Clip from LGBTQ+ FEMA webinar goes viral without context

The Federal Emergency Management Administration has become so accustomed to hurricane-related misinformation that it created a keyword searchable "rumor response" webpage.

One misleading narrative circulating on X that has yet to appear on the agency’s website, however, claims FEMA has prioritized one population for emergency response above others: people who identify as LGBTQ+.

"FEMA Disaster Preparedness Meeting: ‘We should focus our efforts on LGBTQIA people… they struggled before the storm,’ the conservative X account End Wokeness posted Oct. 6 on X. "‘FEMA relief is no longer about getting the greatest good for the greatest amount of people…. It's about disaster equity.’" 

The X post included a video clip showing what looked like a webinar that included one speaker with a FEMA backdrop. 

But this video does not show that FEMA has prioritized LGBTQ+ people in its relief efforts. 

The post caption misquoted part of the conversation in the webinar and misleadingly presented the video clip stripped from its original context.

The webinar did not involve FEMA’s approach to general disaster preparedness or the current wave of hurricanes at all: It was a March 2023 panel discussion titled, "Helping LGBTQIA+ Survivors Before Disasters: Preparedness and Mitigation Considerations." The panel consisted largely of non-FEMA employees, and the discussion focused on improving disaster preparedness in LGBTQ+ communities, not FEMA’s general disaster response.

However, the X post drew about 38.5 million views as of Oct. 11 and its claim spread to cable news. 

"FEMA has gone full DEI even admitting their rescue agenda is focused on sex,"  Fox News host Jesse Watters said Oct. 7 on his show "Jesse Watters Primetime." "They just admitted they don't want to help as many people as possible, as efficiently as possible. They want to help the right kind of people first."

FEMA did not respond to our questions about this webinar or this claim. But a FEMA spokesperson told Fox News that, "FEMA provides assistance to disaster survivors regardless of race, religion, sexual orientation, identity, or background and we want to encourage as many people to apply for help as possible."

The hourlong webinar posted March 28, 2023, on FEMA’s YouTube page, was a panel discussion that covered a range of topics about challenges LGBTQ+ people may face before disasters and how to improve disaster preparedness in LGBTQ+ communities.

The 1-minute,37-second clip showed two people speaking: Tyler Atkins, an emergency management specialist in FEMA’s mitigation division, who hosted the discussion, and Maggie Jarry, an emergency coordinator for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.

"That really sparked a few things in my mind, thinking about preparedness," Atkins said, responding to a previous panelist’s comments, "and how you said, LGBTQIA people and people who have been disadvantaged already are struggling. They already have their own things to deal with. So, you add a disaster on top of that, it's just compounding on itself." 

Atkins did not say, as the viral post claims, that FEMA should "focus their efforts on LGBTQ people."

And Jarry, who is not a FEMA employee, did not say, as the viral post claimed, that "‘FEMA relief is no longer about getting the greatest good for the greatest amount of people."

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She said, "The shift that we're seeing right now is the shift in emergency management from utilitarian principles, where everything is designed for the greatest good, for the greatest amount of people to disaster equity … we have to look at policies and understand to what extent they have disadvantaged communities that had less assets, communities that had preexisting vulnerabilities in accessing disaster related recovery supports.

Other panelists included the director for Faith-Based and Interfaith Affairs for the city of Philadelphia, an environmental planning and policy professor from University of California, Irvine, and the head of a nonpartisan youth-focused environmental organization called The Climate Initiative.

The webinar was part of a two-part series. The second discussion, "Helping LGBTQ+ Survivors After Disasters," was posted April 25, 2023 on YouTube.

FEMA faced intense criticism over its 2005 response to Hurricane Katrina, which highlighted some of the ways natural disasters can exacerbate existing inequalities.

To rectify these gaps, FEMA’s 2022-26 Strategic Plan named equity as its first goal.

"Underserved communities, as well as specific identity groups, often suffer disproportionately from disasters,"  the FEMA website’s goal page reads. "FEMA must be aware of, and responsive to, the needs of different individuals and communities to ensure that the benefits of FEMA programs are available." 

But FEMA’s equity focus doesn't apply only to LGBTQ+ people. The page mentions several "underserved communities," including religious minorities, people of color, people with disabilities, people in rural areas or people experiencing poverty.

This focus also does not mean that people who are not members of these groups are denied aid. "It just acknowledges the historical inequalities, but it doesn't suggest that one individual would be receiving more aid than another," said Thomas Chandler, deputy director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness, part of Columbia University’s Climate School. FEMA seeks to provide help to anyone who has survived a disaster. We rated Pants on Fire an Oct. 4 claim on Threads that "FEMA is supposed to help out white people last for the purpose of ‘equity’" and that it says so on the agency’s website.

Research shows that LGBTQ+ people can be uniquely vulnerable in disaster situations because they are more likely to already be facing challenges such as homelessness, chronic health issues, and poverty, which can exacerbate the effect of disasters. A different study found that LGBTQ+ people were twice as likely to be displaced after disasters compared with non-LGBTQ+ people. 

FEMA has hosted a variety of webinars about better addressing the needs of many different groups, including people with disabilities, people who are blind and deaf, older adults, tribal communities and people in places of worship. 

We also found FEMA’s online resources that target specific communities, including people with disabilities, older people, schools, caregivers and non-English speakers.

"FEMA, or any other Federal agency that I am aware of, does not prioritize relief efforts to any subsection of the population," said Kathryn Van Tol, a legal fellow of emergency management at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

FEMA’s aid programs such as individual assistance, which survivors can apply for, Chandler said, are  "based on the needs of disaster survivors, regardless of their sexual orientation or race or religion. It's based on the need of the specific person and their financial situation." 

X posts shared a clip of a 2023 FEMA webinar and cited it as evidence that FEMA is prioritizing LGBTQ+ people in its disaster response.

But this is misleading and missing context.

This webinar was a discussion among FEMA and non-FEMA representatives about improving disaster preparedness for LGBTQ+ people; it was not about FEMA’s general disaster response. It was one of numerous webinars and resources that reflect FEMA’s goal of prioritizing equity in its disaster response to reduce the inequities exacerbated in past disasters, such as 2005’s Hurricane Katrina.

Research shows natural disasters can disproportionately affect underserved communities, but FEMA doesn’t prioritize giving aid to LGBTQ+ people.

That claim is False.