The Devastation

On January 20, 2025, the Donald Trump administration issued three executive orders that significantly impacted equality work and U.S. foreign assistance. One order claimed to defend women from “gender ideology extremism” and restore “biological truth to the federal government.” A second sought to end “radical and wasteful” government DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) programs and “preferencing.” And a third proposed to reevaluate and realign U.S. foreign aid, asserting that the U.S. “foreign aid industry and bureaucracy” were “not aligned with American interests and in many cases antithetical to American values.”Footnote ¹ Among other impacts, this system-wide disruption triggered the dismantling of work on gender and democracy and women, peace, and security (WPS) across the White House, the Department of State, the Department of Defense, and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).Footnote ²

In line with a long history of anti-feminist foreign policy by Republican administrations since Ronald Reagan (Angevine Reference Angevine2025), Trump also reinstated the Mexico City Policy, better known as the “Global Gag Rule,” on January 24, 2025.Footnote ³ This rule prevents U.S. foreign assistance from being used, directly or indirectly, to support abortion as a method of family planning. In 2017, the first Trump administration dramatically expanded the Mexico City Policy to apply to all U.S. global health assistance, including efforts to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis. On January 23, 2026, Vice President J.D. Vance announced a further expansion of these restrictions to all non-military foreign aid, any activities promoting “gender ideology” and DEI, and U.S.-based organizations and foreign governments holding aid agreements with the U.S. government.Footnote ⁴

These shifts have had a monumental impact on the gender equality, democracy, and peace and security sectors. As of January 2026, the closure of USAID had resulted in the confirmed loss of 23,053 American jobs (federal employees and associated staff) and an additional 258,161 global jobs (contractors, partners, and local staff).Footnote ⁵ A survey of civil society organizations conducted by the International Foundation of Electoral Systems (IFES) revealed that 85% had lost funding due to U.S. or other donor cuts and only 11% were confident that they could continue delivering programs or services.Footnote ⁶ A report by IFES, International IDEA, and the Global Democracy Coalition found that, by March 2025, 86% of USAID and 41% of State Department awards had been terminated, totaling $80.5 billion in cuts. Most affected by these decisions were democracy, human rights, governance, and peacebuilding programs, where 97% of projects were canceled (Global Democracy Coalition 2025). By February 2025, 120 grants to LGBTQI+ organizations in 42 countries had also been suspended (Outright International 2025) and, by January 20, 2026, the sector had lost $125 million in funding.Footnote ⁷

The Regrouping

Over the past year, democracy and peace practitioners have convened a series of meetings with implementing partners and bilateral donors. These gatherings have sought to map and assess the scale of the damage by tracking how the cuts have devastated programming, resulted in a loss of valuable expertise, and eroded relationships of trust with civil society and governments around the world. They have also discussed the potential for new forms of collaboration, inside and beyond the U.S., to support vulnerable actors and fill the gaps left by the U.S. government’s exit from these policy spaces. Finally, these meetings have raised important questions about how to rebuild the field in the future, creating new initiatives as well as learning from weaknesses in prior practices.

The two of us have been part of these conversations as a former USAID employee and as an academic engaged with the policy world. Last June, we started a project with Meg McClure, another USAID colleague, on a website, Gender, Women, and Democracy Resources, to collect and post resources that have been taken down — or are in danger of being taken down — from government and other websites.Footnote ⁸ Our investment in preserving these resources is partly a personal one, as we worked closely together on tools used by USAID to assess and design interventions to advance women’s political participation and leadership around the world. We also partnered for almost a decade on various tools related to gender and democracy developed by the National Democratic Institute, including the #NotTheCost campaign to stop violence against women in politics (Krook and Pepera Reference Pepera and Krook2023).

This special symposium in Politics & Gender seeks to contribute to these broader efforts, using the tools and platforms of academia to preserve knowledge on the history and impact of the building and dismantling of the U.S. government’s gender equality portfolio. Caroline worked on the list of institutions and contacts, who Mona approached for interviews focused on six broad questions: what role the individual played in promoting gender equality in the U.S. government, their background going into that role, the most important achievements during their time in that role, their experiences in and after January 2025, what they have been doing since that time, and their advice for those seeking to advance gender equality in the current context. The resulting transcripts were lightly edited and then shared with the respondents, who were able to review the text and add clarifications as well as request that certain lines be deleted.

In all, 24 people agreed to share their perspectives. One declined to have their interview be on the record, due to their current employment situation. Three others initially consented but then asked that their interviews not be published. One reason was a desire to share a longer and more complete account of their decades of work within the U.S. government than could be captured in a single, hour-long interview. Another concern was to avoid potentially jeopardizing ongoing legal cases regarding the circumstances of their firings. An initial plan to interview people in institutions that had not been eliminated was quickly abandoned to avoid bringing any unwanted attention to them or their offices. Combined with those who did not answer the interview requests, the resulting picture is somewhat partial. Overall, however, the interviews published in this issue provide a wide-ranging picture of what was built, what was lost, and what we can (and should) try to do now.

