- Amid the fall 2025 U.S. government shutdown, Republican lawmakers claimed that the Democrats wanted the U.S. Congress to restore $3.6 million in funding for pastry classes and dance focus groups for male sex workers in Haiti.
- The claim appeared to originate from Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought's June testimony in support of President Donald Trump's Rescissions Act of 2025. Vought claimed the act would rescind wasteful spending and alleged that under the "guise of preventative care" through an HIV/AIDS prevention program known as PEPFAR, Americans had been spending the aforementioned amount on "LGBTQ+ activism, free training in pastry cooking, 'psychosocial counseling,' a cyber café, and dance focus groups for male prostitutes in Haiti."
- As part of the demands to end the government shutdown, Democrats want to restore funding rescinded by Trump's act, which became law in July. However, the final version of the Rescissions Act, amended by the Senate, did not take any funding away from PEPFAR, rendering the claim that Democrats want $3.6 million for "male prostitutes in Haiti" moot.
- Furthermore, an analysis of PEPFAR spending datasets released by the State Department indicated that the United States did not spend $3.6 million on cooking classes and dance focus groups for Haitian sex workers. It was unclear where the $3.6 million figure came from.
- Per U.S. law, foreign organizations must adopt a policy opposing prostitution in order to receive federal anti-HIV/AIDS funds. This policy makes it unlikely any PEPFAR funds would be spent on cooking and dance events for male sex workers.
After Congress failed to pass a spending bill to keep the government open in fall 2025, Republican lawmakers claimed that the Democrats' demands for ending the shutdown included $3.6 million in pastry classes and dance focus groups for "male prostitutes in Haiti."
For example, here's an excerpt from Louisiana Republican U.S. Sen. John Kennedy's Oct. 3 speech on the Senate floor (see 15:33):
We found $3.6 million dollars for pastry cooking classes and dance focus groups for male prostitutes in Haiti. I kid you not. I'm not making this up. It was in the budget under President Biden. We took it out. Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez in the socialist wing, the loon wing of the Democratic Party, says we're going to shut down the government until we put it back in.
The rumor spread via Facebook, X and Instagram; one popular post from Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., had about 19,000 reactions as of this writing.
Democrats have not shut down the government over funding for cooking classes and dance focus groups for male prostitutes in Haiti. The rumor originated from a White House budget
The Democrats have called for the restoration of foreign aid and public media funds revoked by President Donald Trump's Rescissions Act of 2025, but Trump did not rescind PEPFAR funding in that act. Furthermore, publicly available records for PEPFAR funding sent to Haiti indicated that the United States spent the money on services like HIV testing, clinical treatment, safe sex education and health care worker salaries.
Thus, we have rated this claim false.
It is also worth noting that New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as of this writing, does not serve on the budget committee, nor is she in a formal leadership position tasked with directing members to vote for or against funding proposals. The House of Representatives passed the Republicans' proposal to keep the government running on Sept. 19, and it failed to meet the 60-vote threshold needed to pass the Senate. Ocasio-Cortez, as of October 2025, is a member of the House, not the Senate.
Kennedy, Mace and the White House Office of Management and Budget did not return inquiries asking for evidence to back up their claims. Democrats have repeatedly said that their top priority in shutdown negotiations was permanently expanding a premium tax credit program that has helped millions of Americans pay for health care coverage.
Origin of rumor
The rumor about the United States allegedly funding cooking classes and dance focus groups for "male prostitutes in Haiti" appeared to originate with Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, whom President Donald Trump tasked with winding down the U.S. Agency for International Aid and Development (USAID), previously the country's primary humanitarian aid organization.
Vought spoke in front of the Senate on June 25 in support of Trump's Rescissions Act of 2025, a law the president later signed in July that rescinded $9.4 billion in spending for foreign aid and public media (see 37:09).
He argued the act would reduce wasteful spending and listed, without providing documentation, various supposed funding measures previously enacted by the government under PEPFAR, the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. (PEPFAR, launched in 2003 by former Republican President George W. Bush, has saved 26 million lives via HIV treatment, according to the State Department.)
Here's what Vought said (emphasis ours):
For example, under the guise of so-called "preventative care" within the PEPFAR program, Americans have been funding the following:
- $5.5 million to LGBTQI+ advocacy in Uganda; • $800,000 for "transgender people, sex workers and their clients and sexual networks" in Nepal;
- $3.6 million for LGBTQ+ activism, free training in pastry cooking, "psychosocial counseling," a cyber café, and dance focus groups for male prostitutes in Haiti; and
- $1.1 million to produce a "Gender Transformation in Diverse Social and Behavior Change" report, which advocates against "gender-blindness."
