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The power of queer community: When aid is cut, we don’t disappear. We organize

US funding withdrawal has had global impact

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HIV/AIDS activists place Black Styrofoam coffins in front of the State Department on April 17, 2025. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

The global LGBTIQ+ movement is being systematically undermined, not just by eroding legal protections and escalating political harassment, but by the sudden withdrawal of vital funding. What began in the U.S. as a flurry of policy changes under Donald Trump has become a global flood of cuts, bans, and deliberate dehumanization. This week in Nairobi, prominent ultra-conservative campaigners from around the world, who are against abortion, transgender and LGBTIQ+ rights, and sexuality education, are speaking at the Pan-African Conference on Family Values.

Grassroots organizations, which are the backbone of queer survival and resistance around the world, are struggling to stay afloat. The global funding squeeze will and has already started to directly impact frontline organizations, forcing them to scale back, shut down programs, or close entirely.  

In South Africa, support groups have slashed services due to the sudden disappearance of U.S. aid. In Mali, new laws criminalize LGBTIQ+ identities altogether. These regressions are not organic, they are engineered as American evangelicals continue to export anti-LGBTIQ+ ideologies across Africa. 

In Europe, trans rights are being rolled back under the guise of biological essentialism, most recently validated by the U.K. Supreme Court’s ruling to exclude trans women from the legal definition of “woman.” In Hungary, LGBTIQ+ events have been constitutionally banned. 

In the U.S., Trump is once again weaponizing his platform to push bans on gender-affirming care for minors and cut LGBTIQ+ research funding, all under the banner of “protecting children.” Elon Musk, once a corporate ally for LGBTIQ+ rights, now echoes far-right voices and launches transphobic tirades in tandem with personal attacks against his own daughter. 

This is a coordinated, well-funded, and transnational anti-rights campaign to strip queer people of rights, dignity, and resources. At Hivos, we see this backlash as a call to deepen our commitment to centering queer voices, challenging harmful narratives with data and lived experiences, and working to strengthen the LGBTIQ+ movement globally. 

We cannot fight this movement with performative IDAHOBIT posts on social media alone. We need action, international solidarity, and a recommitment to protecting queer lives.

What’s at stake? 

This isn’t about identity politics. It’s about survival.

When the USAID funding freeze came into effect in early 2025, the Hivos-led EU SEE network conducted a survey on the impact of the freeze on civil society organizations around the world. Most surveyed organizations are reducing staff, scaling down programs, or reallocating budgets

Outright International had to cut more than 120 grants to LGBTIQ+ organizations in 42 countries following U.S. aid freezes with devastating consequences: Lost access to trauma care for survivors of gender-based violence, the dismantling of HIV prevention networks, and increased discrimination, arrests, and violence. Outright International is only one of many organizations that have had to cut grants and funding.

Grassroots mutual aid groups in East Africa, working with minimal resources, have pioneered radical community models by providing housing, legal aid, and emergency support in the absence of government protection. These groups don’t just serve communities; they are the communities. Their defunding is not only cruel; it is a death sentence for countless individuals.

Economic justice and LGBTIQ+ liberation

Justice isn’t just legal, it’s economic. In most contemporary societies, justice is also closely tied to economic power. Around the world, LGBTIQ+ people face disproportionate levels of poverty, unemployment, housing insecurity, and workplace discrimination. Economic inclusion shouldn’t be an afterthought to queer rights around the world – it is foundational to their survival and dignity. 

And yet, reports from Outright International, the Williams Institute, and the World Bank affirm that LGBTIQ+ economic inclusion benefits society as a whole. When the queer community is excluded, the human and financial costs are steep. The economic marginalization of LGBTIQ+ people lowers GDP, deepens inequality, and entrenches cycles of sexual and gender-based violence. So we also need systemic change that includes LGBTIQ+ people in broader economic opportunities — from education to employment and entrepreneurship opportunities. 

There are strategies to bring LGBTIQ+ inclusion to the forefront. At Hivos, through the Free to be Me program, we have seen successes in LGBTIQ+ economic inclusion from the establishment of the Queer and Allied Chamber of Commerce of Africa to our partners in the Philippines successfully supporting the Lapu-Lapu city council’s Anti-Discrimination Ordinance. Positive developments like these are just one part of creating safer social, political, and legal environments allowing LGBTIQ+ people to have equal access to resources, opportunities, and decision-making. 

