They Want To...

Harm us! They want to inflict pain and suffering on the LGBTQ+ community. Don’t believe me? Then why else would they cut funding to AIDS programs, forcing people off their life-saving medication?

New emergency rules finish an administrative challenge to AIDS drug program cuts

AIDS Healthcare Foundation attorney accuses DeSantis administration of ‘legal subterfuge”

Florida Phoenix

By Christine Sexton

February 25, 2026

The DeSantis administration has filed an emergency rule that restricts eligibility for an AIDS drug assistance program beginning March 1, effectively bringing an end to an administrative challenge filed by a leading AIDS healthcare provider.

But a legal challenge to the emergency rules already is looming. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) said Wednesday it would immediately challenge the emergency rules. Hearings on emergency rule challenges must be heard within 14 days.

State Administrative Law Judge W. David Watkins had scheduled an emergency hearing  on AHF’s request to lift an automatic stay that has prevented its legal challenge against the Department of Health from going forward. 

AHF’s underlying case hinged on the argument that the DOH violated Florida law when it announced cost-cutting at the AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP), including scaling back who’s eligible and what drugs are available. 

DOH claims the changes, announced on its website and in correspondence to affected ADAP clients, need to be made because the program faces a $120 million deficit. About 16,000 people living with HIV and AIDS are expected to be affected by the changes, which include limiting income eligibility for the program from $63,840 annually for an individual to $20,748 annually.

Diseases are not political, if you have funding short fall... Fund It!

Unlike general rules, emergency rules take effect immediately and aren’t required to go through the rulemaking process.

“I think proceeding today on the question that’s teed up on the notice of whether the stay should be lifted or not lifted is, again from our perspective, an academic exercise in light of the emergency rule filed yesterday,” said Lombard, of the Tallahassee firm Lombard Law. “So, our perspective is that, for today’s purposes, there’s nothing to be done. Nothing to be done in the case, period, and all this is moot and subject to dismissal.”

Without treatments, the disease will spread. Republicans keep calling AIDS the “gay disease,” but diseases are equal opportunity infectors — they don’t care what political party you support or who you love. HIV infects people equally.

The reality is simple: this is a disease. Cutting funding doesn’t stop it. The virus is still out there.

WFMZ headline says it all Florida’s proposed cuts to AIDS drug program threaten patient care and public health

More than 128,000 Floridians are living with HIV. The state has the second-highest rate of new HIV diagnoses after Georgia, with approximately 4,500 new diagnoses in 2023, the most recent year for which data is available.

But access to treatment could be in jeopardy if potential budget cuts, announced in January 2026 by the Florida Department of Health, are enacted.

These changes, set to go into effect on March 1, would cut funding for the state’s AIDS Drug Assistance Program, which helps more than 31,000 Floridians with HIV/AIDS afford care.

Without the drugs, those 31,000 people can now spread the disease again! When AIDS/HIV came to the US it was carried by gay men but it has spread far and wide.

They cite budget pressure & federal funding shifts, and rapidly rising drug costs, but the cost of not covering the drugs is much greater!

AHF attorney Louise Wilhite-St. Laurent reluctantly agreed with Lombard on that point but not before she accused the DeSantis administration of “legal subterfuge,” noting the administration had filed a motion asking Watkins to quash seven subpoenas it had served on DOH employees requiring them to appear at the emergency hearing.

The motion to quash the subpoenas was the latest legal maneuver from the DeSantis administration that she insisted were intended to stifle discussion.

Other maneuvers included the DOH noticing that it would publish the rules necessary to cut program, which allowed the DOH to take advantage of a state law that enables agencies to obtain automatic stay in certain administrative challenges involving rulemaking.

Oh, the administration knows exactly what it is doing and what these cuts will cause. They know HIV has spread into Black and Latino populations, and even into the senior population. AIDS is a growing problem in long-term care facilities.

These cuts are targeted at the LGBTQ+ community for one reason only... to punish the LGBTQ+ community!

World's AIDS Day

On this World's AIDS day I asked ChatGPT AI to write about AIDS and the White House announcement...

When Disease Becomes Political: The Cost of Silence on HIV/AIDS

Diseases aren’t political, but the way governments respond to them is. When leaders ignore or minimize a public-health issue, the consequences go far beyond symbolism. The White House’s decision to no longer recognize World AIDS Day is a striking example of how political silence can fuel real harm.

HIV has long been tied to stigma, especially against LGBTQ+ communities. When the government pulls back from acknowledging the disease, it reinforces old myths — including the false idea that HIV is a “gay disease.” This feels especially painful given the history of neglect during the early AIDS crisis, when stigma cost thousands of lives.

