; Whereas an estimated number of more than 100,000 brave service members were discharged from the Armed Forces between the beginning of World War II and 2011 because of their sexual orientation, including the discharge of more than 13,000 service members under the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy that was in place between 1994 and 2011; Whereas transgender people were banned from military service from at least 1960, and were not permitted to serve without restriction until 2021; Whereas LGBTQ individuals in the United States serve, and have served, in positions in the Federal Government and State and local governments, including as members of Congress, Cabinet Secretaries, Governors, mayors, and city council members; Whereas the demonstrators who protested on June 28, 1969, following a law enforcement raid of the Stonewall Inn, a LGBTQ club in New York City, are pioneers of the LGBTQ movement for equality; Whereas, throughout much of the history of the United States, same-sex relationships were criminalized in many States, and many LGBTQ individuals in the United States were forced to hide their LGBTQ identities while living in secrecy and fear; Whereas, on June 26, 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. 644 (2015), that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry and acknowledged that [n]o union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family ; Whereas Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome (referred to in this preamble as AIDS ) has disproportionately impacted LGBTQ individuals in the United States, due in part to a lack of funding and research devoted to finding effective treatments for AIDS and the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (referred to in this preamble as HIV ) during the early stages of the HIV and AIDS epidemic; Whereas gay and bisexual men and transgender women of color have a higher risk of contracting HIV