What do we do now? 

If governments won’t lead, then LGBTIQ+ communities and our allies must.

  • Philanthropic foundations must step up. Some foundations have pledged to increase support, but the momentum pales in comparison to the urgency. Funding must be flexible, long-term, and led by community input.
  • Media and influential individuals must confront hate speech head-on. Political leaders like Donald Trump aren’t “debating” gender identity — they’re inciting division and violence. Do not let bigotry define the narrative. Bigotry is not a “debate” its incitement
  • Corporations must put money where their rainbows are. Pride-themed products without meaningful reinvestment into queer causes are nothing more than branding and pinkwashing. Corporations must ensure LGBTIQ+ employees are supported and protected.
  • Solidarity demands more than words, donating directly to grassroots organizations and mutual aid funds. Speak up. Pressure local leaders. Boycott non-inclusive organizations and corporations. Demand change.
  • Bring LGBTIQ+ voices into policymaking spaces. When the LGBTIQ+ community participates in the legislative process — and when advocates and organizations receive the funding they need to support long-term, transformative impact — the potential for positive change and inclusivity is endless.  

Continuing the fight from previous generations 

Queer communities have always faced adversity with grit, love, and radical imagination. But resilience is not infinite. Without funding, protection, and political will, resilience can end up in burnout. 

Let’s do more than celebrate the queer community — let’s mobilize. We can take inspiration from the 2024 protests in Peru against a law classifying transgender people and other LGBTIQ+ people as mentally ill, which succeeded in getting the law scrapped within a month. The future of LGBTIQ+ rights will not be decided in courtrooms or campaign rallies alone. It will also depend on whether we show up right now, with our money, our voices, and our actions. Because when aid is cut, we don’t disappear. We organize.

Susan Githaiga is a Pan-African, feminist and human rights defender grounded in the belief that none of us are free until all of us are free as inspired by Lilla Watson and collective Black feminist thought. As the Global Program Manager of Free to Be Me Hivos, she leads a transformative initiative across 12 countries in Africa, MENA, and Southeast Asia, partnering with over 160 LGBTIQ+ CSOs and movements to advance human and economic rights and resilience. A strategist, bridge-builder and movement weaver, Susan thrives at the intersection of advocacy and grassroots power. 

Susan Githaiga (Photo courtesy of Hivos International)
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Why queer firearm ownership is a matter of survival

The right to self-defense is not just constitutional, it is life-saving

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(Photo by Robert Aubin/Bigstock)

In an era marked by escalating political hostility, targeted legislative rollbacks, and surging hate-fueled violence, LGBTQ+ individuals face an urgent and sobering imperative: self-defense. Across the United States, queer lives are increasingly endangered not just by interpersonal bigotry, but by systems that fail, or outright refuse to protect them. In this climate, the act of owning a firearm is not a political stunt. It is, for many queer people, an existential necessity.

Although gun ownership is often stereotyped as a conservative domain, a growing number of queer and trans individuals are reclaiming the right to bear arms; not to dominate, but to defend. The mainstream debate too often casts the federal Second Amendment and state gun rights as synonymous with reactionary politics. But for marginalized communities, especially those historically abandoned by police, the right to self-defense is not just constitutional, it is life-saving.

The numbers reinforce this stark reality. Data from the Williams Institute at UCLA reveals that queer people are more than five times more likely to experience violent victimization than their non-queer peers. Transgender individuals are at even greater risk, facing a staggering victimization rate of 93.7 per 1,000 people, compared to 21.1 per 1,000 among non-queer individuals. Black LGBTQ+ people in particular face some of the highest rates of hate-motivated violence, revealing the dangerous convergence of racism, queerphobia, and transphobia in American society.

The 2016 massacre at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, where 49 predominantly Latinx/Latino queer people were murdered remains one of the most horrific reminders of how queer spaces are often the targets of deadly hate. Yet the violence has not abated. According to Them. magazine, 75% of transgender homicides in 2020 involved firearms used against them, with Black trans women disproportionately affected. Despite these facts, federal protections remain weak, and police responses are often indifferent, hostile, or retraumatizing.

