This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center.<\/em><\/p>\n KAMPALA, UGANDA \u2014 Ever since President<\/span> Donald Trump was elected a year ago, sex workers in Kampala have suffered. The sex has suddenly become too painful.<\/p>\n For years, sex workers and public health workers in Uganda say condoms and sexual lubricant were plentiful. Usually paid for by American foreign aid programs such as USAID and PEPFAR, they were distributed \u201cin bars, in hospitals, in hotels, anywhere people gathered,\u201d said Turinawe Samson, founder of Universal Love Alliance Clinic in Kampala. In a country where about 5 percent of the population has HIV \u2014 the tenth highest prevalence rate in the world \u2014 easy access was key to slowing the spread of the disease and saving lives.<\/p>\n But immediately after Trump\u2019s election in November 2024 \u2014 months before the Trump administration cut funding<\/a> to USAID<\/a> and PEPFAR \u2014 things began to change in Uganda.<\/p>\n Lube became stigmatized as \u201can immoral product used by sex workers and homosexuals,\u201d according to Samson. Uganda\u2019s Ministry of Health doesn\u2019t group it among \u201cessential health commodities,\u201d meaning its import isn\u2019t subsidized. Few health facilities in Uganda are able to procure it. Where it can be commercially purchased, the product is either prohibitively expensive due to diminishing supply, being dangerously sold past its expiration date, or both.\u00a0<\/p>\n This lack of lube and the broader shaming of sex in Uganda may well result in more vaginal and urinary tract infections, and more sexually transmitted infections \u2014 including HIV.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to not be judged.\u201d <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n People have started using \u201ccooking oil, unhygienic products\u201d or \u201cnothing at all,\u201d said Babu Ramahdan, an LGBTQ+ and human rights activist who is on his way to becoming an unlikely Ugandan lube manufacturer. \u201cI\u2019ve got all the ingredients,\u201d he says with pride, and he\u2019s already made some samples (including in different flavors). He even met with university researchers eager to help him produce it domestically. But for Ramahdan, getting his product through clinical trials may prove as difficult as finding funding: In Uganda, as in large swaths of the United States, gaining institutional approval to research anything seemingly related to LGBTQ+ health has become almost impossible.<\/p>\n Condoms, too, are harder to find. They are not being given away freely with the same frequency, so those who need them increasingly must buy them. But they are economically out of reach for those who need them most in a country where the average income<\/a> is less than $100 a month. Interviews with 10 patients and practitioners at a clinic run for and by sex workers revealed the stark economics: Sex with a condom goes for as little as 2,000 shillings (less than 50 U.S. cents) and up to about 6,000 ($1.50). But a condom costs a sex worker 3,000 to 4,000 shillings (between 75 cents and $1) \u2014 meaning they might lose money having safe sex. Sex without a condom pays much more: up to 10,000 shillings (about $2.50).<\/p>\n The newfound scarcity of lube and condoms illustrates just one example of how Trump\u2019s policies have disincentivized safe sex and encouraged the transmission of disease in Uganda \u2014 not just among sex workers and their clients, but also among men who have sex with men, transgender people, those who use injection drugs, and poor people. In Uganda, these people are euphemistically called \u201ckey populations,\u201d or KPs, most at risk for HIV (terms that acknowledge or even hint at queerness have been long avoided, and since Trump was elected, that\u2019s the case even for euphemisms like \u201cminority\u201d).\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to not be judged,\u201d one sex worker said, describing her health care needs. \u201cWe need to be asked by a doctor, \u2018What are your <\/em>needs?\u2019 We need to feel safe answering about the kinds of sex we have. We need to be listened to, honestly.\u201d<\/p>\n But since the stop work order came<\/a> on January 20, 2025, for projects funded by the United States, the kinds of clinics where KPs like her will not be judged have either closed with little or no notice or become overburdened by a lack of resources, an influx of clients, or both. This has pushed KPs toward Uganda\u2019s public hospital system, where seeking care means putting themselves at risk of persecution from a homophobic government.<\/p>\n The sex worker who wished to not be judged is one of several who told The Intercept that women in Uganda who test positive for syphilis test three times at a public hospital are denied medication, accused of being a sex worker, or even turned over to the police. (The latter means she could be arrested, extorted, or raped.)