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While The Band is Playing

The Apartheid of Ethics

Published to commemorate 20 June for World Refugee Day earlier this week

I’m only thirty years but have seen some life,
A far cry from the worst and yet so close to it
— Trinidad Jerry

Humanist and ethicist Peter Singer might not appear to have much in common with a murdered African LGBT+ refugee, but a central theme in Singer’s work connects them in a way that is both ethical and deeply human.

Trinidad Jerry (see photo, above) was a young LGBTQIA+ refugee living in Block 13 of Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya — a place marked by violence, homophobia, and institutional neglect. In 2021, he was attacked with a firebomb while he slept, and died from injuries that should never have been allowed to happen. His life, and the world’s indifference to it, exposes a deeper moral failure.

Peter Singer asks what we owe strangers. Trinidad Jerry died because the world answered: nothing. This essay traces the system that made that answer possible: the apartheid of ethics.

Circling Around the Issue

On the 20th of June each year, the world observes World Refugee Day. It is a date that exists because the people it commemorates do not have a life that matters to the world that displaced them. They have needs, and they have numbers — tens of millions of them — but in the moral arithmetic of wealthy nations, they do not yet exist.

The moral philosopher Peter Singer calls it the expanding circle: the long, uneven movement of human moral concern outward from self, to family, to tribe, to nation, and (in principle) to all of humanity. Each expansion was resisted. Each, in retrospect, seemed inevitable.

But the circle is not complete.

The expanding circle of human moral concern has not yet reached everyone – not in practice and not where it is needed most.

This is an essay about that failure, and what it would mean to fix it.

The Divide: What it Looks Like in Practice

In 1980, the economist Willy Brandt chaired an international commission that drew a line across the world — economic and political rather than strictly geographic, since Australia and New Zealand sit geographically south of it while belonging firmly to the wealthy north. Above the line: industrialised, wealthy nations. Below it: the developing world. Four decades later, that line remains. A child born on the poorer side of it can expect to live roughly twenty years less than one born in Western Europe. The same disparity exists closer to home: someone born in indigenous Australia faces a life expectancy gap of eight years compared to other Australians – not because of genetics or geography, but because of politics, economics, and the distribution of power.

The writer Susan George argued in 1976 that hunger was not a supply problem but a political one. The evidence has since caught up with her argument. The UN Committee on World Food Security confirms that the world currently produces enough food to feed one and a half times its entire population. And yet 733 million people go hungry. In Africa alone, more than 307 million people — over one in five of the continent’s population — experienced hunger in 2024.

This is not scarcity. It is a choice. A choice made by systems that distribute power and resources unevenly, and that have structured global trade, debt, and aid in ways that consistently favour the wealthy north. The circle of moral concern nominally includes the hungry. In practice, it has looked away.

The Mechanism: How the Divide is Maintained

The divide does not maintain itself. It is actively reproduced.

The philosopher Thomas Pogge argues that wealthy nations bear active responsibility for global poverty — not merely through inaction, but through the trade rules, debt structures, and political arrangements they design and maintain. The conclusion that this constitutes wilful exploitation is one that the evidence invites. Agricultural subsidies in wealthy nations undercut farmers in developing countries who cannot compete on price. Trade agreements negotiated between unequal partners consistently favour the stronger party. Debt repayments flowing from south to north dwarf the aid flowing in the opposite direction.

These are not accidents or oversights. They are the architecture of a system that benefits those with the power to design it.

This matters for the expanding circle argument because it changes what is being asked of wealthy nations. Expanding the circle is not simply a matter of generosity, or of choosing to give more. It requires dismantling arrangements that currently depend on the exclusion of others. That is a harder ask, and a more honest one.

The contraction: Trump, Musk, and PEPFAR

In January 2025, the incoming US administration froze foreign aid programmes including PEPFAR — the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief — as part of a broader withdrawal from international obligations. The decision was presented as fiscal responsibility. The consequences were measured in projected deaths.

