The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has funded a transgender clinic in India, Senator John Kennedy has claimed amid President Donald Trump’s crackdown on the agency that funds humanitarian initiatives across the world. Gunther Eagleman, a Conservative commentator, shared a report on the Senator telling the Capitol about the discoveries made by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) on the USAID.
Eagleman claimed in his post that Americans paid taxes so India could have transgender clinics, and a full refund is due to USAID. Elon Musk shared this and said “yes” to his suggestion.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 9, 2025
The far-right media said the Senator pointed out that while some causes endorsed by the USAID were good, the rest were “wasteful”. “This is the kind of stuff Mr Musk found…he found that USAID gave money to a transgender clinic in India. I didn’t know that. I bet you, the American people didn’t know that,” Breitbart cited him as saying.
The USAID backed several initiatives on education, gender, and climate change until it directed its Indian partners to halt the projects earlier this month. However, it is unlikely to impact the ongoing projects since the US funding comprised only a small portion of the total funds.
Kennedy’s claims on transgender causes reflected the Trump administration’s crackdown on gender-sensitive causes, including the removal of anti-discrimination protections and courses on race and gender in schools.
Trump had earlier called for the USAID’s shutdown after ordering an evaluation of the US aid policy to ensure judicious use of taxpayers’ money. Elon Musk, too, had branded the USAID “criminal organisation”.
The US policy is that there are just two genders, the President had (infamously) declared in his victory speech, indicating there’s going to be nothing for the third gender.
The USAID is the largest humanitarian arm of the US government that has about 10,000 workers and an annual budget of billions. It is guided by the US State Department over the foreign policies and its budget is approved by the Congress every year.
The Trump administration had earlier revealed some of the projects that it deemed were “ridiculous”, including funds to end sectarian violence in Israel just 10 days before the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023. Documents showed that USAID also funded meals to an Al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group, and that it spent millions of dollars on LGBT groups in different countries.
Musk, a top aide of Trump, had called it a “crazy waste” of taxpayers’ money.