\u00a0People living with HIV report that if they seek antiretroviral medication at a public hospital, their privacy may not be respected and their HIV status may be exposed to their neighbors. Queer men, fearful of potentially being referred to the police for \u201caggravated homosexuality\u201d and prosecuted under Uganda\u2019s Anti-Homosexuality Act<\/a>, often skip seeking health care at public hospitals altogether.\u00a0<\/p>\n These fears are not confined to so-called KPs: They are making patients who may be suffering from anal fissures, vaginal infections, or rectal cancer refrain from seeking care because they are too afraid. In a country where abortion is illegal and more than 1 million people are living with HIV, this campaign of anti-queerness will result in more people forced to have children they do not want, more people becoming infected with HIV, and without medication, more people eventually dying of AIDS.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In November 2025,<\/span> almost a year after Trump\u2019s global stop work order, it was nearly impossible to drive anywhere in Kampala and avoid the profile of a mustached man in a white shirt and Panama hat against a stark yellow background.\u00a0<\/p>\n It was the height of Uganda\u2019s election season, and President Yoweri Museveni was running for a seventh term as Uganda\u2019s president. His face \u2014 sometimes rendered several stories in height \u2014 was inescapable. At age 81 and already president for four decades, Museveni would soon secure another term after an election in which he shut down the internet and his opposition candidate claimed to have been abducted<\/a>. Museveni will serve at least 45 years as president of Uganda, if he doesn\u2019t die in office.<\/p>\n Accompanying his 50-foot-high face was the phrase \u201cProtecting the Gains \u2014 as we make a qualitative leap into high middle income status.\u201d<\/p>\n Seeing this propaganda spelled out over Uganda\u2019s unpaved roads (and even a UNICEF school made out a fraying tent) led Ugandans who spoke with The Intercept to ask: What gains?\u00a0<\/p>\n Uganda is not without any resources. It is known as the \u201cpearl of Africa,\u201d a term perhaps first coined<\/a> by Winston Churchill while on a safari to describe Uganda\u2019s beautiful plants and animals. Today it applies to American, European, and Chinese interest in Uganda\u2019s bounty of rare earth minerals<\/a>. Uganda is also the birthplace of the River Nile, which not only feeds Northern Africa with fresh water but also the foundations of Western religion \u2014 like the story of Moses in the reeds in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.\u00a0<\/p>\n But Uganda has been subjected to what Guyanese historian Walter Rodney has called the deliberate European underdevelopment of Africa<\/a>. Largely falling historically into five Bantu kingdoms, modern Uganda was colonized in the 19th century, with the Imperial British East Africa Company claiming control of the region in the 1880s. (Anti-queerness was part of the colonial playbook: Despite local ways of living that today might be described as queer or trans<\/a>, when the British Empire named Uganda a colony in 1894, it criminalized<\/a> queer sexuality by way of Penal Code Section 377<\/a>, which punished \u201cwhoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any man, woman or animal.\u201d)<\/p>\n Amid a wave of anti-colonial resistance in Africa, Uganda shook Britain off in 1962. But over the course of six decades of independence, Uganda\u2019s presidency has been defined mostly by two men.\u00a0<\/p>\n Idi Amin, Uganda\u2019s third president, often cast as a brutal dictator in the West, is remembered, among other things, for expelling all British and 80,000 members of Uganda\u2019s Indian community. Locally, he is remembered as \u201cBig Daddy.\u201d (Among those calling for recasting Amin as a more sympathetic anti-colonial figure<\/a> is one of those Ugandans whom Amin expelled: Mahmood Mamdani, author of \u201cSlow Poison: Idi Amin, Yoweri Museveni, and the Making of the Ugandan State<\/a>\u201d and father of the newly elected Uganda American New York City Mayor\u00a0Zohran Mamdani<\/a>).<\/p>\n \u201cWhy have we been relying on the United States for 20 years? Why hasn\u2019t my government made this a priority for us?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Museveni, Uganda\u2019s ninth president, has ruled since 1985, coinciding with the\u00a0AIDS era. He quickly became a major face of Uganda\u2019s \u201cABC\u201d approach to HIV: Abstain <\/em>before marriage, be <\/em>faithful in marriage and \u2014 if you fail at those two \u2014 use a condom<\/em>. Ugandan HIV prevention workers who did not wish to be named for fear of persecution describe Museveni as indifferent to the crisis and having outsourced all responsibility to foreign funding.\u00a0<\/p>\n For instance, as one medical doctor put it, when PEPFAR began funding HIV medication in the early 2000s, \u201cit was supposed to be an emergency plan. It\u2019s right there in the name,\u201d the President\u2019s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. \u201cWhy have we been relying on the United States for 20 years? Why hasn\u2019t my government made this a priority for us?