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By Krishna N. Das
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's first three clinics for the transgender community closed last month following a stop-work order from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) that funded them, disrupting services for nearly 5,000 people, two sources said on Friday.
U.S. President Donald Trump ordered a 90-day pause on all foreign aid in January pending a review to ensure all projects funded with U.S. taxpayer money are aligned with his "America First" policy.
Trump has repeatedly criticised what he called USAID spending $21 million on "voter turnout" in India. The Indian government said last week it was investigating.
Among the main losers following the fund freeze have been three Mitr (friend) Clinics in India that are run mostly by doctors, counsellors 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.
Trump ally Elon Musk and Republican Senator John Kennedy have both criticised the transgender funding.
"That’s what American tax dollars were funding," Musk said on X on Friday in response to a post about the closure of the first of the Mitr clinics, launched in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad in 2021.
The other clinics are located in the western cities of Kalyan and Pune.
All provided services including guidance and medication on hormone therapy, counselling on mental health as well as on HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, and legal aid, in addition to general medical care, a website for the three clinics said.
Each of them needed up to 3 million rupees ($34,338) a year to run and employed about eight people, said one of the sources, adding that they were looking for alternate sources of funding, public or private.
Organisers of the clinics, however, have got a waiver from USAID to keep running certain life-saving activities, including providing antiretroviral medication to HIV-infected people, the sources said.
Up to 10% of all clinic clients are infected by HIV, one of the sources said.
"We did some really good work at Mitr Clinics," said one of the sources, a doctor. "I am proud of what we achieved there."
($1 = 87.3650 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Krishna N. Das in New Delhi; editing by Barbara Lewis)