Silence also reduces public awareness. Without official recognition of World AIDS Day, fewer people are reminded to get tested or learn the facts. Undiagnosed HIV spreads more easily, often because people don’t realize they’re at risk. Awareness isn’t symbolic; it’s a prevention tool.

Stigma grows, too. People who fear judgment are less likely to seek testing or treatment. People outside LGBTQ+ communities may falsely believe they’re immune. Both of these patterns help the virus spread.

The effects extend globally. U.S. leadership has long shaped international HIV treatment and prevention. When the government seems to withdraw from even symbolic recognition, it raises fears of weakening support, which could disrupt lifesaving programs worldwide.

HIV is a virus we have the tools to control. What threatens progress isn’t biology — it’s silence, stigma, and political choices. When the White House no longer recognizes World AIDS Day, the virus gains ground. Public-health neglect doesn’t stay symbolic; it becomes deadly

What I did was give the AI a little guideline World AIDs, the White House, and the effects of that action of not recognizing World's AIDS Day anymore, told it to write an essay on the two and this is what it came up with.

Reagan!

All the animosity against us has long, long consequences.

When the Reagan administration labeled HIV/AIDS as the “gay disease,” that damaging narrative stuck—and it created a false perception that HIV/AIDS only infects LGBTQ+ people. Today has an article about a Supreme Court case where a person in Texas does not think she should have to pay for PrEP,.

The lawsuit, filed by two Christian-owned businesses and individuals, argues that health insurance plans they purchase shouldn’t have to cover medical tests and drugs they object to on religious grounds—specifically the HIV-prevention drug PrEP. While the legal question at the heart of the case is about the appointment powers of a federal task force, the underlying issue is the persistence of stigma rooted in decades-old misconceptions.

In reality, about 20% of HIV cases in the U.S. are among heterosexual people, and globally, that number is over 80%. Yet, because of the Reagan-era “gay disease” label, HIV/AIDS remains unfairly stigmatized.

That stigma has caused profound harm:

• It has stigmatized and isolated people living with HIV.
• It fueled discrimination in healthcare, employment, and communities.
• It led to neglect and delay in mounting an effective public health response.
• It created a public misunderstanding of risk, giving many a false sense of immunity.
• It shaped rhetoric and policies that marginalized vulnerable groups, including laws criminalizing people with HIV.
• It allowed some religious groups to frame HIV/AIDS as a moral failing rather than a medical issue.

This legacy continues today. In the recent One Big Beautiful Bill Act, critical programs like the Ending the HIV Epidemic Initiative, the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, and the Minority HIV/AIDS Fund face significant funding cuts or elimination.

Diseases don’t take time off—and cutting funding only makes things worse. One particularly vulnerable place where HIV/AIDS is spreading is in long-term care facilities. Reduced funding means fewer routine tests, less early intervention, and limited education and training for staff and residents—factors that increase risk and delay treatment.

Once again, HIV/AIDS is in the general population, affecting people of all backgrounds. Cutting funding now is one of the worst possible moves for public health, justice, and human dignity.

---

This was posted on Facebook by our senator from Connecticut...

Report from the Senate Floor, from US Senator Chris Patrick Murphy:

Last night in the Senate, something really important happened. Republicans forced us to debate their billionaire bailout budget framework. We started voting at 6 PM because they knew doing it in the dark of night would minimize media coverage. And they do not want the American people to see how blatant their handover of our government to the billionaire class is.

So I want to explain what happened last night and what we did to fight back. The apex of Republicans’ plan to turn over our government to their wealthy cronies is a giant tax cut for billionaires and corporations. And they plan to pay for it with cuts to programs that working people rely on. Popular and necessary programs like Medicaid, Medicare, and SNAP, are all being targeted. In order to pass the tax cut, Republicans have to go through a series of procedural steps. Last night, they took the first step which requires them to pass an outline of their plan, but with it, any senator can offer as many amendments as we want. So my Democratic colleagues and I did just that.

Now, we knew that Republicans would largely unanimously oppose them, but we had two objectives here. One, Republicans were forced to put their opinion on record — many for the first time — on the most corrupt parts of Trump and Musk’s agenda. Two, as I’ve been saying, I am going to make every process and procedure as slow and painful as possible for as long as my colleagues choose to ignore the constitutional crisis happening before our eyes.

So what did we propose? We proposed no tax cuts for anyone who makes a billion dollars a year. We made them vote on whether or not Elon Musk and DOGE should have limitless access to Americans’ personal data. We made them vote on whether to protect IVF and require insurers to cover it. Every single amendment Democrats proposed was shot down. On almost every single amendment, Republicans universally opposed it. Every Republican voted against our proposal to prevent more tax cuts for billionaires. The corruption and theft is happening in the open here.

