The U.S. State Department is redoing its human rights reports on other countries, omitting anti-LGBTQ+ persecution, gender-based crimes, and other information the reports have traditionally included.

Leaked drafts of reports reviewed by The Washington Post on El Salvador, Israel, and Russia “strike all references to LGBTQ+ individuals or crimes against them, and the descriptions of government abuses that do remain have been softened,” the Post reports.

The drafts, which cover 2024, are significantly shorter than they have usually been, and they have been long delayed. The reports for the previous year are supposed to be sent to Congress by the end of February, and they are generally released to the public in March or April. Most of the reports for 2024 were nearly done by the time the Biden administration ended in January, current and former officials told the Post, but the Trump administration is now rewriting them.

The drafts seen by the Post don’t mention anti-LGBTQ+ or gender-based violence. For Russia in particular, this is a “glaring omission,” former State Department official Keifer Buckingham told the paper. Russia has had anti-LGBTQ+ laws for more than a decade, but in recent years it has designated LGBTQ+ organizations as “extremist” and raided nightclubs catering to the community. It has also banned the promotion of so-called nontraditional families and adoption of Russian children by people in countries that allow gender-affirming care. In December, a travel agent arrested under the extremism law died while in jail, apparently by suicide.

Buckingham criticized Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who had praised the department’s human rights reports when he was a senator. “Secretary Rubio has repeatedly asserted that his State Department has not abandoned human rights, but it is clear by this and other actions that this administration only cares about the human rights of some people … in some countries, when it’s convenient to them,” Buckingham, who is now managing director at the Council for Global Equality, told the Post.

Also, the report on El Salvador minimizes the issue of prison violence, and the one on Israel downplays political corruption and surveillance of Palestinians.

The Advocate sought comment from the State Department, which referred us to a transcript of the press briefing conducted Thursday by Thomas Pigott, the department’s principal deputy spokesperson. One reporter asked him, “Can you explain why the State Department is rewriting the human rights report? I understand it’s coming out soon, but it’s been changed and that you’re dropping certain things like LGBTQ rights. Just explain why.”

Pigott said the changes are designed “to make it more readable, to make it more digestible, and also to reflect some of the changing priorities that we’ve seen from the previous administration to this one, priorities that were voted by the American people and we at the State Department are here to carry out and fulfill.”

The journalist then asked if the department sees human rights reporting “as a political tool.” Pigott replied, “It’s more of just making sure that we’re implementing the policy and priority of this administration. It’s not political in terms of how that was described.”