India’s Transgender Clinics Close After USAID Freeze

India-West News Desk

NEW DELHI – India’s first three clinics for the transgender community closed last month, January 2025, following a stop-work order from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) that funded them, disrupting services for nearly 5,000 people.

President Donald Trump ordered a 90-day pause on all foreign aid in January 2025 pending a review to ensure all projects funded with U.S. taxpayer money are aligned with his “America First” policy.

Reuters reported that among the main losers following the fund freeze have been three Mitr Clinics that are run mostly by doctors, counselors, and other workers from the transgender community and that serve up to 5,000 people, said the sources. Both declined to be named, citing the sensitivity of the matter.

The report also noted that Trump ally Elon Musk and Republican Senator John Kennedy have both criticized the transgender funding. “That’s what American tax dollars were funding,” Musk said on X in response to a post about the closure of the first of the Mitr clinics, launched in Hyderabad in 2021. The other clinics are located in Kalyan and Pune.