A 90‑day disruption to antiretroviral therapy is estimated to result in 100,000 excess deaths in sub‑Saharan Africa, with longer‑term disruption potentially causing up to 13 million AIDS‑related deaths by 2030. Before 2025, 80 percent of global PrEP use was in sub‑Saharan Africa; after the cuts, 2.5 million people lost access, including an 81 percent collapse in Nigeria alone. In South Africa, modelling suggests that ending PEPFAR support without replacement would mean up to 296,000 additional HIV infections and more than 50,000 extra AIDS‑related deaths within four years.

Some of my African friends are facing difficulties as a result of withdrawal from anti-retrovirals. Two of them are in hospital with advancing symptoms reminiscent of AIDS a generation ago, while a third describes his symptoms to me in ways that make my mind flash back to my dying friends forty years ago.

These are not abstractions, they are people like Trinidad Jerry’s friends in Block 13 at Kakuma, already surviving without adequate UNHCR protection, already living with the consequences of the world’s indifference. The withdrawal of aid did not happen in a vacuum, it happened to specific human beings whose names we do not know, in places whose conditions we prefer not to imagine.

Since Trinnie’s murder, Kakuma has largely divested itself of its LGBT+ refugees as Kenya promotes homophobia and withdraws protection. Many have fled to war zones or other nations that persecute LGBT+ people. Those left behind endure starvation, deprivation and increased atrocities.

The circle is not merely failing to expand; it is being deliberately closed.

Some Faces behind the Argument

Image by PublicDomainPictures from Pixabay

Four of my friends have been attacked in the streets of Kenya in the last twelve months. All four are trans women. All four of them are refugees. All four came to Kenya seeking the shelter and safety and dignity that their home countries denied them. Their names I will not give here — not because their stories do not deserve to be told, but because in the world as it currently exists, visibility can be a death sentence. I do not have the right to make them more vulnerable than they already are.

Four women, four attacks in twelve months across Nairobi and Kakuma – and that’s just within my social circle. The expanding circle of humanitarian concern and consideration has not yet reached them.

Meanwhile, in western nations, affluent celebrities with media platforms and global audiences have been describing themselves as persecuted. Their grievance is criticism: pushback against the hostility they direct toward trans people. They call this cancellation, or silencing, or an attack from “wokeness.” With some of the loudest voices on the planet, they insist they are being denied freedom of speech. They frame this, with apparent sincerity, as a form of personal victimisation.

I cannot place these claims on the same moral map as the women I know who are being attacked in the streets of Nairobi and Kakuma. One reality involves permanent injury and ongoing danger. The other involves public scrutiny from a position of extraordinary privilege and safety. The ethical vocabulary is not the same.

The obligation — Singer’s argument

The philosopher Peter Singer has spent decades asking an uncomfortable question: if you could prevent something terrible from happening, at little cost to yourself, would you not be morally obligated to do so?

In his 1972 essay Famine, Affluence and Morality, Singer made the argument concrete. If you saw a child drowning in a shallow pond, you would wade in without hesitation, ruining your clothes, missing your appointment, inconveniencing yourself considerably. The fact that the drowning child is far away, that you will never meet them, that their suffering is invisible to you in your daily life — none of this, Singer argues, changes the moral reality. Geographic distance does not diminish moral obligation.

That argument reframes foreign aid entirely. It is not charity. It is not generosity. It is the minimum that moral consistency demands of those with the power to act.

This is not history. Among the refugees I know in Africa today, there are people who cannot access the HIV medication they need; not because it doesn’t exist, but because the funding that provided it has been withdrawn. Gay men contact me describing symptoms of AIDS that give me flashbacks to over thirty years ago. Refugee mothers in camps beg for food for their children while tap water is turned off as an economic measure. Singer’s pond is not a thought experiment. It is a clinic that closed, a supply chain that stopped, a person whose name I know who is managing without treatment today.

Trinidad Jerry was not far away in any sense that matters. He was on Facebook. He sent a get well message to a friend in Melbourne. He asked, in his final poem, to be taken out of nowhere Kakuma. The indifference that killed him was not geographic, it was chosen.

Meanwhile, Singer’s drowning child is not a hypothetical. She is someone I know. She is trying to stay alive in a refugee camp in Kenya and hide from attack while the self-righteous circle of western ethical outrage looks the other way.

