Achen, not her real name, is a soft-spoken 26-year-old from northern Uganda. She never imagined she would run a business, let alone one that would allow her to earn enough to send her younger sister to school. For years, she moved from shelter to shelter, surviving day by day, evicted from rental rooms, beaten on the street, and regularly denied healthcare simply for being a transgender woman.

When Uganda passed the Anti-Homosexuality Act in 2023, along with other trans persons, Achen’s fragile life collapsed further. Fear intensified, support systems buckled, and donor-funded safe spaces that once offered her hope shuttered under a wave of foreign aid suspensions. Her voice, already timid, nearly disappeared altogether.

Achen is one of transgender and gender diverse persons who have found a lifeline through the Trans Resilience and Economic Empowerment (TREE) a bold initiative by Tranz Network Uganda that has been running since 2020. Designed as an integrated support economic empowerment platform in the face of both institutional hostility and global donor shifts, TREE is one of the few initiatives/ strategies still standing amid Uganda’s increasingly restrictive environment. 

At a time when the LGBTQ+ movement in Uganda is grappling with an unprecedented dual crisis — legal persecution at home and donor withdrawal abroad — this initiative is a timely intervention to restore agency and dignity through livelihoods. Funded modestly through a patchwork of partner organizations, TREE delivers skills training, seed capital, mentorship with health services linkage/referral to trans and gender diverse people navigating the harsh realities of criminalization and economic exclusion.

Since it began, TREE has supported trans-led businesses across Uganda’s towns and cities, from Kampala to Mbarara, Lugazi to Mbale. Groups have been trained in financial literacy and record-keeping, received smartphones to enable digital transactions, and built networks of savings and credit through Village Savings and Loan Associations while creating a safe space and linkage to health services like HIV test and counseling and gender violence services. Trans-led businesses in piggery, tailoring, catering, vending, and crafts have emerged not just as sources of income but as community hubs. 

Some beneficiaries have gone on to earn certificates in accounting and financial management. Others have used their new income to rent safe housing, restart school, or reenter HIV treatment. Emergency assistance has been extended to community members facing eviction or violence, including access to medical care, relocation support, and GBV counseling. These interventions have created a ripple effect that is difficult to quantify but undeniable to those living it. One project beneficiary described TREE as “not just money, but a second chance.”

Economic marginalization has long been wielded as a weapon of control against transgender communities. Trans and gender diverse persons in Uganda are systematically excluded from the formal labor market due to discriminatory hiring practices, lack of legal recognition on IDs, and pervasive social stigma. Many are pushed into unstable, informal sectors like sex work, which not only expose them to health risks but also legal vulnerability under vague morality clauses in the law. 

In rural areas, where surveillance and stigma are even more pronounced, trans and gender diverse persons report being blacklisted from community savings groups, denied land access, and forcibly outed when seeking credit or medical attention. With nowhere else to turn, many live in cycles of poverty, dependent on shrinking NGO safety nets that were already under strain even before U.S. foreign aid cuts triggered widespread closures.

The 2025 executive order(s) issued by President Donald Trump, which halted 83 percent of USAID programs, acted like a wrecking ball through Uganda’s LGBTQ+ support ecosystem. Despite waivers allowing continued funding for basic HIV and tuberculosis treatment, the cuts included a freeze on programs that offered diversity and inclusion services. Shelters closed, staff were laid off, mental health services evaporated, and peer-led HIV prevention programs vanished. As access points to HIV testing and treatment diminished, stigma deepened. Several community members who previously accessed PrEP, lubricants, and condoms through drop-in centers began reporting new infections or treatment interruptions. In these conditions, economic resilience isn’t just about income — it’s about survival.

Williams Apako, executive director of Tranz Network Uganda, says the TREE initiative is about putting power back into the hands of trans people by recognizing that economic agency is foundational to every other form of empowerment, including health. 