Kennedy, who sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee — the budget committee, in other words — then repeated Vought's claim, first in support of the Rescissions Act in July and then again in connection with the government shutdown.
The Democrats' proposal to reopen the government called for restoring funding rescinded by the president in Section 118, Page 12, up until Sept. 30, 2026, the end of the federal fiscal year. However, while the White House's initial proposal cut $400 million from PEPFAR funding on Page 6, the Senate passed an amendment, introduced by Republicans, to remove PEPFAR cuts from the act (emphasis ours):
(5) Of the unobligated balances in the first paragraph under the heading "Bilateral Economic Assistance--Funds Appropriated to the President--Global Health Programs'' made available by the Full-Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2025 (division A of Public Law 119-4), $500,000,000 are rescinded: Provided, That none of the amounts rescinded under this paragraph shall be from the unobligated balances for the following programs: HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, Malaria, Nutrition, or Maternal and Child Health: Provided further, That the preceding proviso does not apply to family planning and reproductive health programs.
The version without PEPFAR cuts became law, meaning that PEPFAR funding was not part of the Democrats' dispute with the Rescissions Act. Assuming Kennedy's claim originated from Vought's testimony, the allegation would thus be moot.
So where did the $3.6M number come from?
Snopes underwent an extensive review of PEPFAR funding using the State Department's datasets to determine how much money the department could have spent on Haitian male sex workers. The agency did not specify what funding went specifically to male sex workers, so our analysis focused on PEPFAR funding sent to Haiti's male population in general.
It is worth noting that per U.S. law, foreign organizations must adopt a policy opposing prostitution in order to receive federal anti-HIV/AIDS funds. While the same restriction does not apply to U.S. organizations — a 2013 Supreme Court decision determined that would violate the First Amendment — this policy makes it unlikely any PEPFAR funds would be spent on cooking and dance events for male sex workers.
In total, the United States spent $4.1 million to benefit the male population in Haiti through the PEPFAR program between
Vought claimed that the $3.6 million was spent under the "guise of preventative care," but according to the Department's databases, the U.S. spent $3.2 million specifically on "PREV," or "preventative care," for male Haitians from 2018 to 2024 — and most of that money went to "Condom & Lubricant Programming" under Trump's first administration.
Vought did not provide information as to when the United States purportedly spent the $3.6 million, but Kennedy specified that the funds came from former President Joe Biden's "budget bill." If you consider only funds spent during the Biden administration — from 2021 to 2024 — the total number was $1.2 million. Biden's budget request for fiscal year 2025 made no mention of Haitian male prostitutes, cooking classes or dance focus groups (see Page 17 in this PDF for PEPFAR funds).
See how the United States spent PEPFAR funds on Haiti's male population for yourself here:
A chart with all data on PEPFAR spending for Haiti by program, downloaded via the State Department, is also available
Finally, a search for government awards sent to Haiti in the past four years returned one result between $3.5 million and $3.7 million: a $3.6 million grant for the Centre de Formation et d'Encadrement Technique (CFET), a human resources firm. The U.S. government awarded the grant for a USAID-led "Health Leadership Project," which focused on building up the Haitian government's health sector and workforce.
There's no mention of the project involving sex workers, cooking classes or dance focus groups. Publicly available details on the Health Leadership Project were scarce as of this writing, but a 2024 audit into CFET's use of USAID money "did not identify any instances of material noncompliance with applicable laws, regulations, and agreement terms," indicating the organization spent the money as intended. CFET's CEO, Marlene Gay, said via email that the organization's work with USAID was limited to working on the Health Leadership Project alongside Haiti's Ministry of Public Health.
Thus, it was unclear where, exactly, the $3.6 million figure came from. Government budget documents, however, indicated that the United States has not, in fact, spent $3.6 million on Haitian male prostitutes, nor did the Biden administration specifically seek that funding out in its budget request.
In sum ...
Claims from Republican lawmakers about $3.6 million in funds spent on Haitian male sex workers appeared to originate from the Office of Management and Budget's director, who claimed the $3.6 million was spent on "LGBTQ+ activism, free training in pastry cooking, 'psychosocial counseling,' a cyber café, and dance focus groups for male prostitutes in Haiti" through the PEPFAR program for HIV/AIDS prevention.
Republicans have claimed Democrats' proposal to fund the government included restoring this supposed $3.6 million in funding. While Democrats did call for restoring funding for foreign aid rescinded by Trump, Senate Republicans blocked the Trump administration from rescinding PEPFAR funds, meaning those dollars aren't in dispute or included in the Democrats' proposal. Furthermore, the State Department's datasets on PEPFAR spending revealed the United States did not spend $3.6 million on the aforementioned list via the program. A search of Biden's last budget request before leaving office and a search of government awards sent to Haiti in the past four years also returned no relevant results.