\u201d<\/p>\n As he managed to retain power for decades, Museveni increasingly turned a tactic of social control favored by political leaders from Vladimir Putin in Russia<\/a> to Keir Starmer in England to Trump in the United States alike: Whipping up a moral panic<\/a> about LGBTQ+ people.\u00a0<\/p>\n All of this history made it so that when public health workers in Uganda encountered what they called the \u201cthree disasters\u201d of their recent history, it was hard to recover.<\/p>\n The first occurred on March 21, 2020<\/a>, when the first Covid-19 case was reported in Uganda, which led to strict lockdowns that made HIV care very difficult to provide.<\/p>\n The second struck in the spring of 2023, with the passage of Uganda\u2019s Anti-Homosexuality Act<\/a>. It made \u201caggravated homosexuality\u201d punishable by death<\/a> and \u201cpromoting homosexuality\u201d \u2014 which could include gatherings of LGBTQ+ people, discussions to plan HIV prevention, and every meeting attended by The Intercept in reporting this story \u2014 punishable by up to 20 years in prison. The standard penalty for consensual same-gender sexual acts is life imprisonment.<\/p>\n The Anti-Homosexuality Act passed after evangelical missionaries from the United States spent years, and tens of millions of dollars, spreading homophobia in Africa in general and in Uganda specifically. Of the $54 million spent by more than 20 U.S. evangelical groups in Africa\u2019s 54 nations from 2007 to 2020 \u201cto influence laws, policies, and public opinion against sexual and reproductive rights,\u201d about a third went to Uganda, according to OpenDemocracy<\/a>.<\/p>\n And the third disaster came on November 5, 2024, when Trump was reelected. Not only did PEPFAR and USAID funds quickly disappear, but strict restrictions were also placed on the little aid that survived. For example, PrEP \u2014 pre-exposure prophylaxis, which prevents HIV infection \u2014 could no longer officially be given to those most at risk, such as sex workers or gay men, but only to pregnant and nursing mothers.\u00a0<\/p>\n And yet, despite the \u201cthree disasters,\u201d dedicated queer and trans Ugandans \u2014 many who could flee to exile to secure their own personal safety \u2014 refuse to give up trying to protect the health of their community, even as they\u2019re being crushed.<\/p>\n Things are so<\/span> bad under Trump, some Ugandan health care providers are pining for George W. Bush.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cGeorge Bush Jr., is my best friend,\u201d Dr. Edith Namulema, chief of the HIV\/AIDS Counseling and Home Care Department at Mengo Hospital in Uganda, told The Intercept.\u00a0<\/p>\n Over the sound of chirping tropical birds, Dr. Namulema spoke in a large, breezy part of her ward that is mostly used to treat patients with tuberculosis, who slept on the other side of thin blue curtains. Just outside was an adjacent clinic room with a roof but no walls for treating people with HIV, where patients were having their blood drawn by smiling young phlebotomists in dark blue scrubs.<\/p>\n Namulema never met Bush. But despite his global trail of destruction<\/a> spurred by his war on terror<\/a> \u2014 and his generally homophobic domestic agenda \u2014 such effusive praise for \u201cBush Jr.\u201d is common among African AIDS researchers and doctors.<\/p>\n Namulema has worked with HIV since the 1990s, before there were medications that prevented an HIV diagnosis from becoming a guaranteed AIDS death sentence. For years, she buried one patient after another.\u00a0<\/p>\n But when Bush made antiretroviral medication available circa 2001 via PEPFAR, she saw the deaths begin to slow within a week.<\/p>\n A nurse at Universal Love Alliance described a startling shift in the first year of Trump\u2019s second term. \u201cI have seen people die with HIV before,\u201d she said. \u201cBut I rarely saw someone die because they could not adhere to their medications.\u201d Over the last decade, the nurse witnessed maybe one death per year due to a patient failing to take their medication. In 2025, she saw this happen 10 times.<\/p>\n Every nurse and HIV peer educator in a community clinic who spoke to The Intercept said they have seen an uptick in HIV-diagnoses and related deaths. Official statistics do not show this trend \u2014 sources say it\u2019s because they are not able to record \u201cKP data.\u201d The Trump cuts have, predictably, caused a chaotic data scenario. The Uganda Ministry of Health predicts<\/a> four Ugandans are becoming infected with HIV every hour. Meanwhile, the Uganda AIDS Commission reported<\/a> a \u201csharp fall\u201d in AIDS-related deaths of 64 percent to the Parliament in October.\u00a0<\/p>\n One doctor interviewed by The Intercept at a large hospital said they have not seen an increase in HIV positivity, but attributed it to the fact that \u201cKPs are in hiding\u201d and the hospital lost all funding to hire people to go where KPs dare to live.