Legacy wire service Associated Press is the target of a boatload of sarcasm after promoting its report about how aid workers around the world lost funding when the U.S. shut down the scandal-ridden USAID program.

And they were forced into sex work, the AP contends.

Social media responses included:

“This does put a smile on my face. I voted for this and will be forever grateful.”

“I ate Ramen for dinner so that transvesticles could strut their stuff in Nepal.”

“In other news, we were paying for degenerate faggots to roam around in Nepal.”

AP’s report said, “In impoverished Nepal, where a conservative culture leaves openly transgender people with few legal job options, the impact on aid workers’ lives was particularly crushing. Starving and scared, around 100 LGBTQ+ aid workers left jobless by the funding cuts have turned to sex work to survive, walking the streets alongside the very people they once fought so hard to help.”

In impoverished Nepal, where a conservative culture leaves openly transgender people with few legal job options, the impact on aid workers’ lives was particularly crushing. Starving and scared, around 100 LGBTQ+ aid workers left jobless by the funding cuts have turned to sex work… pic.twitter.com/yukURpfxle

— The Associated Press (@AP) July 23, 2026

The report narrates: “These transgender sex workers operate in the shadows alongside a busy highway in central Nepal, risking their lives for a few dollars. Until recently, many of them worked not as sex workers, but as aid workers, including Rubi Lama, who dedicated years of her (sic) life to helping prevent the spread of HIV in Nepal’s marginalized communities. But after the U.S. cut its foreign aid funding Rubi and around 300,000 other aid workers worldwide lost their jobs.

“With no other employment available, she (sic) is surviving now by working the streets, alongside the very people who once fought so hard to help.”

Rubi, then, says, “That first night I went there, dealing with clients that approached me, I was scared. I was nervous about what to say and how to say it. When USAID funding was there, condoms were free. Lubricant was also distributed by Friends Hetaudo (NGO) for free, as no other NGOs were distributing it. Other HIV treatments, including PrEP, which is taken to prevent HIV. All of it was free. But now it is gone.”

The responses included:

So I was going to work everyday to pay Nepalese queerfolk not to have risky sex?

— Silver Surfer (@LM_Entry) July 23, 2026

So the US taxpayer was funding a “jobs program” for trans people in Nepal? Seriously? Maybe they could just tuck the mental illness away long enough to support themselves?

— Carlihuahua (@carlaclewis) July 23, 2026

Thank you for this reminder of how much of a disaster USAID was. Absurd that American taxpayers had their money going to something like this.

— John Birch Society (@The_JBS) July 23, 2026

As well as, “I’d honestly rather light the money on fire than send it to places like this. Ideally though id like it to be spent on the American people and not troons in Nepal.”

“Why do gays need specific workers? Sounds like another grift. Besides, all a transgender person has to do to avoid being discriminated is stop being transgender – it’s as easy as becoming one.”

“Thank god the government is no longer sending armed thugs to seize my income to affirm mental illness.”

“This is a positive outcome. Going forward, this will discourage sexually deviant men pretending to be women from pursuing sex work. A honest day’s work and a full life is the perfect hedge for this type of sexual deviancy.”

A commentary at Not the Bee explained, “The Associated Press – which bills itself as the standard for objective, not-for-profit news – had the audacity to send a reporter to Nepal to interview the transgender prostitutes in a clear effort to sway public opinion against the Trump admin’s policies.”

And one more: “Let me make sure I’m understanding this correctly … The Associated Press is now pinning the rise of transgender sex work on conservatives? You truly could not invent a more ridiculous narrative if you tried.”