Uganda's LGBTQ community was already struggling with the fallout from a harsh anti-gay law when the end of US aid put people at further risk.
In the weeks since President Trump signed an executive order disbanding the U.S. Agency for International Development, Andrea Minaj Casablanca's phone has been inundated with desperate pleas for help.
A consultant working with nonprofits serving Uganda’s LGBTQ community, she responded to urgent requests from people seeking HIV medication, therapy and shelter after Mr. Trump’s order. Ms. Casablanca responded to those requests while also dealing with her own crisis: She had been laid off from her USAID-funded job.
“Our whole world has been turned upside down,” said Ms. Casablanca, a 25-year-old transgender woman, on a recent afternoon in Kampala, the capital. “Everyone is afraid of the future.”
In recent years, members of the LGBTQ community in Uganda have faced increasingly harsh repression in the conservative East African country. President Yoweri Museveni signed a law in 2023 that would impose life imprisonment for anyone who engages in same-sex relations in Uganda and up to ten years in prison for those who attempt to do so.
Now, activists say, USAID cuts have put them at even greater risk, with shelters underfunded, hundreds unemployed and many more facing discrimination and violence. Vital medical supplies remain in short supply, while LGBTQ people increasingly report feelings of depression or suicidal tendencies.