“You can’t ask someone to adhere to HIV treatment or avoid risky behavior when they’re hungry, homeless, or too afraid to walk to a clinic,” he says. “This strategy is about reframing resilience not as endurance but as self-determination. Each cycle has adapted to what our communities are facing. When people lose shelter, we help them find footing again. When businesses collapse due to legal attacks, we help them pivot. The ability to make money on your own terms means you can walk away from violence, from unsafe sex, from dependence.”

Afiya, not her real name, is a 22-year-old trans woman in Lugazi. She turned to TREE after being kicked out by her family and missing her antiretroviral medication for weeks. 

“They helped me get back into care quietly,” she says. “But also, I now braid hair from home and have customers who love my work. I have my own money now. It’s not much, but it’s mine.”

TREE-supported organizations, whose names have been withheld to protect participants, have trained dozens of trans persons in tailoring, hairdressing, catering, piggery, and crafts. Others are piloting mobile vending and delivery services in areas where visibility is dangerous. The project does more than provide capital. It helps beneficiaries establish business registration, form cooperatives, and, where possible, partner with sympathetic local leaders to create safer work environments while still accessing critical reproductive health services. In one region, a local health center has agreed to integrate HIV services with the TREE enterprise hub, providing discreet access to ARVs and counseling without requiring individuals to self-identify as LGBTQ+.

Hakim, not his real name, shares his journey with honesty and strength.

“As if life wasn’t already challenging enough as a trans person, I was also broke. I wanted to do something that would help me earn a living without having to depend on anyone. I’ve always had an entrepreneurial mindset, but back then, I didn’t know where to begin. I took a leap of faith and got a loan from the SACCO (Savings and Credit Cooperative Organization),, which I invested in a sisal sponge business. It took time, but it paid off. With my own hands, I’ve managed to repay the loan and sustain myself. That’s something I’m really proud of.” 

What makes the TREE project stand out is its decentralized design. Rather than imposing a single model, it tailors support to each organization’s strengths and the local risks they face. Some groups have chosen to stay low-profile, operating income-generating activities from private homes. Others have gone semi-public, advocating for inclusive budgeting from district councils. In either case, the project positions trans persons not as passive recipients of aid, but as innovators, workers, and citizens. Several beneficiaries reported, for the first time in their lives, being able to make a financial decision without external approval. One said simply, “I paid my rent without begging. That was new for me.”

Yet even as TREE offers a glimpse of hope, Apako is realistic about its scale and limits. 

“This is not a replacement for healthcare or human rights protections,” he says. “Economic empowerment can’t thrive in a vacuum. We need international solidarity, we need political pressure on the Ugandan government to respect human dignity, and we need donors, including private foundations, to rethink how they fund resilience in hostile contexts.” He notes that several TREE partners are already overwhelmed with requests for support that they cannot meet.

Uganda’s HIV strategy, guided by the Uganda AIDS Commission and supported in part by global actors like UNAIDS and the Global Fund, risks losing its effectiveness if it continues to marginalize or exclude key populations. The rollback of targeted, inclusive programs will not only lead to higher transmission rates but also undermine decades of progress in public health. TREE, though small and other supporting programming and strategies in solidarity with LGBTQI+ communities in Uganda, reminds us that solutions must center the people most affected. In a moment when rhetoric is high and funding is low, this project speaks the language of possibility.

For Achen and others, the transformation has been quiet but profound. She now runs a small catering stall with two other trans women. She no longer sleeps with one eye open, waiting for a landlord to bang on her door. When asked what she would tell other trans persons scared of being visible or starting over, she says, “Even in fear, we can plant something small. And from that, we live.”

Williams Apako is the executive officer of the Tranz Network Uganda and a board member of the Global Fund’s Uganda Country Coordinating Mechanism.

Editor’s note: Washington Blade International News Editor Michael K. Lavers was on assignment in Argentina and Uruguay from April 2-12, 2025.