The Voices

Several themes emerge across the interviews as a whole. First, the U.S. government under previous presidential administrations, including Trump 1, made significant investments to advance gender equality in the U.S. and abroad. This was especially true under the leadership of President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who created a White House Gender Policy Council (GPC) focusing on both domestic and foreign policy (Klein, Vogelstein, and Krook Reference Klein, Vogelstein and Krook2026). One member of the GPC also sat on the National Security Council, bringing a focus on women, peace, and security (WPS) into the heart of U.S. security discussions (Crockett, Freeman, and Krook Reference Crockett, Freeman and Krook2026).

Second, the U.S. government benefited from extensive levels of gender equality expertise. Some interviewees had been civil servants. Others were political appointees. Still others were contractors, brought in to work on specific projects. A notable number came into government with years of experience in civil society. The U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues, for example, had spent years working in women’s and children’s rights organizations (Gupta and Krook Reference Gupta and Krook2026), while the U.S. Special Envoy to Advance the Human Rights of LGBTQI+ Persons had led major organizations dedicated to defending LGBTQI+ rights globally (Stern and Krook Reference Stern and Krook2026).

Third, substantial progress had been made towards bringing a gender lens to foreign policy programming (Bigio, Markham, and Krook Reference Bigio, Markham and Krook2026; Klein, Vogelstein, and Krook Reference Klein, Vogelstein and Krook2026). Due to creative efforts to leverage funding opportunities, the resources devoted to this work also increased greatly over the last few years (Fotovat et al. Reference Fotovat, Wein, Winder and Krook2026; Gilliam and Krook Reference Gilliam and Krook2026). Several major global initiatives were developed and implemented (Denham et al. Reference Denham, Gordon, Hubbard, McClure, Stewart and Krook2026). Some projects were just getting off the ground, however, leading some to wish they had more time — or had been more successful in finding other partners to take up the work, which was possible in some but not in all cases.

Fourth, witnessing the dismantling of the U.S. government’s gender equality portfolio was a highly traumatic experience. This was true for everyone, whether they had been in government for decades or had only recently entered as a contractor. Many spoke of the intense feeling of purpose they had experienced while doing this work. They could see how U.S. government attention and investment had made a difference to gender equality in a wide range of contexts. Many despaired over the harm that would befall people around the globe as these funds and services were withdrawn. They also noted the lack of clear guidelines around terms like “gender ideology” and “DEI,” which were interpreted very broadly to unravel U.S. gender equality commitments — while also bringing in, ironically, spectacularly unqualified replacement personnel to pursue highly ideological agendas centered on “natural rights.”

Fifth, people went in many different directions after leaving government. Some were fortunate to find a job in the same sector, in most cases as consultants — although a few also found more permanent employment after many months of searching. Other interviewees decided to take early retirement. Several founded their own organizations, including with each other, like the WPS Collective (Fotovat et al. Reference Fotovat, Wein, Winder and Krook2026; Hussain and Krook Reference Hussain and Krook2026) and the Arch Collaborative (Fotovat et al. Reference Fotovat, Wein, Winder and Krook2026; Gupta and Krook Reference Gupta and Krook2026). A small number left the sector entirely, deciding to go back to school or apply their expertise to new policy areas.

Sixth, their advice, while varied, had two common threads. Nearly everyone highlighted the importance of taking an inclusive approach to gender equality, bridging the divide between women and LGBTQI+ people. They lamented how protecting women’s rights had been weaponized by the Trump administration to stigmatize and discriminate against the LGBTQI+ community, especially transgender women (Gillespie, Schroeder, and Krook Reference Gillespie, Schroeder and Krook2026). A second, related concern was the anti-gender, anti-rights backlash currently underway in the U.S. and around the globe, which is closely connected to growing levels of democratic decline (Hubbard and Hussain Reference Hubbard and Hussain2026). They advocated learning from activists in authoritarian contexts, as well as studying and adapting the strategies used by anti-gender actors themselves (Fotovat et al. Reference Fotovat, Wein, Winder and Krook2026).

We sincerely thank all the interviewees for taking the time to participate in the interviews. It has been an honor to have them tell their stories in the pages of Politics & Gender. Moving forward, we hope their words will serve as a valuable resource for scholars as well as practitioners, helping to record the institutional history as well as to provide insights for navigating the current political moment, both in the U.S. and around the world.