During a speech Thursday night for the
LGBTQ Center's annual dinner at Cipriani Wall Street, Hillary Clinton was honored as a "trailblazer" and criticized the Trump administration's approach to queer issues.
"We've learned something important," the 2016 Democratic presidential nominee said. "That the progress we've fought for, that many of you were on the front lines of, and that we've celebrated and maybe even taken for granted, may not be as secure as we once expected."
She recounted the number of decisions Trump's administration has implemented at the expense of LGBTQ Americans, from rescinding protections for transgender students to the proposed cuts on funding for HIV/AIDS research and replacing an openly gay federal employee with someone who called being transgender, "a disease."
The former secretary of state also addressed the "terrifying accounts" of alleged abuse of gay men in Chechnya and called for the U.S. government to "demand an end to the persecution of innocent people across the world."
Related | Here's How You Can Help Stop Chechnya's Gay Concentration Camps
She finished her speech with a call for equality: "I will say again what I said in 2011: Gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights, once and for all," Clinton said. Watch, below.