Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said Monday that his department is going on the offensive on gay and transgender rights.

Becerra opened the department's first-ever Pride Summit to discuss LGBT health issues with the statement that America should be “expecting much more” from his department and that there was the “need to move faster.”

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“This game of defense can get tiring. We want offense,” Becerra said. “Let’s play on the offensive and let’s grow.”

Several speakers at the daylong event broached the topic of the 500 to 650 “anti-LGBTQ bills” that have been introduced in state legislatures this session — the majority of which revolve around gender ideology and gender transitions for minors.

Karine Jean-Pierre also spoke at the event on behalf of President Joe Biden, saying that “it has been a scary year, a very difficult year” for gay and transgender people in the United States. Jean-Pierre said that “[t]he Administration will never stop fighting” against those that are “breeding hate."

Becerra said that HHS was the first Cabinet department to raise the pride flag above the American flag for the month of June, although several other departments followed suit, but that much more work is necessary to promote equity through all aspects of government.

“We must figure out a way to expand,” the HHS secretary said, referencing the need to garner greater support for the gay and transgender rights movement. Becerra emphasized that the majority of people in the U.S. “don’t realize it but are on our side.”

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“This summit is not just to get together with friends … not just to protect the gains we’ve made. ... It’s to realize that most Americans are with us if we could just sit down and talk with them,” he said.

“We mean it. We’re going to do it. We hope to enlist you,” Becerra said in closing.