For those inside Block 13 of Kakuma Refugee Camp, the narrowing of the moral circle was not theoretical — it was lived. Trinnie understood danger in a way only someone living inside it can. When it was suggested that a fence be built around Block 13, he argued against it — not for himself, but for everyone else. A barrier might slow attackers, he said, but it could also trap people inside with no way to flee. He was thinking about the group, about the worst‑case scenario, about the asymmetry of harm. In the end, the absence of a fence quite possibly enabled the firebomb attack that killed him. He lost his life because he was considering the safety of others — a decision forced on him because the moral circle had not widened far enough to offer real protection. In a world where every option carried lethal risk, the system left him no safe choice at all.

His reasoning was sound; the world around him was not. That is the measure of the circle’s failure.

What expanding the circle would actually require

The Brandt Report’s answer, offered in 1980 and still unheeded, was framed deliberately as self-interest rather than altruism. The report argued that the poverty of the global south was not merely a humanitarian problem for the south to solve — it was a structural problem for the entire world. Hunger, disease, and instability do not stay contained within borders. The fate of wealthy and poor nations, Brandt argued, is materially connected. Genuine development in the south would create trading partners, reduce conflict, and build the stability that wealthy nations claim to want.
This reframing matters because it removes the charity objection. Expanding the circle is not a demand that wealthy nations be generous. It is a demand that they be consistent — that they apply to the global poor the same rational self-interest they apply everywhere else.

In 2015, every member state of the United Nations adopted the Sustainable Development Goals, seventeen targets covering poverty, hunger, health, education, and inequality, to be achieved by 2030. They represented the circle drawn in principle. A decade later, most targets are off track. The gap between what was promised and what has been delivered is not a gap of capability. It is a gap of political will.

What genuine moral consistency would require is not complicated to describe, even if it is difficult to achieve: trade rules that do not systematically disadvantage the poorest producers; debt relief that does not extract more than it provides; aid commitments that are honoured rather than retracted when political winds change; and the restoration of programmes like PEPFAR, whose withdrawal has already cost lives that cannot be recovered.

The circle has always moved under pressure. It has never moved voluntarily.

The unfinished work, and what comes next

The circle has never closed of its own accord. It has been pushed — by activists, by writers, by people who refused to accept that the suffering of others was simply the natural order of things. Each expansion was called premature, unrealistic, or dangerous by those who benefited from the existing arrangement. Each, in retrospect, was overdue.

If you want to act rather than simply agree, there are ways to help directly. Rainbow Railroad works to help LGBTQ+ people escape state-sanctioned violence around the world. MAREPA supports refugees in East Africa. If you would like to know about other specific fundraisers or individuals in need, I am happy to hear from you directly — contact details are via this blog.

Trinidad Jerry knew this more clearly than most of us ever will. From Block 13 in Kakuma, surrounded by people who wished him harm and institutions that failed him, he asked for one thing:

Take us out of nowhere Kakuma.

We did not. The measure of our ethics is whether we answer differently next time.

Bibliography:

Singer’s Core Philosophical Works

Singer, Peter. Famine, Affluence, and Morality (1972).
Philosophy & Public Affairs, Vol. 1, No. 3, pp. 229–243.

Singer, Peter. The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress (1981; rev. ed. 2011).

Singer, Peter. The Life You Can Save (2009).

Thomas Pogge’s Institutional Critique

Pogge, Thomas W. World Poverty and Human Rights: Cosmopolitan Responsibilities and Reforms (2002; 2nd ed. 2008).
Available here and here.

Global Hunger — Statistics and Supply

FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, WHO. The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World (SOFI) 2025 (July 2025).
FAO report and UNICEF data.

United Nations. Global Issues: Food.

World Economic Forum. “The World Produces Enough Food to Feed Everyone. So Why Do People Go Hungry?” (2016).

The Right to Food — International Law

Universal Declaration on the Eradication of Hunger and Malnutrition (World Food Conference, 1974).

Right to Food — overview of international legal instruments.

PEPFAR Cuts & January 2025 US Foreign Aid Freeze

President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

KFF (Kaiser Family Foundation). “The Trump Administration’s Foreign Aid Review: Status of PEPFAR” (October 2025).

UNAIDS. “Impact of US Funding Cuts on the Global HIV Response.”