The whole game for Republicans is taking your money and giving it to the wealthiest corporations and billionaires — even if it means kicking your parents out of a nursing home or turning off Medicaid for the poorest children. They know what they are doing is deeply unpopular. They are offering a tax cut to the most wealthy that is 850 times larger than what they are offering working people. Oh and by the way, any tax cuts for working people are going to be washed out by higher costs for basic necessities, like health care and food. It’s a fundamental injustice.

Thanks to your pressure and support, many of my Democratic colleagues have joined my effort to do everything we can to make sure they cannot destroy democracy and steal your money in the dark of the night. We are being loud about what is happening. I’m going to continue to grind the gears of Congress down as much as possible to make it that much harder and slower to get away with this corruption. 

That’s why the votes lasted until nearly 5 AM

This is a five-alarm fire. I don’t think we have two years to plan and fight back. I think we have months. 

It’s still in our power to stop the destruction of our democracy with mass mobilization and effective opposition from elected officials. So we can’t miss any opportunity to take advantage of opportunities to put Republicans on the record and shine a light on what is happening.

And you have a role to play in this as well. I need you to amplify what’s happening, support the leaders who are fighting for you to make sure they can continue speaking truth to power against Musk and Trump’s billionaire cronies, and show up at rallies and town halls. Use every tool at your disposal to send a message loud and clear about how you expect my colleagues to lead and fight in this moment

Every best wish,

US Senator Chris Patrick Murphy

PLEASE COPY AND PASTE THIS POST instead of sharing it. Thank you

Diseases Don't Care.

Disease is an equal opportunity inflector... It doesn't care what your politics are, it doesn't care if you are rich or poor, it doesn't care if you are black or white or Asian, it doesn't care if you are straight, gay, or trans.

When HIV was brought to America it could have been brought by a straight, married religious person, but it was brought here by a gay person and because of that the Republicans labeled it a gay disease by President Reagan!

‘It’s back to drug rationing’: the end of HIV was in sight. Then came the cuts

The abrupt halt to US funding threatens to undo decades of advances, dramatically increasing infections and deaths, but some see an opportunity for Africa to lead the response

The Guardian

By Kat Lay

March 18, 2025

This year the world should have been “talking about the virtual elimination of HIV” in the near future. “Within five years,” says Prof Sharon Lewin, a leading researcher in the field. “Now that’s all very uncertain.”

Scientific advances had allowed doctors and campaigners to feel optimistic that the end of HIV as a public health threat was just around the corner.

Then came the Trump administration’s abrupt cuts to US aid funding. Now the picture is one of a return to the drugs rationing of decades ago, and of rising infections and deaths.

But experts are also talking about building a new approach that would make health services, particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa, less vulnerable to the whims of a foreign power.

The US has cancelled 83% of its foreign aid contracts and dismantled USAid, the agency responsible for coordinating most of them.

Let's face it it Trump is a bigot! He hates anything LGBTQ+.

He is also considering cutting domestic funding!

Trump admin mulling over cutting HIV-prevention funds in US

The cuts would seem to run counter to a first-term Trump priority.

Politico

By Sophie Gardner

March 18, 2025

The Trump administration is discussing cuts to the CDC’s domestic HIV program, including funding for prevention, according to two former HHS officials who were granted anonymity to discuss their conversations with current staff.

No decision has been made and an HHS official, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, said that “if this decision is even made, this work would be continued elsewhere at HHS.”

In a statement, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon told POLITICO that “HHS is following the Administration’s guidance and taking a careful look at all divisions to see where there is overlap that could be streamlined to support the President’s broader efforts to restructure the federal government.”

Nixon said the aim “is to ensure that HHS better serves the American people at the highest and most efficient standard. No final decision on streamlining CDC’s HIV Prevention Division has been made.”

But wait! There's more!

The  Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) reports that,

Eliminating this funding could jeopardize recent successes in addressing the nation’s HIV epidemic, including those related to the Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE) Initiative, which the first Trump administration created, and among other activities, bolstered HIV prevention efforts at the CDC by providing additional funding to a subset of targeted “EHE” jurisdictions.  There has been a 12% decline in HIV incidence (new infections) nationally from 2018 to 2022 and a 21% decline in EHE jurisdictions between 2017 and 2022. CDC states that “increases in preexposure prophylaxis prescriptions, viral suppression, and HIV testing likely contributed to the decline,” activities that the agency has a core role in supporting.

He is also cutting research into new HIV drugs...

Trump’s Funding Cuts Halt Rollout Of HIV Prevention Drug

A groundbreaking injectable that would curb the spread of HIV is at risk due to Donald Trump's funding cuts on foreign aid.

