Trans Flag Creator Asks Biden To Fly it at U.S Embassies

Monica Helms, creator of the trans Pride flag and LGBTQ activist, recently wrote a letter to the White House asking for U.S. embassies to fly the flag. The letter came shortly after the news that the Biden administration would lift a Trump-era restriction that forbade U.S. embassies on foreign soil to fly the Pride flag.

In the message, which Helms also posted to Facebook, Helms points toward the growing international violence against transgender people.

“Trans people in many countries are being murdered at an alarming rate, especially in places like Brazil, Mexico, and many African and Latin American countries. With our embassies flying the trans flag along with the rainbow flag, we will send a strong message that America respects its trans community, giving trans people in that country hope.” Helms wrote.

In several countries around the world, governments are proposing legislation that violates the rights of the LGBTQ community. In November 2020, Hungary introduced amendments to their constitution that stigmatizes transgender people and barred same-sex couples from adopting children. The bill states that the country needs to operate, “… in accordance with the values based on our homeland’s constitutional identity and Christian culture.”

In Poland, a country where the influence of the Catholic church looms large, provinces and towns have declared themselves free of the LGBTQ “ideology” and have stripped protections from those in the community. Last year, diplomats from 50 countries signed a letter urging the Polish government to end the discrimination of sexual minorities. These countries included India, Israel, the U.S., and Poland’s EU partners.

All over the world there has been an uptick in violence toward LGBTQ people, especially against those who are transgender. Forty-four transgender individuals were killed in the U.S. last year, a record number, while 350 transgender people were killed globally, a 6 percent increase from the year before.

Helms believes that if U.S. embassies flew the trans Pride flag, it’d send a strong message to the world. This message is incredibly important, especially after seeing countries regress socially to stigmatizing those in the LGBTQ community.

After the last four years, which saw the Trump administration pass several anti-LGBTQ measures, now is the time for Biden to make a strong statement and send the message to the rest of the world that the U.S. strongly stands by its LGBTQ community.

“We have been vilified and discriminated [against] over the last four years and having you in the White House gives us hope,” Helms says in her message to Biden. “America needs to show ALL of its true colors to the world, and I hope some of those colors are light blue, pink, and white.”

Photo Courtesy of Foreign and Commonwealth Office via Flickr