The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has officially collapsed after only ten months in operation, leaving lasting damage for LGBTQ+ communities worldwide. Headed by tech billionaire Elon Musk, who falsely claimed the agency would slash federal spending by $2 trillion within its first year, DOGE failed to achieve its stated goals. Nevertheless, its impact has been profound, with hundreds of thousands of lives disrupted and many more tragically lost.

Asked earlier this month about the current status of DOGE, White House Office of Personnel Management Director Scott Kupor told Reuters, “That doesn’t exist.” The Trump administration announced in August that roughly 300,000 federal workers had been dismissed, attributing the vast majority of those terminations to DOGE. LGBTQ+ people made up approximately 8 per cent of the federal workforce, according to a January report from the Williams Institute, amounting to around 314,000 LGBTQ+ employees at the time.

DOGE’s cuts included nearly 2,000 staff at USAID following the complete dismantling of the US humanitarian agency in February 2025. The abrupt loss of funding left global communities without essential medication for HIV treatment and prevention, as well as other critical health services. A data model by Boston University epidemiologist Brooke Nichols estimated that, as of June, 208,296 adult deaths and 433,202 child deaths had occurred as a result, equivalent to 88 deaths per hour caused by the funding halt.

In July, Senate Republicans agreed to shield $400 million for the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) from the broader rescissions package that formalised DOGE’s cuts. The President’s Emergency Programme for AIDS Relief, an annual $7.5 billion global HIV and AIDS initiative, is the primary provider of prevention and treatment drugs across 54 countries.

Further sweeping cuts followed in April, when the Trump administration eliminated more than 270 National Institutes of Health grants, representing at least $124 million in unspent funds. These cuts specifically targeted research involving gender identity, sexual orientation, and diversity, equity and inclusion. Among the programmes eliminated were CDC initiatives monitoring the HIV epidemic and a specialist laboratory conducting drug-resistance testing for sexually transmitted infections, including syphilis, gonorrhoea and chlamydia. The administration also cut $70 million from the Adolescent Medicine Trials Network, which focuses on HIV prevention and treatment for teenagers and young adults.

Examples of DOGE-cut grants included $620,000 for a pregnancy-prevention programme for transgender boys, $50,000 for research into sexual health among LGBTQ+ Latinx youth in a rural area, and $740,000 for a study of social networks among Black and Latino GBTQ+ men in New Jersey.