\u00a0<\/p>\n En route to<\/span> a \u201cKP clinic\u201d in Kampala, The Intercept rode in a four-wheel-drive Toyota. The passengers included Samson, who fled his rural village town for Kampala when he realized the other boys were trying to burn him with acid because he was gay, and Kukunda Sharon, a former school instructor who goes by \u201cTeacher\u201d and \u201chad to escape\u201d her village when her lesbianism was met with an attempt to coerce her into a forced marriage; she is now associate director of Universal Love Alliance.<\/p>\n Even in Kampala\u2019s center near the U.S. Embassy \u2014 an intimidating imperial outpost that takes 10 minutes to drive around \u2014 the roads are not great, but at least they are paved. But as the SUV sloped downhill, it traveled onto rough red clay roads lined by open gutters of untreated sewage. The buildings grew lower, then came single-story metal roofed shacks, where people live largely without electricity or plumbing.<\/p>\n Nearly 7 million people live in Kampala, and yet the city has no functional train or bus system. Kampalans move about in \u201ctaxis\u201d (minivans that seat 14, which LGBTQ+ people consider too dangerous), or on the back of \u201cboda boda\u201d motorbikes. Such movement is difficult for people who are sick and, given the high price of petrol, it is economically prohibitive; gas is roughly the same price as in the United States, even though the average income in Uganda is just about 1 percent of America\u2019s<\/a> average income. People walk long distances on roads without sidewalks to get where they need to go \u2014 nearly impossible for sick people.\u00a0<\/p>\n Thus when it comes to treating HIV effectively, it is necessary to have many clinics spread throughout the city\u2019s poorest areas so that people living with HIV can come for their medical care, or have their medicine delivered. A year ago, the Ugandan Health Ministry announced<\/a> it would be shutting all HIV\/AIDS and tuberculosis clinics in the country. According to Sky News, one official said the closure of HIV clinics was a necessary response because of the loss of funding from USAID. Also shuttered were standalone pharmacies supplying antiretroviral drugs. Millions in Uganda, especially the more than 1 million people living with the virus, depend on these facilities to provide HIV treatments and preventative therapies. According to an International Planned Parenthood Federation <\/a>survey published in December 2025, some 1,175 affiliated IPPF health sites closed across Africa, affecting 396 staff positions and 5.9 million clients due to the funding changes. Thousands<\/a> of health workers in Uganda \u2014 including doctors, nurses, and community experts \u2014 have lost their jobs.<\/p>\n The Intercept visited one of the few \u201cKP clinics\u201d still operating, despite a government raid and threats of arrest for its staff. It sits in a compound behind a wall, just off of a busy street. It is extremely hot, without air conditioners or fans in any of the simple examination and testing rooms.\u00a0<\/p>\n Staff members from three of the remaining KP clinics gathered here to speak with The Intercept in a room that usually hosts group therapy, whenever a trustworthy volunteer therapist can be found.<\/p>\n At first, the conversation was taciturn. The meeting is technically illegal, the gathered medical workers weren\u2019t all familiar with each other there, and there are always worries in such get-togethers that someone might be a spy. But after sitting on the floor and eating samosas, \u201cthe boys\u201d \u2014 as these young men refer to themselves and each other \u2014 begin to open up.<\/p>\n They talk about the cuts. At one clinic, salaries were reduced by 50 percent. At another, the staff was trimmed from 15 to just four \u2014 a medic there says he\u2019s wracked with survivor\u2019s guilt. He tells a common story: He was a preacher\u2019s son who knew he was different. It wasn\u2019t until he went to the clinic looking for sexual health information that he could even talk to anyone like himself. He fell into a global pattern in queer health \u2014 largely destroyed<\/a> by Trump \u2014 in which someone goes to a clinic for services, then becomes a volunteer, then starts working there and helping others.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was the only place I could just be \u2026 me,\u201d he said, with a heavy sigh, indicating he did not have to hide appearing gay. He loved working with \u201cthe boys\u201d and was gutted that 11 co-workers lost their jobs. Most of them, he said, still show up at the clinic and work unpaid for three reasons: \u201cThey have nothing else to do,\u201d \u201cThere is nowhere else to go for them to be themselves with other people,\u201d and \u201cfor food\u201d available at the facility.<\/p>\n When people with little or no money have to choose between food and HIV medications, they will always choose food.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Two suddenly gregarious medical assistants (also both preachers\u2019 kids) talk with candor about their shared situation: Being gay meant both had to leave their families and their churches. One said he\u2019s still happy to go to work despite seeing his wages cut in half, but is dismayed that the cuts mean he simply cannot offer the care that clients need. The number of people they treat has plummeted. This is in part because USAID cuts took away money for the clinic\u2019s staff to make outreach tours to sex work and gay \u201chot spots.