Discrimatn and homophobia fuel the HIV epimic gay and bisexual men

Contents:

• WHY ARE GAY MEN MORE AT RISK FOR HIV?
• HIV/AIDS AND EDUTN: LSONS OM THE 1980S AND THE GAY MALE COMMUNY THE UNED STAT
• HIV IS A STORY FIRST WRTEN ON THE BODI OF GAY AND BISEXUAL MEN
• DISCRIMATN AND HOMOPHOBIA FUEL THE HIV EPIMIC GAY AND BISEXUAL MEN
• MONKEYPOX AND THE GAY COMMUNY
• HIV AND ALL GAY AND BISEXUAL MEN
• IS HIV/AIDS STIGMA DIVIDG THE GAY MUNY? PERCEPTNS OF HIV-POSIVE MEN WHO HAVE SEX WH MEN

WHY ARE GAY MEN MORE AT RISK FOR HIV?

For gay and bisexual youth who are jt begng to explore their sexualy, homophobia and other forms of anti-LGBTQ bias help expla why so many young people our muny are unaware of their HIV stat.

The natn also saw tremendo progrs the fight agast HIV unr former Print Barack Obama, whose Natnal HIV & AIDS Strategy explicly lled attentn to gay and bisexual men and transgenr women for the first time.

HIV/AIDS AND EDUTN: LSONS OM THE 1980S AND THE GAY MALE COMMUNY THE UNED STAT

Sce early victims were predomantly gay men, the stigma attached to homosexualy the medil, erng, law enforcement and eccliastil stutns beme a barrier to unrstandg, preventn, and out of doctoral study the mid-1980s, I was part of the first generatn of mental health provirs to rpond to the epimic the San Francis Bay Area Northern California.

Her Highns Sheikha Mozah exhorted the atten om around the world to not stop at talk but, stead, m themselv to actn agast both the sndalo lack of accs to dimentary tn for over one hundred ln school-age children worldwi, as well as the tolerable equi of genr, class, and enomic stature which impair the attament of basic years ago, the gay muny was effective tg var social and profsnal muni bee, beg highly ted, privileged, and entled, was unaaid to speak the tth and go head-to-head wh powerful sectors that were perceived as obstctg accs to rmatn, rearch, treatment, and fundg.

I was one of many who engaged medil and law enforcement profsnals our muni to te them about social bias and mistaken notns about homosexualy, so that they would be ls aaid to serve the muny. One, the Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgenr, Queer (LGBTQ) Prints Higher Edutn is newly formed and "advanc effective learship the realm of post-sendary tn, supports profsnal velopment of LGBTQ lears that sector, and provis tn and advocy regardg LGBTQ issu wh the global amy and for the public at large.

HIV IS A STORY FIRST WRTEN ON THE BODI OF GAY AND BISEXUAL MEN

2 A year later, the Centers for Disease Control and Preventn’s (CDC’s) Morbidy and Mortaly Weekly Report scribed five s of Pnmocystis pnmonia among young “homosexual” men livg Los Angel, California.

3 By 1982, the term “gay-related immune ficiency” gaed tractn the media and among health re profsnals to scribe the assumed herent lk between homosexualy and what would later be known as human immunoficiency vis (HIV). In 1983, trated by their shared experienc of stigma, gay men wh AIDS at the Fifth Annual Gay and Lbian Health Conference brought forth the Denver Prcipl, which talyzed self-empowerment across health movements for s to signifint as the time markers are, the HIV story the Uned Stat likely dat back two or more s before the 1980s. And the goal of this edorial memoratg the first published s of AIDS is to unrsre the cril importance of human rights for sexual mory men and women and as the basis of the HIV AMONG GAY AND BISEXUAL MENRace, class, and sexual orientatn ntue to shape the HIV epimic the Uned Stat and around the world, wh new fectns disproportnately affectg men who have sex wh men Black and Brown muni.

Reliably llected epimlogic evince ntue to tell a story that centers the HIV panmic on gay and bisexual men, yet public health agenci ntue to rource HIV rpons st broadly to the “general populatn. COMMUNITY-LED HIV RESPONSESBuildg on the civil rights, women’s rights, and gay and lbian liberatn movements the Uned Stat, lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr, queer (LGBTQ) people, and their alli worked together to tablish HIV service anizatns even as ernments stggled to rpond.

DISCRIMATN AND HOMOPHOBIA FUEL THE HIV EPIMIC GAY AND BISEXUAL MEN

The same anizatns also played a cril role safeguardg an creasgly visible LGBTQ activism has been tegral to policizg gay and bisexual men bee the homophobia and HIV-related stigma they have experience at dividual, muny, and stutnal levels are terlocked.

Ironilly, accs to culturally appropriate health re remas difficult for people livg wh and disproportnately affected by HIV, cludg gay and bisexual men, even wh the proliferatn of clics. 15 Such laws enurage vlence, discrimatn, and stigma, which worsen health- and HIV-related racial/ethnic dispari among gay and bisexual rights vlatns experienced by young gay and bisexual men are exacerbated by legal and policy barriers embedd social valu.

