House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Brian Mast plans to pull funding from Biden-era State Department programs, including a transgender opera in Colombia and a transgender comic book in Peru. Mast called the programs 'ridiculous and stupid' and vowed to dismantle similar projects. The State Department awarded $32,000 for the comic book to address LGBTQ+ issues and $47,000 for the opera to increase transgender representation. Other diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives have also been scrapped, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio has warned against programs that don't align with the department's core mission.