After the United States slashed its foreign aid funding last year, more than 280,000 aid workers worldwide lost their jobs. Most of those workers live outside the U.S., in conflict zones or poor areas where other job opportunities are scarce. In impoverished Nepal, where a conservative culture leaves openly transgender people with few legal job options, the impact on aid workers’ lives was crushing. Starving and scared, around 100 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.

After the United States slashed its foreign aid funding last year, more than 280,000 aid workers worldwide lost their jobs. Most of those workers live outside the U.S., in conflict zones or poor areas where other job opportunities are scarce. In impoverished Nepal, where a conservative culture leaves openly transgender people with few legal job options, the impact on aid workers’ lives was crushing. Starving and scared, around 100 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.