US President Donald Trump issued executive orders swiftly after being sworn in to change the US government’s policies on gender and diversity, writes Stanley Szecowka.
He rolled back orders from the Joe Biden administration that the Trump White House called ‘unpopular, inflationary, illegal and radical practices within every agency and office of the Federal Government’.
It will mean that the US embassy in Bahrain will not fly the ‘rainbow’ flag from its grounds in Manama this year as its diplomats work for the US Department of State, so they are federal employees.
Anger, disbelief and question marks were raised over why the US embassy in Bahrain decided to promote Pride Month in the kingdom for a third consecutive year in 2024.
American diplomats used the embassy’s official social media to spread their propaganda and used Bahrain as the only country in the Gulf region to push the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex and other spectrums of gender and sexuality (LGBTQI+) agenda.
This came despite the leadership, leading politicians and business leaders in Bahrain calling for an end to provocative politicising and pushing of foreign agendas that are against Islamic values and culture, as reported in the GDN.
The US Embassy in Bahrain became the only American diplomatic outpost in the Arab world last June to put out a Rainbow social media post stating that the ‘United States supports efforts to promote inclusion and acceptance of LGBTQI+ persons’.
Two of the orders the newly inaugurated president revoked included a Biden directive aimed at ‘preventingdiscrimination’ based on gender identity or sexual orientation, following through on promises he made on his campaign trail.
President Trump also signed an order designating two genders only – male and female – and declaring that they ‘cannot be changed’.
“As of today, it will henceforth be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders, male and female,” he added during his inaugural address.
President Trump has made wider promises to counter what conservatives decry as ‘woke’ culture, gender and diversity, equality and inclusion programmes.
managingeditor@gdnbmedia.bh
WHO, climate pact pullout – Pages 16-17
&uuid=(email))