Black Enterprise

A groundbreaking injectable designed to curb the global spread of HIV is now at risk of being delayed due to President Donald Trump’s recent executive orders.

Lenacapavir, an innovative twice-yearly injection that prevents HIV transmission, was recognized as the breakthrough medicine of 2024. However, Trump’s decision to freeze all foreign aid funding now jeopardizes its global distribution to millions in need, Wired reports.

Linda-Gail Bekker, 62, is a medical professor from the University of Cape Town who helped identify Lenacapavir. She attended the AIDS 2024 Conference held in Munich, Germany, last July and proudly presented the groundbreaking results of the PURPOSE 1 clinical trial she led. The study revealed that the Gilead Sciences-developed Lenacapavir could prevent sexual transmission of HIV with 100% efficacy by targeting the virus’s capsid protein, a crucial component for its replication.

Trump's loathing for anything LGBTQ+ is killing people!

World AIDS Day – December 1st

It is never going away, it will always be with us, just like COVID and the 1918 (Spanish) flu.

The number of people with AIDS is increasing along with STIs (Sexually Transmitted Infections) and it is going to get worst. Why?

In many states that have banned abortions, women’s clinics have closed and besides abortions these clinics also test and treat STIs. With the closing of women's health clinics studies have found that it can have a direct impact on STI rates. Clinics like Planned Parenthood   clinics provide affordable or free STI testing and treatment. When the clinics close, women have to pay for these services and some cannot afford to pay for the tests so they don’t get tested.

The myopic Republicans are so focused on abortion and are anti-LGBTQ they ignore all the other services that these clinics provide.

AIDS, STIs, and Monkeypox are not a “gay” disease, viruses are an equal opportunity infector.

President Reagan and the Republicans ignored AIDS until it spread into the general population. Trump tried to cut funding for STIs but the Democrats blocked him but a group of House Republicans proposed cutting $767 million from key federal HIV prevention and treatment programs for the 2024 fiscal year.

The Republicans animosity towards us knows no bounds.

Get tested!

My Theory

The Republicans don’t like Dr. Fauci and I think that it goes all the way bad to the 1980s when he stood up to President Reagan.

Anthony Fauci Quietly Shocked Us All
New York Times
By Peter Staley
December 31, 2022


The first time I met Dr. Anthony Fauci was at the International AIDS Conference in Montreal during the summer of 1989. ACT UP, the AIDS activist group I was a part of, had scared the bejesus out of conference organizers by seizing the stage during the opening session, then made things worse by disrupting various scientific presentations. Many, if not most, AIDS researchers wanted us hauled away and never heard from again. Little did they know that Dr. Fauci, who was leading the response at the National Institutes of Health, had been meeting with members of ACT UP since shortly after our founding two years earlier.

The regular meetings he had with an ACT UP member, Bill Bahlman, continued even after Larry Kramer, one of the group’s founders, wrote an open letter to Dr. Fauci in The Village Voice calling him a murderer and comparing him to the Holocaust organizer Adolf Eichmann. But there Dr. Fauci was, meeting with me and my comrades, branded radical homosexuals, to discuss our policy proposal for upending longstanding Food and Drug Administration strictures against public access to drugs before they are approved.

[…]

Over the years, the dinners to hash out unfinished AIDS work continued. After Mr. Hill tragically died in 1997, Dr. Fauci and his wife, Christine, started hosting the activist dinners at their house. Dr. Fauci shocked all of us, quietly working with President George W. Bush to start the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, the most effective international public health program in our nation’s history, saving the lives of 20 million people thus far.

Dr. Fauci walked through the fire with us, and his friendships with AIDS activists deepened with time, bound by a shared trauma. In those early years, while some in our community were accusing him of not caring enough about AIDS, he didn’t tell us about the hundreds of gay men he had tried to save under his care at the N.I.H. hospital. Until this month, he still did rounds there, a clinician above all else.

The Atlantic magazine wrote…

It’s a professional credo that helps explain how the 79-year-old doctor has managed to stick around as the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases through six American presidents of both parties, beginning with Ronald Reagan, whom he alerted to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. But the traits upon which Fauci built his reputation during past administrations could be his undoing in this one, as he guides Donald Trump through the worst pandemic in a century.

I believe he made a number of enemies with his work on AIDS/HIV, for the Republicans AIDS was the “Gay Disease” and Dr. Fauci stood up to them, and the Republicans have a long memory.

They were already predisposed to hating him and then COVID came along and it add the gas to the simmering fire.

World’s AIDS Day

HIV/AIDS is an equal opportunity disease and if you are sexually active you show be taking precautions.

