The so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) formerly spearheaded by Elon Musk has disbanded after just 10 months in operation, leaving millions of lives devastated in its wake.
When asked about the status of DOGE earlier this month, White House Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor told Reuters, "That doesn't exist." While it is no longer a "centralized entity," DOGE's work will continue through the OPM, as Kupor said in a follow-up post on social media that "the principles of DOGE remain alive and well: de-regulation; eliminating fraud, waste and abuse; re-shaping the federal workforce; making efficiency a first-class citizen; etc."
Musk initially claimed the agency would reduce federal spending by up to $2 trillion within its first year, but even DOGE's own calculations — the accuracy of which have been debated — claim it only "saved" $214 billion. While DOGE didn't accomplish what it set out to do, its impact is undeniable, as hundreds of thousands of lives have been upended and hundreds of thousands more tragically lost.
Here's everything DOGE did that affected the LGBTQ+ community at home and abroad.
How many federal employees did DOGE fire?
The Trump administration announced in August that it had fired about 300,000 federal workers, crediting the vast majority to DOGE. Kupor, OPM director, told The New York Times that most had stopped working, but remained on the payroll.
LGBTQ+ people accounted for 8 percent of all federal workers, according to a January report from the Williams Institute, with about 314,000 LGBTQ+ employees in the federal government at the time.
How did DOGE cut USAID spending?
The federal employees fired by DOGE included nearly 2,000 staff members of USAID in the complete dissolution of the U.S. humanitarian department in February. Data models by Boston University epidemiologist Brooke Nichols estimate that as of June, over 640,000 people globally have died due to losing USAID support, at least two-thirds of them children.
The devastating cuts resulted immediately in communities losing medication for treatment and prevention of HIV or other diseases. Activists around the world were also forced to flee countries hostile to LGBTQ+ people after U.S. legal support ended.
A former administrator who worked directly with these programs told The Advocate at the time under the condition of anonymity that "we had entire regions losing access to lifesaving medication because of a political decision made in Washington.”
“We were funding shelters for people who were being targeted by their governments and families. We were supporting initiatives that provided HIV/AIDS medication to populations that couldn’t get it otherwise. And we were helping LGBTQ+ activists engage in policy work to change oppressive laws,” they said. “All of that was halted almost immediately.”
Senate Republicans later agreed in July to exempt $400 million for PEPFAR from the rescissions package, which formalized the spending cuts made by DOGE. The President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief, a program that fights HIV and AIDS globally, receives $7.5 billion annually, and is the main source of drugs for HIV prevention and treatment in 54 countries.
How was DOGE involved in LGBTQ+ research cuts?
The Trump administration eliminated more than 270 grants through the National Institutes of Health totaling at least $125 million in unspent funds in April, specifically targeting research involving gender identity and sexual orientation or diversity, equity, and inclusion.
This included cutting programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention surveilling the HIV epidemic, and a specialized testing lab for drug resistance among sexually transmitted infections, including syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia. It also eliminated $70 million in funds for the Adolescent Medicine Trials Network, dedicated to HIV prevention and treatment among teens and young adults.
Other grants cut by DOGE included:
- $50,000 for assessing sexual health among LGTBQ+ Latinx youth in a rural community
- $379,000 from the Department of Agriculture to educate transgender and BIPOC farmers in San Francisco
- $620,000 for a pregnancy prevention program focused on transgender boys
- $699,000 for research on cannabis use disorder among sexual minorities and gender diverse individuals
- $740,000 for research into social networks among Black and Latino GBTQ+ men in New Jersey
- $7.4 million for studies exploring the effect of the antibiotic doxycycline (a common STI treatment) on drug-resistant bacteria
The American Public Health Association sued the NIH over canceled grants shortly after they were announced. The lawsuit, obtained by NBC, accused DOGE of spearheading the cancellations and drafting the notices, citing in one case "metadata associated with at least one such notice shows it was authored by ‘JoshuaAHanley.’ An attorney named Joshua A. Hanley, a 2021 law school graduate, works at DOGE.”
Selected excerpt(s) and linked article courtesy of Ryan Adamczesky, advocate(dot)com
Royalty-free photo courtesy of Google's Gemini
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