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Uganda’s L.G.B.T.Q. population was already struggling to cope with the fallout of a harsh anti-gay law when the disruption of U.S. aid put people at even greater risk.
In the weeks since President Trump signed an executive order dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development, Andrea Minaj Casablanca’s phone has been inundated with desperate pleas for help.
A counselor who works with nonprofits catering to members of Uganda’s embattled L.G.B.T.Q. population, she has fielded urgent requests from people seeking H.I.V. medications, therapy sessions and shelter in the wake of Mr. Trump’s executive order. Ms. Casablanca responded to these calls while grappling with her own crisis: being fired from a job that was funded by U.S.A.I.D.
“Our whole world has been turned upside down,” Ms. Casablanca, a 25-year-old transgender woman, said on a recent afternoon in Kampala, the capital. “Everyone is in fear of the future.”
L.G.B.T.Q. people in Uganda have in recent years endured an intensifying crackdown in this conservative East African nation. President Yoweri Museveni signed a law in 2023 that calls for life imprisonment for anyone who engages in same-sex relations in Uganda and up to a decade in prison for anyone who tries to.
Now, activists say, the U.S.A.I.D. cuts have put them at even greater risk, with shelters underfunded, hundreds of individuals unemployed and many more facing discrimination and violence. Vital medical supplies remain scarce, while members of L.G.B.T.Q. groups increasingly report feeling depressed or suicidal.