\u201d It\u2019s also because the clinic used to feed clients who came in for the treatment. The free food helped mitigate the cost to patients for traveling to the clinic and is necessary because HIV medications don\u2019t work for people who aren\u2019t consistently eating enough<\/a>. (When people with little or no money have to choose between food and HIV medications, they will always choose food.)<\/p>\n \u201cWe used to give away bags of food two times a week,\u201d he said. \u201cNow, we have only given it out two times this whole year, which is basically nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n The Trump-era cuts have pushed KPs out of other medical settings, he said, which makes them wary of trusting any medical care. When USAID money was flowing, he said, patients told him that they were tolerated when they sought care at a public hospital because the workers there knew they would be compensated. But since the cuts, \u201csome of our patients tell us they\u2019ve been told, \u2018There\u2019s no money in you now. Go away.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Referring people to get viral load tests \u2014 an important step in managing HIV care \u2014 has also become nearly impossible in Kampala. It\u2019s not just that the U.S.-financed health care workers who did the tests were laid off; some of them took the equipment with them when they left.\u00a0<\/p>\n Then, there\u2019s the issue of medication. The U.S. still pays for some antiretrovirals. But while The Intercept saw ample supplies of emtricitabine and tenofovir, the most common antiretrovirals,\u00a0at most clinics visited, not everyone can take that treatment<\/a>. When people fall out of treatment, they may grow resistant to specific medications and need a different combination should they survive long enough to restart medication in the future. But since the cuts, little aside from the common combo is available to treat HIV; doctors say it is almost impossible to get anything else.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhen someone comes looking for something they need\u201d and a clinic doesn\u2019t have it \u2014 whether it\u2019s food, medicine, or just a kind ear to listen to them \u2014 \u201cthey usually won\u2019t come back,\u201d\u00a0one of the medical assistants said.<\/p>\n Then, they\u2019ll become infectious and HIV will move throughout their networks.\u00a0<\/p>\n The boys were already seeing bad trends. They used to see a positive HIV diagnosis every two or three months. Now they said they are seeing one a week.<\/p>\n Asked by The Intercept if they, or their patients, are able to use geolocation hookup apps like Grindr, the boys laugh.<\/p>\n \u201cYes,\u201d they answer.<\/p>\n \u201cHow?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cVPNs. People have needs.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut how do you know someone isn\u2019t a cop?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat can you rely on to lessen the chances he\u2019s a cop?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes,\u201d another health worker chimes in, \u201ca guy will meet another guy on Grindr, have sex with him, and then arrest him.\u201d In theory, this kind of undercover sting could lead to prosecution for \u201caggravated homosexuality,\u201d but mostly, cops do this for extortion, which is rampant. By the end of 2025<\/a>, Uganda\u2019s Human Rights Awareness and Promotion Forum had \u201chandled a total of 956 cases involving actions specifically targeting LGBTQ+ persons,\u201d which have affected 1,276 individuals, since the implementation of the Anti-Homosexuality Act in 2023.<\/p>\n \u201cHere, we do<\/span> not tolerate trans people,\u201d said Gabbie, who is trans. \u201cIt is as simple as that.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Ramahdan, the LGBTQ+ activist, along with Samson and Sharon of Universal Love Alliance, have set up a meeting with a dozen trans and gender-nonconforming people in a conference room at a hotel near the Gaddafi Mosque. It is not a \u201cgay hotel\u201d \u2014 no such thing exists in Kampala. It was chosen because it is trusted by the community to be friendly enough and discreet. Security is a huge concern for everyone. The trans Ugandans span late teens to mid-50s, and their body language reveals nervousness: Any time a waiter comes into the room through a swinging door, everyone falls silent until they leave.\u00a0<\/p>\n Their fear is understandable. A show of hands reveals everyone has been arrested at least once. At the municipal jail, they said they have been tortured (forced to strip and humiliated in front of all the other detainees), sexually assaulted (sometimes under the pretense of checking their gender, sometimes not), and even raped. A Muslim trans woman (who wears both a hijab and also a mask to protect against Covid) was arrested on her first-ever date with a man. (People in the room chuckles knowingly when she shares that the date did not intervene when the police took her away, and she never saw him again.)