STAT News. “Trump Administration Suspension of Global HIV Treatment Program Sparks Chaos” (28 January 2025).

CNN. “The Trump Administration Has Halted Funds for Global HIV/AIDS Programs” (September 2025).

Oxfam America. “What USAID Did, and the Effects of Trump’s Cuts on Lifesaving Aid” (2025).

PEPFAR Impact Modelling

Projected Impact of Antiretroviral Therapy Disruptions Following the 2025 US Foreign Aid Freeze (2025).
The Lancet.

How US Funding Cuts Created a Double Threat to HIV Progress in Africa (2026).
The Leaflet.

Projected HIV Incidence and Mortality in South Africa Under PEPFAR Withdrawal Scenarios (2025).
PubMed Central.

The Brandt Report

Independent Commission on International Development Issues (Willy Brandt, Chair).
North–South: A Programme for Survival (1980).

United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

United Nations. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (2015–2030).

United Nations, 2024. 2024 SDG Report: Global Progress Alarmingly Insufficient, 28 June.

Supporting Academic / Ethical Framework

Utilitarianism.net. Study Guide: Peter Singer’s “Famine, Affluence, and Morality.”

Wikipedia. “Famine, Affluence, and Morality.”

Primary Source — Trinidad Jerry

Trinidad Jerry. Poetry circulated among Block 13 residents, 2021; archived for safety.

If you would like to support LGBTQI+ refugees in Kakuma, Gorom and beyond:

MAREPA — emergency shelter for LGBTQI+ refugees in Nairobi, Kenya

Rainbow Railroad — helping LGBTQI+ people escape persecution worldwide

Queer Pride Africa — GoFundMe — refugee-led sustainable projects in Kakuma

Kakuma Refugee Camp — Food, Medication & Security — GoFundMe — direct support for LGBTQI+ refugees in the camp

Amnesty International Australia — advocacy for refugee and human rights protection

Related Essay

The Expanding Circle:
From Sentientism to the Rights of Emerging Minds
On the circle of morality when minds do not share our biology
Published 30 June 2026.

©2026 Geoff Allshorn. I show my respect for Elders past and present and acknowledge the Wurundjeri-Willam people, the Traditional Custodians of the Land on which this blog was prepared. Produced with discussion/editorial/artistic assistance from Copilot AI and Claude AI.

A Journey of Survival, Resilience, and Hope

For International Refugee Day

by Charity Austin

Ten years ago, I never imagined that one day I would become a refugee. Like many people, I believed that becoming a refugee was something that happened to others. I had never thought about fleeing my country, seeking asylum, or rebuilding my life in a foreign land.

That changed within a matter of months.

After surviving a violent mob attack because of who I am, remaining in my home country was no longer safe. The threats continued, and I faced a difficult choice: stay and risk my life, or leave everything behind in search of safety. I chose to flee. At the time, I did not fully understand what it meant to be a refugee. I only knew that I needed to survive.

A Refugee’s Life

Being a refugee means more than crossing a border. It means arriving in a place where you have no family, no support system, and often no clear information about what comes next. It means living with uncertainty while trying to rebuild your life from nothing. When you are struggling to find food, shelter, and safety, it is difficult to imagine your future.

My experience taught me that anyone can become a refugee. Refugees are not born refugees. They are ordinary people whose lives are disrupted by war, violence, persecution, and human rights abuses. For this reason, we must all advocate for peace, inclusion, and respect for human dignity in our communities.

International Refugee Day is important because it reminds us that refugees deserve to be seen, heard, and supported. To me, it represents love, solidarity, and hope. It is a day when the world recognizes the courage and resilience of millions of people who have been forced to flee their homes.

In 2021, I celebrated World Refugee Day for the first time in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya. The theme focused on inclusion and belonging, and for many LGBTQ refugees, it was a rare opportunity to feel recognized and valued. It reminded us that despite the challenges we faced, our lives mattered.

Life as a refugee can be extremely difficult, especially for LGBTQ refugees. The hardships extend beyond displacement, hunger, and poverty. Many LGBTQ refugees face violence, discrimination, harassment, exclusion, and threats because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Sometimes, surviving one challenge only means facing another. If you survive hunger, you may still face violence. If you find shelter, you may still face discrimination.