We have just finished a plague… COVID and also Monkeypox both were politicized by the right-wing conservatives but COVID is not the first disease that has been politicized by the Republicans the first was HIV/AIDS by President Reagan.

How AIDS Remained an Unspoken—But Deadly—Epidemic for Years
Health officials first became aware of AIDS in the summer of 1981, but U.S. leaders remained largely silent for four years.
History Channel
By Joseph Bennington-Castro
June 1, 2020


By the end of 1984, AIDS had already ravaged the United States for a few years, affecting at least 7,700 people and killing more than 3,500. Scientists had identified the cause of AIDS—HIV—and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identified all of its major transmission routes.

Yet, U.S. leaders had remained largely silent and unresponsive to the health emergency. And it wasn't until September 1985, four years after the crisis began, that President Ronald Reagan first publicly mentioned AIDS.

But by then, AIDS was already a full-blown epidemic.

The conservatives labeled it “The gay disease” but the thing is all diseases do not care if you are liberal or conservative they attack everyone equally.

Health officials first became aware of AIDS in the summer of 1981. Young and otherwise healthy gay men in Los Angeles and New York began getting sick and dying of unusual illnesses normally associated with people with weakened immune systems.

It didn't take long for fear of the "gay plague" to spread quickly among the gay community. Beyond the mortal danger from the disease, they also dealt with potentially being "outed" as homosexual if they had AIDS or an illness resembling it.

Sound familiar?

The conservatives labeled Monkeypox the same because the first cases happened on the LGBTQ+ community.

"The inadequate funding to date has seriously restricted our work and has presumably deepened the invasion of this disease into the American population," a CDC staffer wrote in an April 12, 1983 memo to Dr. Walter Dowdle, Assistant Director of CDC at the time. "In addition, the time wasted pursuing money from Washington has cast an air of despair over AIDS workers throughout the country."

Again history repeated itself with COVID Trump tried to ignore COVID calling it the “Asian Disease” see a pattern here?

On September 17, 1985, President Reagan finally mentioned AIDS publicly when responding to a reporter's question. He called it a "top priority" and defended his administration's response and research funding. On October 2, Congress allocated nearly $190 million for AIDS research—$70 million more than the administration's request.

That same day, actor Rock Hudson, Reagan's close personal friend, died from AIDS, dragging the disease into the public's eye. In 1986, reports from the Institute of Medicine/National Academy of Science and Reagan’s Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop, advocated for a coordinated response to AIDS.

Ditto with COVID, at first Trump said don’t worry about it…

• “We pretty much shut it down coming in from China.”
• “I think the virus is going to be—it’s going to be fine.”
• “Looks like by April, you know in theory when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.”
• “The Coronavirus is very much under control in the USA… the Stock Market starting to look very good to me!”
• “The 15 (cases in the US) within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero.”

And we all know that it didn’t.

Diseases never go away, our flu shot that we get every year is from the 1918 Flu, it is still with us today and COVID will be with us for the rest of history. The same with AIDS it will be with us for ever and ever.

Right now Florida is the worst state with new AIDS cases it is 39.1 per 100k with Georgia at 21.5 per 100k and Louisiana is at 20.9 per 100k. Connecticut comes in at 7.2 per 100k.

The budget has been increasing under President Biden but it was cut under Trump.

Trump's Budget Cuts Millions In Funds To HIV/AIDS Programs -- Again
“It’s all part of Trump’s attacks on marginalized communities,” said an LGBTQ advocate.
HuffPost
By Sarah Ruiz-Grossman
February 15, 2018


President Donald Trump’s proposed budget cuts funding to programs tackling HIV/AIDS in the United States ― again.

In Trump’s budget for fiscal year 2019, the administration proposed cutting millions of dollars for programs helping to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS in the U.S. The reductions included cutting $40 million from the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s HIV/AIDS prevention programs, and $26 million from the federal housing program for people living with AIDS, among other cuts, according to nonprofit advocacy group The AIDS Institute.

The proposed cuts to HIV/AIDS programs echo similar cuts in Trump’s previous budget ― though the latest proposal is significantly less severe.

While for us...

• Transgender people accounted for approximately 2% (635) of the 30,635 new HIV diagnoses in 2020.
• Transgender women accounted for 2% (638) of new diagnoses.
• Transgender men accounted for less than 1% (40) of new diagnoses.
• By age, in 2020, the largest percentage (28%) of diagnoses of HIV infection among transgender persons was for transgender women aged 25-29 years, followed by transgender women aged 20-24 years (21%).

AIDS is still out there in the wild… be safe, take precautions!