Public health rpons to the HIV and overall health needs of gay and bisexual men are too often signed and enacted solely wh a disease ntament foc and whout ser nsiratn for the fundamental human rights prcipl. ACKNOWLEDGMENTSThe thors would like to acknowledge gay and bisexual men worldwi who urageoly put their bodi on the le, every day, to advance social jtice and human rights—often at great personal st. READ MORE: Panmics That Changed History: A TimeleThe AIDS Epimic Aris Though HIV arrived the Uned Stat around 1970, didn’t e to the public’s attentn until the early 1981, the Centers for Disease Control and Preventn (CDC) published a report about five prevly healthy homosexual men beg fected wh Pnmocystis pnmonia, which is ed by the normally harmls fung Pnmocystis jirovecii.

MONKEYPOX AND THE GAY COMMUNY

Bee the disease appeared to affect mostly homosexual men, officials ially lled gay-related immune ficiency, or the CDC disvered all major rout of the disease’s transmissn—as well as that female partners of AIDS-posive men uld be fected— 1983, the public nsired AIDS a gay disease. The FDA would revise s l 2015 to allow gay men to give blood if they’ve been celibate for a year, though blood banks routely tt blood for the end of 1985, there were more than 20, 000 reported s of AIDS, wh at least one se every regn of the is Developed In 1987, the first antiretroviral meditn for HIV, azidothymide (AZT), beme available.

HIV AND ALL GAY AND BISEXUAL MEN

HIV/AIDS the 1990s and 2000s In 1991, the red ribbon beme an ternatnal symbol of AIDS that year, basketball player Magic Johnson announced he had HIV, helpg to further brg awarens to the issue and dispel the stereotype of beg a gay disease. Men who have sex wh men were, and still are, disproportnately impacted by HIV bee transms much more easily through anal sex than through vagal first official ernment report on AIDS me on June 5, 1981, the Morbidy and Mortaly Weekly Report, a ernment bullet on perplexg disease s: “In the perd October 1980-May 1981, 5 young men, all active homosexuals, were treated for bpsy-nfirmed Pnmocystis rii pnmonia at 3 different hospals Los Angel, California.

”In a 1983 appearance on NBC's "Today" show, activist and Gay Mens Health Crisis -founr Larry Kramer asked host Jane Pley, "Jane, n you image what mt be like if you had lost 20 of your iends the last 18 months? 'GAY PLAGUE'After the Stonewall Rts 1969, LGBTQ activists across the untry ma signifint civil rights advanc and secured some municipal and state-level protectns agast discrimatn public employment.

IS HIV/AIDS STIGMA DIVIDG THE GAY MUNY? PERCEPTNS OF HIV-POSIVE MEN WHO HAVE SEX WH MEN

She lled the group "Save Our Children" and said reprented the rights of the majory of fileOn March 22, 1980, a year before that first MMWR report, evangelil Christian lears livered a petn to Print Jimmy Carter mandg a halt to the advance of gay rights. “God’s judgment is gog to fall on Ameri as on other societi that allowed homosexualy to bee a protected way of life, ” Bob Jon III predicted, acrdg to the anti-gay reactn gaed steam across Ameri wh the electn of Moral Majory ally Ronald Reagan, activists found their mands for attentn for a growg medil crisis were ignored.

One such group was the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, found New York Cy 1982, which is today the olst HIV/AIDS service anizatn the Men's Health Crisis Smh / NY Daily News via Getty Imag fileBut 1987, activists were still trated by ernment actn as bodi ntued to pile up, and they found the AIDS Coaln To Unleash Power, or ACT UP, New York, their actns and their activist art are legendary for speedg the ernment’s rponse to the AIDS crisis, allowg quicker ttg and treatment of lifavg experimental dgs, and drawg public attentn to the adly impact of homophobic public health polici.

Pl, wh birth ntrol available, abortn legal, and antibtics available for many sexually transmted diseas, the risks of all forms of sex seemed more mimal than ever attu shifted quickly, the summer of 1981, the US Centers for Disease Control and Preventn (CDC) reported the first s of a rare pnmonia young gay men.

Healthre profsnals and media monly referred to the disease as “gay-related immune ficiency, ” or GRID, placg a stigma around more people the gay muny beme diagnosed wh the disease, the worse the prejudice beme. More recently, wh the game-changg breakthroughs the bmedil arena, attentn has shifted to the bmedil preventn strategi, which clu preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) for gay, bisexual, and other MSM (Grant et al., 2010) and vagal microbicis for women (Abdool et al., 2010). In rponse to the alarmg health dispari among gay and bisexual men, there has been a ll to broan the preventn lens to exame the fluence of multiple social and ntextual factors fluencg health behavrs (Halkis & Cahill, 2011).

Dpe clear evince for the social termants of HIV transmissn and the beneficial effects of stctural terventns (Adimora & Auerbach, 2010), there have been limed efforts targetg the social equali, which place gay and bisexual men at greater risk for the acquisn of HIV disease. In this article, nsiratn is given to the manner through which discrimatn and homophobia, which may have been heightened bee of the AIDS epimic (Halkis, 1999), perpetuate HIV vulnerabili for gay and bisexual men.