In many countries of asylum, refugees face barriers to employment, education, healthcare, and social inclusion. LGBTQ refugees often experience additional discrimination, making it even harder to access opportunities that would allow them to live independently and with dignity. The inability to secure work and earn a livelihood leaves many vulnerable to poverty, exploitation, homelessness, and violence.

Trans Inclusion Group

In 2022, violence against transgender refugees in Kakuma increased significantly. We experienced transphobic attacks, arbitrary arrests, threats, and arson incidents that put our lives at risk. Many transgender refugees lived in fear, uncertain whether they would survive another day.

In response to these challenges, we came together and formed Trans Inclusion Group, a refugee-led organization created by and for transgender refugees. What began as a small support network grew into a platform for advocacy, protection, and community empowerment. Through Trans Inclusion Group, we documented human rights abuses, raised awareness about the realities faced by LGBTQ refugees, provided peer support, and advocated for safety, dignity, and inclusion.

When forced evictions, violence, and discrimination threatened our community, we spoke out and demanded that refugee protection include everyone, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Our advocacy was not only about survival; it was about affirming that transgender refugees deserve the same rights, opportunities, and respect as every other human being.

The Personal Is Political

As I reflect on my own journey, I am reminded that my story is only one among thousands of LGBTQ refugee stories that remain untold. While I have had opportunities to speak about my experiences, many LGBTQ refugees continue to live in silence, afraid of violence, discrimination, or rejection. Sometimes, I feel that my voice is not heard enough, but I continue speaking because I know there are many others who can not.

World Refugee Day is more than a commemoration. It is a celebration of resilience, courage, hope, and belonging. It is an opportunity to recognize the strength of people who have survived unimaginable hardships and continue rebuilding their lives despite enormous obstacles.

Our shared goal should be to create welcoming communities where refugees and newcomers feel seen, valued, connected, and safe. No one should have to choose between hiding who they are and accessing protection. Every refugee deserves dignity, opportunity, and a chance to build a future.

Today, Trans Inclusion Group continues to amplify the voices of transgender refugees who are too often overlooked. In refugee camps and settlements, many LGBTQ refugees still struggle to access safety, employment, healthcare, and opportunities to rebuild their lives. By sharing our stories and standing together, we challenge discrimination and create hope for those who feel invisible.

World Refugee Day 2026

On this World Refugee Day, I call on governments, humanitarian organizations, community leaders, and individuals to listen to refugee voices, stand against discrimination, and support inclusion for all refugees, including LGBTQ refugees. Together, we can create a world where belonging is not a privilege for a few, but a right for everyone.

As we commemorate World Refugee Day 2026, Trans Inclusion Group joins refugee communities around the world in calling for a future where every person seeking safety is welcomed with dignity, protected from discrimination, and given the opportunity to thrive.

Our message to the world is simple: create more welcoming environments for refugees and newcomers. Let us build communities where refugees are not only protected but empowered to thrive. Let us choose peace over conflict, inclusion over exclusion, and hope over fear.

Because anyone can become a refugee, and everyone deserves the chance to live in safety, dignity, and belonging.

Author: Charity Austin. All rights to this article are returned to the author. This blog © 2026 Geoff Allshorn. I acknowledge the Wurundjeri‑Willam people of the Kulin Nation, the Traditional Custodians of the land on which this work was prepared, and pay my respects to Elders past and present.

Pride and Prejudice

Pride Month and a History Still Unresolved

“Take us out of nowhere Kakuma.” — Trinidad Jerry.

Pride Month takes its timing from the United States. The Stonewall uprising in June 1969 became the basis for an almost-global calendar. Although the cause spread quickly, the history did not. Many Commonwealth countries had already begun dismantling their inherited criminal laws before Stonewall, and others have moved further and faster since. The spread of Stonewall as the common narrative is itself a form of cultural dominance, mirroring how earlier British laws spread across the Commonwealth and still shape homophobia today.