***

I didn't come out until the 2000s, but the AIDS epidemic is part of our history and it infected many in our community and brought out the good in our community, it is not a "gay disease" but an equal opportunity infector. There were many angles in the lesbian community who came out to help their gay brothers and trans sisters in their time of need.

If you are trans and have come out since then you should learn of not only the history of the HIV/AIDS epidemic but also the history of the trans community. Of the Cooper's Donuts Riot, of the Dewey’s Lunch Counter Protest, of the L.A.’s Black Cat, and of the Compton Cafeteria uprising which all took place long before the Stonewall Uprising. We have been "Gay Washed" out of history and as a trans person you should know those who struggled before to make our lives possible.

I wrote about them here, Before Stonewall, Before... and here Why Our History Is Important

It Is Out There!

The right-wing conspiracy theorists are already stirring up the hate against us (There is that word again, so tell is it justified?). I was on a Zoom meeting yesterday on Monkeypox (The say they are going to change the name but everyone still uses it.) and one of the people on the meeting was from the ADL and he posted this like from their website blog,

Right Wing Lies About Monkeypox Target LGBTQ+ Community
From: Center on Extremism
August 8, 2022


Right wing public figures, notably U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (GA), are sharing homophobic and potentially dangerous lies about the transmission of the monkeypox virus. These false narratives, which paint the LGBTQ+ community as child predators, put that community at significant risk. They are also easily debunked.  

Background 

On July 22, 2022, CDC director Dr. Rochelle Walensky was interviewed on Washington Post Live to discuss the current state of COVID and other public health issues. During the broadcast, she noted that two children had contracted monkeypox – both of whom could be “traced back to individuals who come from the men-who-have-sex-with-men community.”  

On July 23, 2022, the World Health Organization declared monkeypox a global health emergency. Later that day at 6:22 pm, Marjorie Taylor Greene shared Walensky's segment about monkeypox in children on several of her social media pages with the caption, “If Monkeypox is a sexually transmitted disease, why are kids getting it?” 

[…]

Greene’s post, however, gave the conspiratorial and bigoted theories additional oxygen – and reach. 

By the evening of July 25, 2022, the content had appeared verbatim on 8kun’s Q Research board, TheDonald, GreatAwakening.win, and Telegram (including an official Philippines-based Proud Boys channel).

So do you think that justifies using the word “hate?”

Despite these efforts, the heightened focus on monkeypox being transmitted through sexual contact has been used by extremists in conjunction with homophobic slurs and demonization of gay men, as seen in a white supremacist group’s Telegram post from May 21, 2022. In this post, a forwarded message containing vulgar slurs suggested that “as many gays as possible should get together to contract monkeypox”, conflating the transmission of the virus with pride activities:

On July 28, 2022, another post shared in a QAnon-centric Telegram channel included an article alleging that the mainstream media are distorting the narratives surrounding monkeypox in an effort "to hide the epidemic of pedophilia and grooming plaguing America”. 

How about now?

The rhetoric coming out of the Republican party is getting deadly, there is going to be violence at some LGBTQ+ event.

Monkeypox-fueled hate echoes the HIV/AIDS era, even in rainbow cities
Washington Post
By Petula Dvorak Columnist
August 18, 2022<


It was a sunny day last week when it finally happened, the thing Jay had left his small, conservative hometown in the South to avoid — hate.

He came here to be his full self. But it was the pink mask and Birkenstock sandals the man singled out as he verbally assaulted the 31-year-old on the Yellow Line last week, using slurs targeting gay people, ranting about monkeypox and advancing into Jay’s personal space as the train stopped in a tunnel.

It’s “people like you that can’t stop going to orgies getting the rest of us killed,” the guy screamed into Jay’s face, as Jay balanced his Trader Joe’s grocery bag and tried to keep his composure.

Jay got off at the next stop, and the man who raged at him didn’t follow. But the man’s hatred — and the silence of others in the Metro car and on the platform after he left the scene — is jarring in a nation where same-sex marriage is legal but discrimination against someone based on who they love is not.

For many in the community they have never had to confront this hatred, for the old-timers this in nothing new, they lived through the violence and hatred of the AIDS/HIV epidemic and the hatred of gays. The San Francisco Gate had this to say about back then,

A significant source of Reagan's support came from the newly identified religious right and the Moral Majority, a political-action group founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell. AIDS became the tool, and gay men the target, for the politics of fear, hate and discrimination. Falwell said "AIDS is the wrath of God upon homosexuals." Reagan's communications director Pat Buchanan argued that AIDS is "nature's revenge on gay men."

With each passing month, death and suffering increased at a frightening rate. Scientists, researchers and health care professionals at every level expressed the need for funding. The response of the Reagan administration was indifference.