<\/p>\n When arrested, trans women are often put into men\u2019s holding area, at least initially; they are terrified of becoming infected with HIV from rape. Most everyone has been kicked out of their families of origin or lost jobs (usually when a relative has outed them).<\/p>\n Fear of being subjected to the \u201cqueer tax\u201d \u2014 when a landlord charges more or an employer pays less under threat of outing \u2014 was universal in the group. One young trans man, not yet 20, cried when describing his fear to even leave his house. His landlord figured out he is trans and was trying to evict him, but he cannot move until he pays off the extortion money. (The group took a collection to pay off his debt.)<\/p>\n The extortion threat has only grown with the collapse of USAID. At a follow-up meeting at a Kentucky Fried Chicken a few days later, Gabbie arrived after an expensive two-hour journey on a trans-friendly boda boda. \u201cYou cannot afford for random drivers to know where you live,\u201d she said. (Another trans person The Intercept interviewed<\/a> in a homeless shelter said they would take three boda bodas from home to work, switching rides like a spy to keep anyone from being able to trace her.)\u00a0<\/p>\n Gabbie has been pushed from her family to a queer church shelter, which was raided and evicted, to another group situation, that was also raided and evicted. She now shares a studio apartment with four trans women at the outskirts of Kampala. Their water and electricity are periodically turned off for non-payment, and they open the windows when they cook on a coal stove to avoid breathing carbon monoxide.<\/p>\n Gabbie dropped out of college when her family saw a video of her preaching in a queer-affirming church, cut her off, and told her never to come back. Six months later they invited her back, then locked the gate behind her; she was trapped in an exorcism and had to escape over the wall.<\/p>\n It was never easy to be trans in Uganda. Surgeries \u2014 even those performed abroad \u2014 are almost unheard of, and long before Trump it was difficult to source hormones. Since Trump\u2019s reelection, Gabbie has found that it\u2019s theoretically possible, if prohibitively expensive, to source hormones on the black market. There is the physical danger: Injecting hormones with unsterilized syringes from unverified sources without a doctor\u2019s supervision exposes trans people to HIV, hepatitis, and the possibility of dangerous, even lethal, side effects. But part of why Gabbie has stopped taking hormones and is now passing as a man in public is because sourcing hormones on the black market \u201copens you up to extortion\u201d by anyone along the supply chain. She can\u2019t afford that. (While in the West, most trans people use the terms \u201cpassing\u201d to refer to being accepted as their true gender, in much of Africa, many trans people use it to refer to \u201cpassing\u201d for the gender assigned to them at birth.)<\/p>\n The cuts hit Gabbie\u2019s job at a trans-affirming nonprofit, where the staff was reduced from five people to just one: Gabbie. The office was abandoned, and she only works part-time, out of the studio she shares with four people.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt was very painful, returning to this body, this body I do not want.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n Gabbie is also a model, and hopes to feel free presenting as her true feminine self at least while at home with her roommates. But they\u2019ve been raided doing that, too. On her phone, she showed The Intercept a series of photos. In the first few, she and her girlfriends are happy, decked out in high glam in their apartment. But in the last photo, in an image reminiscent of the 1969 Stonewall Riot arrest photos<\/a>, she is crying in the back seat of a police car. Their house had been raided, presumably on a complaint from a neighbor. After six weeks in jail, she was released without charges. But the damage was done: She made the difficult decision to stop her transition \u2014 to \u201cgo stealth,\u201d as she put it, in public as a man.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was very painful,\u201d she said, \u201creturning to this body, this body I do not want.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n She hopes one day to transition again. \u201cYou can\u2019t not be yourself 24 hours a day,\u201d she said, sniffling slightly, her eyes darting around the KFC, hoping no one would notice her tears or hear us.\u00a0<\/p>\n Two weeks later after the meeting at the Kampala KFC, Gabbie texts pictures of herself in a graduation robe. Without her family\u2019s help, it took her a few more years than she wanted. But she had graduated from university, with a degree in accounting \u2014 which she wants to use to secure more resources for LGBTQ+ work in Uganda.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n\n
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