Across the Commonwealth, the picture is old and uneven. The laws that still shape queer life in dozens of member states were written in London and exported outward as part of the administrative machinery of what was then a racist, sexist and homophobic empire. Their origins are detailed by the Human Dignity Trust and legal historians tracing the reach of the 1533 Buggery Act and the Indian Penal Code Section 377. Pride Month, seen from here, is not a celebration of a single uprising but a reminder of the afterlife of that empire: what was imposed, and what each country has chosen to keep.

Colonial Origins

The legal architecture that still shapes queer life across much of the Commonwealth did not originate in the countries that enforce it. It was built in Britain, refined through Victorian anxieties, and exported outward through empire. The 1860 code created the category of “carnal intercourse against the order of nature,” a phrase that travelled across Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean. A further Victorian offence (“gross indecency”) was broad enough to criminalise letters, gestures, or implication.

The British Empire spread these statutes around the world. They were imposed on societies with their own histories of gender and intimacy. Pre‑colonial records across Africa and Asia show diverse understandings of gender and sexuality, documented by ILGA World. The downfall of the Empire and eventual independence of its colonies did not undo the damage. Many emerging nations kept the inherited codes because they were already embedded in courts, policing, and legal ethics.

Diverse Commonwealth Paths

United Kingdom. The UK exported the criminal codes that shaped the Commonwealth, then dismantled them at home: partial decriminalisation in 1967, followed by Scotland (1980) and Northern Ireland (1982).

Australia. Australia inherited British criminal law and enforced it harshly. Decriminalisation occurred state by state from 1975 to 1997, summarised by the Digital Classroom. Marriage equality arrived in 2017.

Uganda. Uganda shows how inherited colonial laws can be intensified rather than dismantled. The Victorian “unnatural offences” provisions became the platform for successive legislation, culminating in the far harsher 2023 Anti‑Homosexuality Act, encouraged by religious influences in the UK and the USA.

Some other Commonwealth members exhibit more hope. Botswana’s courts dismantled colonial statutes through constitutional reasoning in 2019 and 2021 (High Court; Court of Appeal), while Dominica’s High Court struck down its colonial‑era provisions in April 2024 (Dominica ruling).

Activism and the Tradition Defence

Trinidad Jerry, a young LGBTQ refugee killed in Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, lived and died under a legal environment shaped by colonial statutes and contemporary hostility. Four years later, Emanuel Muhayimana was killed in the same camp, underscoring how little had changed.

Legal reform across the Commonwealth has been driven less by parliaments than by activists, lawyers, and community groups working through the courts. In India, the petitioners in Navtej Singh Johar v. Union of India argued that Section 377 violated Articles 14, 15, and 21 of the Constitution. In the Caribbean, cases were brought by citizens who lived under the laws.

The work has also been carried by individuals whose names rarely appear in political speeches but whose risks have reshaped the legal landscape. Caleb Orozco in Belize, Jason Jones in Trinidad and Tobago, and Rosanna Flamer‑Caldera in Sri Lanka challenged the laws in their own courts. In Uganda, David Kato’s advocacy — and his murder in 2011 — exposed the dangers faced by those who confront inherited statutes; Frank Mugisha continues that work under constant pressure. In the United Kingdom, Peter Tatchell’s long‑running campaigns helped expose the colonial origin of the laws Britain exported.

Courts in Belize, Trinidad and Tobago, Botswana, and Dominica have all stated explicitly that the criminal provisions were imposed by colonial authorities and do not reflect indigenous culture. Dominica’s 2024 ruling noted that the Sexual Offences Act provisions were “inherited from a colonial legal framework,” as highlighted by the Human Dignity Trust.

Leaders in Uganda, Nigeria, and Ghana often frame criminalisation as cultural defence and LGBTQ identities as foreign. This reverses the historical reality: the criminal laws were imported by Britain, while the constitutional rights used to dismantle them are home‑grown. A recent cross‑continental study on women’s rights in Africa found the same pattern: governments defending “traditional African values” while enforcing legal frameworks inherited from external colonial rule.

The Road Ahead

Next likely reformers. Sri Lanka has signalled willingness to amend Sections 365 and 365A. Mauritius has active litigation. Namibia — not a Commonwealth member but a parallel post‑colonial jurisdiction — struck down its sodomy laws in 2024.

High‑risk states. Uganda’s 2023 Act remains the most severe example. Ghana’s proposed “Family Values” bill threatens to expand criminalisation. Nigeria continues to enforce the 2014 Same‑Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Act.