In response, a growing network of queer and trans people have turned to community-based defense organizations that reject both right-wing extremism and state neglect. The Socialist Rifle Association (SRA), founded in 2018, promotes the idea that working-class and marginalized people deserve the tools and training to protect themselves. It is explicitly anti-fascist, anti-racist, and inclusive. As of mid-2019, roughly one-third of the SRA’s 2,000 members identified as queer, with specifically 8% identifying as transgender. Since the 2024 election cycle and the resurgence of far-right organizing, that number has more than tripled. The John Brown Gun Club (JBGC), another leftist formation, provides armed community defense at Pride marches, drag events, and anti-racist demonstrations, filling a critical gap left by state institutions that often fail to protect queer bodies.

These organizations don’t glorify violence. They promote harm reduction. They offer firearm safety classes, de-escalation training, and mutual aid, not paramilitary cosplay. Their existence serves a purpose more essential than politics: ensuring that no one is left defenseless against fascist aggression or hate-driven attacks. When institutions fail, the community must provide its own shield.

The rise in queer firearm ownership reflects a broader cultural shift. One that rejects the monopolization of armed protection by conservatives, law enforcement, and the military. It is a reclaiming of autonomy, of bodily sovereignty, of the right to survive. It says plainly: queer and trans lives are not expendable. They are not negotiable. They are worth defending.

In a world where systemic violence targets us at every intersection, queer and trans firearm ownership is not a fringe movement, it is a moral response to lived danger. This is not about glorifying guns. It is about refusing to die quietly. It is about the fundamental human right to safety, dignity, and resistance. As Malcolm X said, “Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice or anything. If you’re a human, you take it.”

So, too, must queer and trans people, especially those left behind by both government and mainstream queer institutions, and assert that their lives will not be bargained for, but protected. The people must not beg for safety. They must be ready to defend it.


Max Micallef is an activist and writer based in Upstate New York.

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Pride is wherever you are

All of us are part of the struggle

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(Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

I thought of titling this “A long way from WorldPride” to contrast the struggles of displaced LGBTQ+ people in Kenya with the recent celebrations in Washington. But that would miss the real story.

The United States is facing a concerted right-wing effort to erase and disenfranchise minorities in the name of fighting “wokeness,” a term used to disrespect the diversity of America’s population. The phrase “DEI hires” [referring to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives] is used mockingly to pretend that no person of color or other minority is ever qualified for any job.

Meanwhile, my friend Rosamel, a trans woman who runs a safe house in Nairobi, is the very embodiment of pride under pressure. The two-dozen residents of the house include several orphaned children of queer folk. After Rosamel was hospitalized for days due to an injury and tetanus, the children have taken to sleeping next to her and following her around because they are afraid of losing her.

If that is not family, there is none. Those who use the claim that God created two and only two sexes as justification for denying legal protections to gender-non-conforming people need to take off their blinders and see the greater complexity of God’s creation.

Whether right-wing culture warriors recognize it or not, God created intersex people and people whose brain chemistry tells them their gender is different from what was assigned at birth.

The phrase “biological males” is routinely used by people on the right in a way that reduces biology to genitalia. Perhaps even more egregiously, many in the news media uncritically accept the right-wing vocabulary.

Thus our struggle continues. We still have work to do to build and honor what many good people of faith call the Beloved Community.

I attended the WorldPride Human Rights Conference in Washington featuring delegates from across the globe. Being surrounded by so many smart, dedicated activists was invigorating despite my suffering from stress and lack of sleep.

The final session at the conference was a conversation with the Congressional Equality Caucus. One of the panelists, Rep. Becca Balint (D) of Vermont, said, regarding right-wing threats to roll back LGBTQ+ progress, that she is a glass-half-full kind of person.

She is right. We could easily sink into despair, given the aggressive attacks on our community. But we must not let the haters rob us of our joy nor deflect us from our purpose.

Before the panel began, I spoke with moderator Eugene Daniels of MSNBC, an openly gay journalist who is president of the White House Correspondents Association. I thanked him for his fearlessness and excellence.

A friend told me that he didn’t care to emulate Eugene’s fashion-forward style nor his use nail polish. But my point in praising Eugene is not that all of us should try to be him. We are a diverse people. It is rather his poise and self-confidence that deserve emulation.

Eugene’s mother told him when he was younger, “You belong in whatever room you find yourself.” Yes.

The threats to LGBTQ+ people around the globe are real and daunting. But we have one another, and the examples set by those who came before us. We also have the wisdom of those children in Nairobi, who needed no one to tell them who loves and cares for them.