And now we are seeing the Republicans once again stirring up the hate and to add gas to the fire are the social network's conspiracy theorist are spreading the lie. Now we see white supremacist marching in the streets of Boston. Now we see Pride events and Drag Queen's Story Hours coming under threats. 

And people tell me that I am over reacting about the dangers.

As one person in yesterday’s meet said, it could have started in any community. It is just that one person attended the wrong party.

---

Another Court Victory.

And another court case that will be going to the Supreme Court!

Court: Arkansas can’t ban treatment of transgender kids

AP News

By Andrew DeMillo

August 25, 2022

 A federal appeals court on Thursday said Arkansas can’t enforce its ban on transgender children receiving gender-affirming medical care.

A three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a judge’s ruling temporarily blocking the state from enforcing the 2021 law. A trial is scheduled for October before the same judge on whether to permanently block the law.

Arkansas was the first state to enact such a ban, which prohibits doctors from providing gender-confirming hormone treatment, puberty blockers or surgery to anyone under 18 years old, or from referring them to other providers for the treatment. There are no doctors who perform gender-affirming surgery on minors in the state.

“Because the minor’s sex at birth determines whether or not the minor can receive certain types of medical care under the law, Act 626 discriminates on the basis of sex,” the court’s ruling Thursday said.

[…]

“The Eighth Circuit was abundantly clear that the state’s ban on care does not advance any important governmental interest and the state’s defense of the law is lacking in legal or evidentiary support,” Chase Strangio, deputy director for Transgender Justice at the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, said in a statement. “The state has no business categorically singling out this care for prohibition.”

Now we will see this going to the Supreme Court mainly I think because other appeal judges have okayed the ban and that will mean the cases will proceed up the chain of courts.

