Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Sarah B. Rogers apologized to Slovakia and Czechia for a Biden administration program to make their maps “more gay,” during a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Thursday. Chairman Brian Mast asked Rogers to explain some of the spending during the last administration: “Can you tell me, what is ‘queering’ the map?” In on the joke, Rogers explained: “So I think we were trying to make the maps more gay.” “How do you make a map more gay? Or gay at all?” Mast asked. “You know, since the age of cartography, we’ve had pretty good maps, but maybe they weren’t gay enough. So, I know – also, I took critical theory in college. I think sometimes people use ‘queer’ as a verb. I do understand that the maps that we were trying to make gay were, I think, of Czechia and Slovakia, so maybe those countries asked for it. I doubt it, but I don’t know,” Rogers said. Chairman Mast commented: “Any of these that you can provide me the receipt for-the Facebook link where they wanted people to take photos of how they were doing a DEIA flash mob in Kyrgyzstan, whatever documentation they have of all of these things-we would love to see that. And we would absolutely love to know the individuals specifically who were busy writing these grants, because they have no business receiving another paycheck from the people of the United States of America.”

REP. BRIAN MAST (R-FL), CHAIRMAN, HOUSE FOREIGN AFFAIRS COMMITTEE: I want to talk about some other things more related to your work. It’s been brought up-by me and by others. Some people call these things waste. Some people call these things good programs. Transgender operas-somebody just said that doesn’t exist. I submitted for the record the paperwork showing, yeah, this does exist, and here’s the receipt for it. And we have hundreds of these things just like this. The dollar amount is important. Some of these are large amounts-they’re years’ wages for many Americans. Are they huge in the context of what the United States spends overall? No. But the volume of crazy-I don’t know a better word than crazy-programs is astronomical when you look at how many transgender operas, musicals, plays, job fairs they were doing. How many drag shows they were doing. Not one comic book-multiple issues of comic books. And we can get into these: a DEI flash mob in Kyrgyzstan, a diversity roadshow in India, diversity and inclusion programs in Luxembourg, Spain, New Zealand, Canada, and Malaysia. Teaching trans and intersex leaders in India. The volume of these things-and some of them are very large numbers, from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars. Some of them are $ 10,000 or $ 20,000. It is amazing. But I want to ask you a few questions on these, and maybe you can provide us some information on some of these things, whether here or in the future. So here is one. I don’t even understand what this means: Study the relationship between collective movement-meaning walking, boxing, dancing-and systemic conditions of anti-trans violence. Is there a receipt for that? SARAH B. ROGERS, UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR PUBLIC DIPLOMACY: I actually came prepared to this hearing with certain details on all of these grants. But to the extent there are additional internal records, we’d be happy to work with the committee to provide them. I’m also happy to supplement the record with a list of USA spending records and other documentation. MAST: It’s very helpful because, as you witnessed yourself, we will have members literally say, Nah-Republicans just made that up. That didn’t exist. They say we shouldn’t be sidelining funding from these agencies because they weren’t really doing these things. Their hand is in the cookie jar and they won’t believe it. They probably won’t even believe it if you submit the records-but I would prefer that you submit the record. Can you tell me: what is queering the map? ROGERS: So I think we were trying to make the maps more gay. MAST: Literally-that’s… well, how do you make a map more gay? Or gay at all? ROGERS: You know, since the age of cartography, we’ve had pretty good maps, but maybe they weren’t gay enough. I also took critical theory in college, and I think sometimes people use queer as a verb. I do understand that the maps we were trying to make gay were, I think, of Czechia and Slovakia. So maybe those countries asked for it. I doubt it, but I don’t know. MAST: We do have real things to work on in Congress-like what’s going on with the imminent threat of Iran. And it’s embarrassing that we have to talk about the fact that things like this were funded. Non-binary and trans Francophones: linguistic attitudes and ideologies toward inclusive French in Montreal, Canada. These things- I’m going to give you a list. My time is expired. I’ll give you a list of these, and any of these that you can provide me the receipt for-the Facebook link where they wanted people to take photos of how they were doing a DEIA flash mob in Kyrgyzstan, whatever documentation they have of all of these things-we would love to see that. And we would absolutely love to know the individuals specifically who were busy writing these grants, because they have no business receiving another paycheck from the people of the United States of America.

Here it is in the committee’s livestream from yesterday to prove it’s real:

Used all his power not to laugh pic.twitter.com/Pn8Te0cA07

– World Gone Bad (@gageblanton) March 6, 2026

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