I raised money to pay for repairs to the safe house, and for the walking sticks Rosamel required after her injury. The need among these displaced people is always greater than the capacity of the handful of donors. More non-governmental organizations are needed to help those forced to flee their homes and countries because of unscrupulous politicians and clergy who scapegoat them for problems they had no part in causing.

Eugene Daniels was motivated to come out after the Pulse Nightclub murders in 2016. He didn’t want to die with no one knowing his true self.

By contrast, Utah state legislator Trevor Lee (R) backs HB 77, a measure to ban Pride flags in schools and local government buildings, with an amendment allowing Nazi and Confederate flags for “educational purposes.”

We must join forces to beat back the evil nonsense currently proliferating.

To find role models, we have only to look around us and around the world. Rosamel and Eugene did not wait for permission to step up and lead.

To quote a wise ancient man whose teaching is routinely ignored by the hatemongers on the so-called Christian right: “Go thou and do likewise.”


Richard J. Rosendall is a D.C.-based writer and former president of the Gay & Lesbian Activists Alliance.

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If you are sick, or old, maybe don’t run for Congress

We need to let younger candidates run for office

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(Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)

I am sure I will be called heartless after people read this column. But I have come to believe that if you are sick, or old, maybe you should not run for Congress. We now have three open Democratic seats in the House of Representatives. They are open because two members over 70, who had been diagnosed with cancer before the election, decided they had to run anyway. They won, but have since passed away early in their term. The other death was a congressperson who decided it was appropriate to run for his first term at the age of 70. 

I understand what being older means, and also what a cancer diagnosis is. I am fortunate and have survived three different cancers. It is also true, anyone, at any age, can die. Just listen to Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) who told her constituents they will die anyway so why worry about her voting to cut their Medicaid. But seriously, these three men should definitely have considered not running. They should have allowed a younger man, or woman, to run for what are considered safe Democratic seats. Just recently, Speaker Johnson got his ‘beautiful bill,’ actually a really disgusting bill, the one the felon in the White House is asking Congress to pass, through the House by only one vote. Just think if we had three more votes against it. 

Again, each of those seats is considered pretty safe for Democrats. In recent years we have seen Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) hold onto her seat for much too long, and then there is the Republican congresswoman who was still in the House but missing votes, who they found was living in an assisted senior living center. Her son admitted she had issues with dementia. I have to mention here, it’s not only members of Congress, but those in statehouses, and even presidents, who need to know when it is time to move on. 

Running while ill is not a new phenomenon. I first saw this back in 1972, when Congressman William Fitz Ryan (D-N.Y.) had his district combined with that of Congresswoman Bella S. Abzug (D-N.Y.), based on the 1970 census. Bella decided to challenge him in the primary, and he decided to run even though he had cancer, hiding how serious it was. He won the primary against her, and then died before the general election. Bella became the Democratic candidate and won the election. There were those at the time who accused her of killing him by running against him. An outrageous accusation, the facts being he should never have run. So again, this is not something new. But I believe if Democrats want to attract more young people into politics, we need to think about this. In 2018, I wrote about term limits and retirement at 80 for the Congress and the Supreme Court. I still believe that. I am not mentioning names here, as I believe it is really a very personal thing for those who run for office. How they see their life after serving, if they are running for reelection, or what they think they can accomplish at an older age if they get elected for the first time.

Some may have read the column I wrote recently chastising David Hogg for how he is handling his PAC. I don’t disagree with his vision of supporting young people to run for state legislatures, and the Congress. I am all for that. My problem with David is how he is doing it. 

We live in a difficult world, and the felon in the White House, his MAGA cult, and his sycophants in Congress, are only making things more difficult for everyone. My generation of Democrats has done many good things, and we have moved the country forward in many ways. Until Trump, we were moving forward on equality, and climate change, among so many other issues. We recognize we have a global economy, and that is good. But it is clear we have left many things undone, and faced a backlash, which brought us Trump and his MAGA cult. 

So, today we need the younger generation, who are inheriting this world, to step up and take a role in running it. We need to be willing to step aside when it’s time. We can act as advisers and supporters for the younger generation. We can help them raise funds, and work to get them elected. We should always be available if they ask for help, but it is time we got out of their way when it comes to running for elective office. 


Peter Rosenstein is a longtime LGBTQ rights and Democratic Party activist.

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