry, intellectual diversity, and exposure to a wide array of perspectives are necessary to educate future citizen-leaders,” Lambda Legal Chief Legal Officer Jennifer C. Pizer and LDF Director of Strategic Initiatives Jin Hee Lee said in the press release.
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