Courts will continue to lead. In most jurisdictions, the next major reforms will come through litigation rather than legislation.

Activism and visibility. Legal reform follows visibility, community organising, and sustained advocacy. These movements are local, not imported.

Geopolitics. Some states use decriminalisation to alignm with democratic partners; others use criminalisation to align with conservative blocs.

The work continues.

Across the Commonwealth, legal change has come from citizens who challenged the laws that governed their lives; people stepping up when politicians often fear to tread. Their cases, risks, and losses form the quiet impetus beneath every reform.

Their footsteps fall where Commonwealth leaders frequently fail.

Bibliography

Human Dignity Trust — Criminalisation Maps and Legal Histories

ILGA World — State-Sponsored Homophobia Reports

NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project — Stonewall Documentation

Digital Classroom — Australian Legal History

BBC — Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Act 2023

The Guardian — Colonial Legal Frameworks and Women’s Rights

©2026 Geoff Allshorn. I acknowledge the Wurundjeri-Willam people, the Traditional Custodians of the land on which this blog was prepared, and show my respect for Elders past and present. Editorial and artistic assistance: Copilot AI.

LGBTQ+ Refugees Left Behind

The Human Cost of Foreign Aid Cuts

Published in the lead-up to commemorate Africa Day on 25 May
by Charity Austin

Charity is an activist, writer, and community leader, and the founder of Trans Inclusion Group (formerly Trans Initiative Gorom). Her work focuses on human rights, social justice, displacement, resilience, and amplifying marginalized voices through storytelling and advocacy. Through her writing and activism, she brings attention to the lived experiences, struggles, and resistance of LGBTQ+ communities in East Africa.

For many people living safely in wealthy countries, foreign aid may sound like a political debate or a government budget issue. But for refugees in Africa, especially LGBTQ+ refugees, foreign aid is often the difference between life and death.

Under the U.S. administration led by President Donald Trump, major changes to foreign aid and humanitarian funding have been introduced. One of the most significant shifts has been the restructuring and severe reduction of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which was formerly the world’s largest foreign aid agency. In 2025, USAID’s operations were significantly cut back, with many of its functions reduced or transferred into other government structures, including the U.S. State Department.

For refugee communities across Africa, these changes have had immediate and life-threatening consequences.

In already under-resourced refugee settlements, people are now facing even deeper shortages of food, clean water, shelter, and essential medical care. For transgender refugees and other LGBTQ+ people, who already experience discrimination and exclusion within these systems, the impact has been especially severe.

Reality on the Ground

According to Trans Inclusion Group (TIG), a trans-led initiative supporting LGBTQ+ refugees in displacement, reduced humanitarian funding has directly worsened the living conditions of transgender refugees who rely on aid programs for survival.

Many transgender refugees live with HIV/AIDS and depend entirely on donor-funded clinics and humanitarian health programs for antiretroviral medication. When funding is reduced or programs are disrupted, access to treatment becomes unstable. Missing medication is not a minor interruption—it is life-threatening.

The mental health impact has also been devastating. Many LGBTQ+ refugees fled persecution, violence, and arrest in their home countries, only to find themselves trapped in overcrowded and unsafe refugee settlements where protection is limited and stigma is widespread.

At the same time, reductions in refugee resettlement pathways to the United States have worsened the crisis. For many LGBTQ+ refugees facing ongoing threats, resettlement is not a privilege, it is often the only route to safety. When these pathways are slowed or suspended, people remain stuck in dangerous environments with no realistic exit.

Some transgender refugees previously escaped extreme violence in places such as Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, hoping for safety through resettlement programs. Instead, many now remain stranded in other settlements with shrinking international support and increasing vulnerability.

These policy decisions are not abstract. They directly determine whether a person receives HIV medication, whether someone eats that day, or whether a refugee survives another attack.

For many refugees in Africa, daily life is already a struggle for survival. Reducing humanitarian funding and restructuring key aid institutions like USAID only deepens that crisis.

Trans Inclusion Group (TIG) continues to highlight these realities and calls for urgent international attention, renewed funding, and stronger protection mechanisms for LGBTQ+ refugees who are being left behind in global policy shifts.

