Javier Muñoz and Peppermint Warn Congress Against Cuts To HIV Support

LGBTQIA+ trailblazers Peppermint and Javier Muñoz took to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to meet directly with lawmakers and demand urgent action to stop the proposed $2 billion in cuts to federal HIV programs.

Released on Monday, the House Appropriations Committee’s FY26 spending bill would see $1.7 billion slashed from domestic HIV treatment and prevention programs, and revoke $1 billion through the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, in addition to the hundreds of millions already lost during the second Trump administration.

The bill would eviscerate the U.S. federal response to the HIV epidemic, eliminating HIV prevention programs that provide testing and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), destroying Minority AIDS Initiative funding, and cutting $525 million from the Ryan White Program at the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), which provides comprehensive, effective HIV medical care and treatment for more than 550,000 people each year.

The Save HIV Funding campaign says their loss would see significantly reduced access to care for low-income families, those living with chronic conditions, and the uninsured. Black and Latino communities are also disproportionately affected, accounting for more the 65 per cent of new HIV diagnoses.

Currently, over 1.2 million Americans live with HIV, with more than half a million relying on federal funding.

Muñoz, best known for his titular role in Hamilton on Broadway, is an out gay man who has been living with HIV for more than 20 decades.

“This is not something that is outside of my existence or my life. This is my life, this is my health, this is my future,” he told The Advocate earlier this week. “This is my ability to actually maintain breathing and living and access to my treatment on a daily basis.”

“We will be back to HIV wards” warns Muñoz

Muñoz and Peppermint met with members from both the Republican and Democratic parties on Wednesday, and emphasised the historically bipartisan nature of federal HIV programs, before rallying with activists at Capitol Hill.

“They will put us back to where we started. We will be back to HIV wards — AIDS wards — in hospitals,” Muñoz said. “We will be dwindled down. We will watch our loved ones die again, and it is completely needless. We are in the position to do more and better, and it’s inexcusable to even have these cuts on the table.”

The U.S. House of Representatives and Senate are set to vote before the end of the fiscal year on September 30, leaving people mere weeks to take advantages of services while they can.

“After nearly 30 years living in New York City, I’ve really been proud of the things I’ve been able to do, and that is in huge part thanks to my being able to identify as a trans woman and have matching documents, matching paperwork, matching IDs, and then also the healthcare that I was able to utilize,” Peppermint said.

“The healthcare services that I was able to utilize in times when I was flying high on a TV show or on Broadway, but also times when I was in between jobs and wasn’t able to work.”

Launched in 2023, the Save HIV Funding campaign is supported by over 150 national and local organisations, beginning in response to proposed Congressional cuts to federal HIV programs, and has successfully helped avert $1.5 billion in domestic HIV funding cuts.

“The House bill betrays and undermines the last four decades of work in which U.S. research developed HIV prevention, care, and treatment that have made HIV a much more preventable disease and changed an HIV diagnosis from a death sentence into a manageable, chronic condition that allows people with HIV to live a normal lifespan and work and care for their communities and families,” the campaign said on Wednesday.

“It also is a betrayal of the hard work of people living with HIV, their medical providers, researchers, allies, and advocates who have developed systems of effective, cost-efficient prevention, care, treatment and research, and have ensured that there is robust funding to support access.”