ROSARIO, Argentina — Two transgender women in Argentina’s Santa Fe province are documenting the persecution of trans people that took place during the brutal military dictatorship that governed their country from 1976-1983.

Carolina Boetti and Marzia Echenique created the Travestí Trans Santa Fe Archive, which seeks to “create a collective memory,” in 2020. (“Travestí” is the Spanish word for “crossdresser.”)

The archive, among other things, includes interviews with trans women who the dictatorship arrested and tortured. The archive also contains photographs from that period.

The archive is not in a specific location, but Boetti and Echenique have given presentations at local schools and universities. They have also spoken at a museum in Rosario, the largest city in Santa Fe province that is roughly 200 miles northwest of Buenos Aires, the Argentine capital, that honors the dictatorship’s victims.

Boetti and Echenique during an April 11 interview at a Rosario hotel said they are trying to raise funds that would allow them to digitize the archive and house it in a permanent location.

“We have this material that is fantastic,” said Boetti.

The Associated Press notes human rights groups estimate the dictatorship killed or forcibly disappeared upwards of 30,000 people in what became known as the “dirty war.” The dictatorship specifically targeted students, journalists, labor union leaders, and anyone else who it thought posed a threat.

The dictatorship first detained Echenique in 1979 when she was 16. She said it targeted her and other trans women because they were “not within that strict” binary of man and woman.  

“There was a dictator during the dictatorship, and he dictated this binarism, and there was no other way than man or woman,” Echenique told the Blade. “Everything else was penalized, deprived of all rights. They took away everything.”

Boetti was 15 when the dictatorship first detained her.

“They detained me because of my sexual orientation,” she told the Blade. “Homosexuality in those years was penalized under the law.”

Boetti said the law in 1982 — the year when she began her transition — penalized crossdressing, prostitution and vagrancy with up to 120 days in jail. Boetti told the Blade that authorities “constantly detained me” from 1982 until she left Argentina in the 1990s.

Echenique said the regime once detained her for six months.

“The way of living, of studying, of walking freely down the street, of living somewhere, of sitting down to eat something in a bar or how we are sitting today, for example, was unthinkable in those years,” she said.

Echenique left Argentina in 1988, three years after the dictatorship ended. She returned to the country in 2006.

“The dictatorship ended in ’83, but not for the trans community,” she said.

Rosario and Santa Fe, the provincial capital, in 2018 implemented a reparation policy for trans people who suffered persecution under the dictatorship. They remain the only cities in Argentina with such a program.

Boetti on May 17, 2018, during an International Day Against Homophobia, Biphobia, and Transphobia ceremony over which then-Santa Fe Gov. Miguel Lifshitz presided became the first trans person in Argentina to receive reparations. Boetti receives a monthly pension of ARG 40,000 ($34.48) and a monthly stipend that pays for her health care.

Those who have received reparations successfully presented evidence to a judge that proved they suffered persecution and repression during the dictatorship. Boetti and Echenique pointed out that only 10 of the 50 trans women in Santa Fe who the dictatorship are known to have persecuted are still alive.

Post-dictatorship Argentina became global trans rights leader

Then-President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner in 2012 signed Argentina’s landmark Gender Identity Law that, among other things, allows trans and nonbinary people to legally change their gender without medical intervention. The country in 2010 extended marriage rights to same-sex couples.

Then-President Alberto Fernández, who is unrelated to Cristina Fernández, in 2020 signed the Trans Labor Quota Law, which set aside at least 1 percent of public sector jobs for trans people. Fernández in 2021 issued a decree that allowed nonbinary Argentines to choose an “X” gender marker on their National Identity Document or DNI.

Alba Rueda, a trans woman and well-known activist, in 2022 became Argentina’s special envoy for LGBTQ and intersex rights.

President Javier Milei has implemented several anti-trans measures since he took office in December 2023. These include a decree that restricts minors’ access to gender-affirming surgeries and hormone treatment and the dismissal of trans people who the government hired under the Trans Labor Quota Law.