A federal judge in May blocked a similar law in Alabama. A Tennessee ban that was enacted last year on transgender treatments for youth, which is limited to providing gender-confirming hormone treatment to prepubescent minors, remains in effect.

~~~~~~

 It seems to me that the Republicans are trying to force down on everyone some weird version of 1950 “Father Knows Best” morality. They are trying to live a Norman Rockwell painting, a little white church with the father in a suit, the mother in a dress with heels, a boy, a girl in a dress with Mary Jane’s on bobby socks, and their dog spot.

Dumb, And Dumber.

As we all know from COVID disease doesn’t care about your politics, who you love, how you identify, or the color of your skin; it is an equal opportunity infection. 

This morning I wrote about the far-right attempt to cut our health insurance but it goes a lot deeper that that, they also want to deny us the medications needed to prevent the spread of diseases.

The conservative are trying to label Monkeypox as another “gay” disease but it is spreading through the whole population, it just came to America in the gay community first. Now the right-wing born-again’s are resurrecting their bigotry on those with HIV/AIDS.

Far-Right's 'Morality War' Now Has Its Sights Set on PrEP Access
Plus via Yahoo
By Christopher Wiggins
August 23, 2022


The right-wing movement is really having a moment right now, from stripping the federal right to abortion to the prohibition of gender-affirming care in some states. Now, in the shadow of Roe v. Wade being overturned in June, the architect of a controversial Texas abortion law — a man who has already targeted marriage equality — is setting his sights on preventative HIV care. If he gets his way, Texans and other Americans could lose access to PrEP, leaving tens of thousands susceptible to a diagnosis and opening the door to the denial of HIV care.

[...]

Mitchell now represents several clients who oppose the Affordable Care Act’s mandate that insurance companies cover PrEP medications, among other things, in Braidwood Management v. Becerra, filed in federal court in the northern district of Texas in 2020.

You see in their any sex outside of marriage is a sin so therefore PrEP is an evil drug in that it promotes “gay sex” and sex outside of marriage.

“The PrEP mandate forces religious employers to provide coverage for drugs that facilitate and encourage homosexual behavior, prostitution, sexual promiscuity, and intravenous drug use,” the lawsuit says. Furthermore, the law requires religious employers and religious individuals who purchase health insurance to subsidize these behaviors to obtain health insurance, Mitchell argues.

Diseases is an equal opportunity infector, given a chance it will infect everyone!

If HIV/AIDS is no longer being control it will spread like wildfire through out the entire population!

But these people are on a mission from god! To wipe out all the gays*!

They have handed picked the court that they have filed in because the court is anti-LGBTQ+.

Caraballo warns that the circuit in which Mitchell filed the lawsuit and the case’s presiding judge, Reed O’Connor, — appointed by George W. Bush — are no friends of the LGBTQ+ community.

“When it comes to this kind of lawsuit, you have to know the context of where it’s filed,” Caraballo says. “[Conservative attorneys] know how to game the system to get particular judges like...Reed O’Connor.”

A coalition of conservative groups sued the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to allow them to discriminate based on religious grounds, and O’Connor ruled in 2021 that they could proceed. This was despite the Supreme Court extending employment protections for LGBTQ+ people a year earlier. O’Connor struck down Obama-era health insurance protections for LGBTQ+ people and ruled the Affordable Care Act was unconstitutional (the Supreme Court later reversed O’Connor’s rulings).

“You can file in a certain office, and you can get guaranteed a judge — and those judges have been stacked — that isn’t just conservative; these judges are reactionary,” Caraballo says. “So [lawyers] can be explicitly homophobic in their complaint and say, ‘Hey, this is our religious belief.’”

Caraballo notes that because PrEP isn’t just for LGBTQ+ people but for anyone at risk of HIV, the arguments “plainly fail.”

This is going all the way to the Supreme Court and the way the Republicans has packed the court system with Christian judges it is a crap shoot! I also foresee them attacking the free Monkeypox vaccines the same way.

If they win I foresee HIV/AIDS becoming wild again!

We Know The Answer.

It is the same reason that other marginalized communities have higher HIV risks… discrimination. It affects marginalized community is because of lack of jobs paying a living wage.

What to know about HIV risk among transgender women
Medical News Today
August 9, 2021


Evidence from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) highlights that transgender women are at a particularly high risk for HIV infection and HIV is prevalent in this population.

While simple interventions that can help to greatly reduce the spread of HIV and save lives are available, barriers such as health inequities often prevent transgender women from receiving the help and treatment they require. A variety of factors, such as discrimination, economic vulnerability, and a lack of support, typically affects the access they may have to healthcare and HIV services.

This article will discuss why transgender women are at higher risk and suggest prevention tips. It will also discuss potential barriers for support and how transgender women may access HIV treatment.

I think that we know already what the underlining causes are…

Stigma
Transgender women disproportionately experience societal stigma and bias compared with their cisgender peers. This can also include health insurance policies that are not transgender-inclusive, which can prevent transgender women from seeking adequate medical care.

The stigmatization of transgender individuals can produce discrimination at structural, interpersonal, and individual levels. This can then also increase the vulnerability of transgender women to HIV.

Discrimination
Racism and discrimination may increase the risk of HIV transmission. A 2015 study found that ethnic minority transgender women were more likely to experience racial discrimination compared with white transgender women.

Discriminatory healthcare professionals can also deter transgender women from seeking medical advice and can act as a barrier to HIV prevention. This may also result in some people seeking treatments from unlicensed professionals, which could lead to reuse or sharing of needles and potential exposure through nonsterile medical equipment.

Economic vulnerability
Issues related to an individual’s economic standing, such as access to healthcare, employment, and housing, can increase the risk of HIV in transgender women.

The National LGBTQ Task Force notes that transgender workers report unemployment at double the rate of the population as a whole. It also notes that transgender workers are at greater risk of unemployment and poverty.

Which results in more trans people being forced to make their living from the street…

Sex work
Transgender women may rely on sex work, due to the stigma and discrimination from employers in the traditional labor market. Transgender women may also participate in behaviors that can increase the risk of exposure to HIV during sex work, such as unprotected anal sex.

And that in turn leads to...

Drug use
Low self-esteem
Lack of support

It is a vicious downward spiral. Lack of employment due to discrimination > Sex work > Low self-esteem > Drug use > Lack of healthcare > Debilitating diseases.

It can be broken at any point along the chain by,

• Strong non-discrimination laws,
• Strong support networks,
• Access to detox centers,
• Access to healthcare.

But back in the eighties HIV/AIDS was politicized (Hmm, didn’t we just hear that about some other virus? Oh, yeah… COVID-19) and they didn’t want to fund research or prevention because it was a “Gay man’s disease.” Back then we heard “I’m straight and don’t visit prostitutes and I don’t want to fund these deviant “lifestyles.” But the thing is viruses are not political, they are an equal opportunity virus. Maybe he doesn’t sleep with sex workers but the girl at the bar he picked up slept with a guy who did.

We may think that I don’t have to worry about STDs and STIs but many of our trans sisters and trans brothers do and we should care about them.

Federal funding for Ryan White programs has just about stayed the same for the last eight years while cost have gone up. I find it distasteful is that Congress named the funding after Ryan White who was a hemophiliac and got AIDS through a blood transfusion, they couldn’t bring themselves to name it after a gay man because of bigotry.

So the bottom-line we should always take proper precautions and help break down barriers to healthcare because viruses don’t care of our political beliefs.