LGBTQ+ refugees deserve dignity, healthcare, protection, and the chance to live safely. Their lives should never be treated as collateral damage in political decisions about foreign aid.

“I was thirsty”

In Kakuma refugee camp (Kenya), water has become a daily struggle for many refugees following cuts to humanitarian support. These photos capture people digging into dry ground in search of water, filling jerrycans by hand because formal water systems are under severe strain. With reduced USAID funding affecting essential services, families are forced to spend hours searching for unsafe and scarce water sources just to survive. Access to clean water is not a privilege, it is a basic human right.

Searching for water in Kakuma (photos supplied)

I can personally testify that this crisis is real because I experienced it myself together with other transgender refugees before being resettled. In Kakuma refugee camp, there were days when my friends and I would wake up very early and spend hours searching for water because the normal supply points had run dry or were overcrowded. Sometimes we had no choice but to dig shallow holes in the ground and wait for dirty water to collect so we could fill our jerrycans. The water was often unsafe, but when people are desperate, they use whatever they can find. For transgender refugees who already faced discrimination, violence, and exclusion inside the camp, the struggle for clean water became even more dangerous and exhausting.

This situation is not only happening in Kakuma. Many transgender refugees in Gorom refugee settlement in South Sudan are also facing severe water shortages and humanitarian neglect. People walk long distances under extreme heat just to access a small amount of water for drinking, cooking, and bathing. In some cases, refugees are forced to rely on unsafe water sources – even from swamps – that expose them to disease and other health risks. These experiences show that the humanitarian crisis affecting transgender refugees is not abstract — it is happening to real people every day, across different refugee settlements, where survival itself has become a daily struggle.

Human Stories, Not Statistics

For many transgender refugees, the impact of aid cuts is not just political, it is deeply personal and life-threatening

One transgender woman living in the refugee camp had been relying on antiretroviral medication (ARVs) to manage HIV and stay healthy. But when she recently went to the clinic for her routine refill, she was told that the medication was no longer available. With humanitarian health services under strain and supplies running low, she returned home without the treatment she depends on to survive. She now lives in fear, uncertain when or if she will be able to access the medicine again.

I also have a friend who stopped taking the ARVs he had before the aid was cut, because he wasn’t sure that he would get another dose of medication.

Trans Inclusion Group advocates for queer refugee safety

Such stories reflect the reality facing many vulnerable refugees whose lives depend on consistent medical care. For transgender refugees, accessing healthcare is already difficult because of stigma, discrimination, and insecurity inside refugee settlements. Now, with funding cuts affecting clinics and humanitarian programs, many are being pushed into even more dangerous situations. These are not just statistics or policy discussions — they are real people losing access to food, clean water, and lifesaving medication every single day.

Looking the Other Way

What makes this situation so painful is that these decisions were made by political leaders and administrations who chose to cut foreign aid despite knowing that millions of vulnerable people depend on that support to survive. The reduction of humanitarian assistance under the Trump administration has had devastating consequences for refugees already living in desperate conditions. Today, people are struggling to access food, clean water, shelter, and lifesaving medication, and many feel abandoned by the very countries and leaders that had the power to help.

I have painful news for those who made these decisions: people are now dying because of these cuts. Refugees who were already vulnerable are being pushed beyond their limits, with some unable to access medicine, food, or safe water. For refugees, this is not a political argument — it is about survival. The suffering taking place in refugee communities is real, and the world should not look away from the human consequences of these decisions.

Refugee Rights

Read other human rights contributions from Charity:

Protection Briefing
Published: 20 December 2025
Protection Challenges and Advocacy Engagement for LGBTQ Refugees in Gorom Refugee Settlement, South Sudan

Kakuma Pride 2023
Published: 11 July 2023
A report from Kakuma Refugee Camp in Kenya, possibly the only refugee camp in the world to ever have a Pride March, brutally shut down by homophobic Kenya Police.

This blog ©2026 Geoff Allshorn. All rights are hereby returned to the author, who can be contacted via this blog. I acknowledge the Wurundjeri-Willam people, the Traditional Custodians of the land on which this blog was prepared, and show my respect for Elders past and present.