Months later, unable to find other work, he joined them along a highway outside Hetauda.

Fox News:

An Associated Press social media post about transgender aid workers in Nepal turning to sex work after losing their jobs due to U.S. foreign aid cuts sparked a wave of conservative backlash, with critics arguing the video made the case for defunding USAID rather than saving it.

The AP post said that in Nepal, where "a conservative culture leaves openly transgender people with few legal job options," around 100 LGBTQ aid workers left jobless by U.S. funding cuts had turned to sex work to survive. An accompanying video focused on Rubi Lama, a former HIV outreach worker who said USAID-funded programs had provided free condoms, lubricant and HIV-prevention medication before the cuts.

"When USAID funding was there, condoms were free, lubricant was also distributed ... for free," Lama said in the video, adding that HIV treatments, including PrEP, were also available without cost. "But, now it is gone."

His story is painful on a human scale; it also raises a question many Americans are asking: why was the United States expected to keep paying his salary?

Lama worked for Friends Hetauda, part of a network connected to the Blue Diamond Society. The society received 85% of its funding from USAID, operated 20 clinics, and employed 350 people.

Associated Press:

For nine years, Lama - who is transgender - had devoted her life to conducting HIV outreach in Nepal's marginalized communities, including the LGBTQ+ sex workers who wait by this highway each night. But after the United States slashed its foreign aid funding last year, Lama and more than 280,000 aid workers worldwide found themselves out of a job.

In impoverished Nepal, where a conservative culture leaves openly transgender people with few legal job options, the impact on aid workers' lives was particularly crushing. Starving and scared, Lama and around 100 other LGBTQ+ aid workers left jobless by the funding cuts have turned to sex work to survive, walking the streets alongside the very people they once fought so hard to help.

When the money stopped, 262 employees lost their jobs, and the organization says 35% to 45% of those former workers later entered sex work.

The clinics provided HIV tests, condoms, counseling, antiretroviral drugs, and PrEP. More than 1,200 clients reportedly lost access to PrEP after the shutdown. Those are real health services, and the people affected aren't punchlines.

The political reaction followed a familiar script: President Donald Trump cut foreign aid, vulnerable workers suffered, and American taxpayers were cast as villains for refusing to continue the arrangement.