As negotiations over congressional appropriations continue, Senate Democrats are seeking $32.5 million in funding for a United Nations agency that lists one of its primary aims as securing “dignity and rights for LGBTQIA+ people.”
On January 11, Democrats on the Senate Appropriations Committee released a “minibus” bill designed to fund national security, the State Department, and other related programs within the federal government. Near the bottom of the legislation is a requested eight-figure appropriation for the United Nations Population Fund.
Most of the activities performed by the UNFPA are relatively uncontroversial, encompassing services like maternal healthcare, sexual education, and efforts to reduce gender-based violence. The UNFPA, however, also engages in an array of pro-LGBT efforts reminiscent of the controversial pro-LGBT operations undertaken by the State Department and USAID during the Biden administration, setting the stage for potential GOP opposition to the funding.
The UNFPA highlights several of its pro-LGBT campaigns, both current and past, on its website.
In Jamaica, for instance, the agency partnered with transgender activists to develop a “Transgender Health Strategy” and worked to provide psychosocial counselling for “gender non-conforming people” in the country. UNFPA has partnered with LGBT activists, often those focusing on transgender issues, in countries such as Laos, Eswatini, Bangladesh, and Kyrgyzstan in sexual education and community engagement efforts.
Elsewhere, UNFPA sponsors “youth-friendly safe spaces for diverse sexual orientations and gender identities.”
“In addressing the needs of LGBTQIA+ people, we’ve come some distance with further yet to go,” the agency’s website reads. “We vow continued commitment to not straying from the path, eyes fixed on the horizon, true and lasting equality our destination.”
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Though funding for UNFPA may prove controversial given its support for pro-LGBT activists in the developing world, which conservatives have railed against, the legislation, as written, provides a few possible avenues for compromise.
Funds provided to the UNFPA by the United States must be held in a separate account from its general funds, according to the legislation. This allows Congress to attach conditions to its funding.
One such condition already in the legislation is that, for each dollar UNFPA decides to spend in China, the United States will reduce its obligation to the agency by the same amount. Along stricter lines, the legislation specifies that funding will be made unavailable to UNFPA if the agency funds abortions.
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), the top members of their respective parties on the Senate Appropriations Committee, did not respond to requests for comment.
