The Federal Government must defend the rights and safety of LGBTQI+ individuals. They echo the criminalization that LGBTQI+ people continue to face in some 70 countries around the world. These attacks defy our American values of liberty and dignity, corrode our democracy, and threaten basic personal safety. Today, unrelenting political and legislative attacks at the State level - on LGBTQI+ children and families in particular - threaten the civil rights gains of the last half century and put LGBTQI+ people at risk. These disparities and barriers can be the greatest for transgender people and LGBTQI+ people of color. In spite of this historic progress, LGBTQI+ individuals and families still face systemic discrimination and barriers to full participation in our Nation’s economic and civic life. Our Nation has made great strides in fulfilling the fundamental promises of freedom and equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI+) Americans, owing to the leadership of generations of LGBTQI+ individuals. By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows: