By Rory Barbarossa

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The White House issued a document last week entitled “Two Important Developments that Impact the Health and Well-Being of LGBT People.” The document outlined a revision to the FBI’s definition of rape in order to encourage more comprehensive reporting of rape crimes nationwide, including male victims. It also detailed a major grant by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) for high-impact HIV prevention.

Attorney General Eric Holder announced revisions to the Uniform Crime Report’s definition of rape last week.  The revised definition includes rapes committed against men, and encompasses a broader range of sexual acts understood to be rape. This revised definition will be used to collect data from local law enforcement about these crimes and will be published in the Uniform Crime Report.

The CDC announced that it has begun awarding almost $339 million to state and local health departments across the United States to fund HIV prevention activities this year. The awards are a component of CDC’s new approach to HIV prevention, designed to better align resources to reflect the geographic burden of the HIV epidemic, and achieve a higher level of impact with every federal HIV prevention dollar spent.