Under the title “Breaking Point” (the German for Belastungsgrenze), the queer-rights organization Outright International has released the most comprehensive assessment to date of the impact of American funding cuts on international LGBTQ+ communities. Since Donald Trump took office in January 2025, Washington abruptly ended 15 years of steady support for global queer communities. The study, which surveyed 229 organizations across 94 countries and included in-depth interviews, shows that 203 of the groups surveyed (about 89 percent) lost livelihoods-sustaining funding as part of this reversal. The cuts strike queer organizations in authoritarian states or in Global South countries.
The cuts are painful: 49 percent of affected organizations lost more than half of their total budgets. Three-quarters saw at least a quarter of their funds disappear.
According to the study, 73 percent of the affected initiatives operate with annual budgets under $250,000. They had virtually no reserves to cushion such declines.
Most critically, the financial withdrawal hits hardest where state discrimination and violence against queer people are already the norm. In queer-hostile or very poor states there is neither state support nor a society capable of offsetting these donations. The groups thus relied on international aid.
Less Help for HIV-Positive People and Victims of Violence
The consequences for those seeking assistance are drastic: half of the affected organizations had to cut health services and psychosocial support. 45 percent reduced or ended HIV prevention and treatment programs.
Emergency relief or the creation of safe spaces is not feasible in many places: 63 percent can no longer intervene in acute violence, arbitrary arrests, or emergencies. In war and crisis zones, this figure climbs to 73 percent. According to the organizations, transgender and nonbinary people (71 percent) as well as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer women (61 percent) bear the heaviest burden of the funding cuts.
One in Three Organizations on the Brink
The outlook for the coming year is alarming: Only three percent of the surveyed initiatives rate their current situation as stable. Forty percent assess themselves as severely or immediately threatened — and 36 percent say they will likely have to shut down entirely within the next twelve months if new funding sources are not found.
Outright International warns of an irreversible collapse of the global queer infrastructure. The organization urgently appeals to other democratic governments, international development agencies, and private foundations to swiftly close the funding gaps. If no international counter-move materializes, decades of work could be wiped out in a very short time.
The Trump administration had justified the halt to aid primarily with a blend of “America First” fiscal policy and a declared culture war against alleged “gender ideology” and anti-discrimination programs. The White House argued that Washington had exported a woke and radical social agenda abroad for years, which it would now end. U.S. tax dollars abroad would henceforth be used only where they directly serve measurable strategic and security interests of the United States — the well-being of queer people evidently not among them. (dk)