Milei closed the National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Racism, a government agency known by the acronym INADI that provided support and resources to people who suffered discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, and other factors. He also eliminated Argentina’s Women, Gender, and Diversity Ministry under which Rueda worked until Fernández left office.

Gay Congressman Esteban Paulón, a long-time LGBTQ activist, in January filed a criminal complaint against Milei after he linked the LGBTQ community to pedophilia and made other homophobic and transphobic comments during a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Paulón is among those who attended the 2018 ceremony during which Boetti received her reparations.

Echenique noted the restoration of democracy in Argentina did not end anti-trans discrimination and persecution in the country.

“We came from the period of the dictatorship, but we do not forget that everything didn’t end then,” she said. “The persecutions were worse than what we suffered during the period of the dictatorship once democracy returned.”

Boetti said she does not think Argentina will once again become a dictatorship under Milei.

“But unfortunately, there is a lot of harassment and a lot of hate speech,” said Boetti.

“There are now laws that protect us, but there is a fight for sure,” added Echenique. “I don’t think we’ll go back to how things were before, and that’s why I again emphasize the importance of archiving memory in this.”

LGBTQ people and allies have been attacked in the Ghanaian cities of Tamale and Wa.

Yeliminga Naa Abayema, a journalist with Wa-based Tungsung Radio, last month while on the air said he was going to deal with the LGBTQ community and called on local law enforcement and officials to help him.

Rightify Ghana, a local LGBTQ organization, said Abayema’s remarks are in response to human rights activists who had helped two queer people evade anti-gay attacks.

The chief of Kpalsi Palace in the Sagnarigu municipal district tracked down one of the activists, beat him, fined him $300 and a sheep. The activist was also banished from the area.

The second activist had a written death threat attached to the front door of his apartment, warning him to stop protecting LGBTQ people. The threat forced him to flee the area.

Rightify Ghana on May 27 issued a statement that condemned the attacks.

“From physical attacks, eviction, and death threats to media-led defamation and economic sabotage, these defenders are being punished for standing up against hate,” reads the statement. “In Tamale, two defenders are now homeless, one was beaten, fined, and banished, the other received a death threat. In Wa, a journalist led a public campaign naming and shaming queer individuals, resulting in threats and business losses.”

Rightify Ghana also said the attacks are silencing voices and crippling community support. The group noted the two activists are in urgent need of protection, legal support, relocation assistance,  medical and psychological care.

Yaw Mensah, a Ghanaian LGBTQ activist, said some law enforcement officials were exacerbating the homophobic attacks through arbitrary arrests and supporting the perpetrators.

“The saddest thing in this, is that they can’t even rely on the police for protection because some of the police officers are part of the problem as they are helping persecute LGBT people and their supporters,” said Mensah.

Awo Dufiean, a Ghanaian intersex and transgender woman, in April said a man left her with bruises on her cheek and arms after she refused his advances.

“Why is there such an extreme push to enforce heteropatriachy and heteronormativity through laws and policies and who does it benefit? Why are we developing such an insatiable appetite to use culture to harm and disenfranchise so many people simply because they are different? I have argued and will argue that we need to critically start examining our position as West Africans on what we are doing to queer people,” said Dufiean.

Meanwhile, the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill that would further criminalize LGBTQ people and outlaw allyship is back in parliament.

Parliament Speaker Alban Bagbin on May 27 said the anti-LGBTQ bill can now be tabled for its first reading after having completed all necessary processes.

The Ghanaian penal code criminalizes consensual same-sex sexual activity and carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison.

Anyone convicted of forming or funding LGBTQ groups under the Promotion of Proper Human Sexual Rights and Ghanaian Family Values Bill would face fines and up to five years in prison. Those convicted of participating in LGBTQ rights campaigns aimed at children would face up to 10 years in prison.