#Act up

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

New York City: Rise Up for Trans Youth!

Saturday, February 8 - 1:00 p.m.

Union Square, 14th Street & Broadway, Manhattan

RISE UP FOR TRANS YOUTH! Show UP and show OUT this Saturday at Union Square at 1PM. Be in solidarity with trans youth, their families, educators, and medical professionals providing life-saving healthcare. Get connected to organizations like Transformative Schools, ACT UP NY, & Gender Liberation Movement mobilizing and supporting families and trans youth.

Hospitals NYU Langone, New York Presbyterian, and Mt. Sinai (across from union square) are preemptively cancelling appointments for young trans people. This is against NY State Law and against their oaths to do no harm. Show up and demand they reverse their decision immediately!

Have questions? Want to endorse? Email info@genderlib.org

[thoughtportal]

Act Up

[whatevergreen]

LGBTQ+, ACT UP protests in New York City, late 1980s to 1990s

[liminalweirdo]

"We all deserve the right to protect and keep ourselves safe. Implementing a mask ban is not only an infringement on our human rights but also extremely ableist and inconsiderate of those disabled or immunocompromised.

. . .

About 1 in 5 adult New Yorkers have a disability. If a mask ban were to be implemented, spaces such as stores and restaurants might ban masking or set up mask-removal policy. That’s 1 in 5 adults no longer able to shop in public along with others, or participate in gatherings.

Forcing immunocompromised people to remove their face masks would likely violate the federal Americans with Disabilities Act and the New York State Human Rights Law. As a member of ACT UP NY, it’s always my goal to fight for human rights such as healthcare.

Those that are HIV+ are 8% more likely to be hospitalized due to COVlD than those that aren’t and are also at an increased risk of developing Long COVlD.

Masking SAVES LIVES. Masking is community care.”

Behind the Powecom KN95 is Serita @_seritasargent_ and her friend Bri’anna @lanoirede.jpg holding the #StopMaskBans sign.

MaskTogetherAmerica encourages everyone to speak up and write to elected officials to demand they oppose the anti-mask bills S9867/A10057 and S9194! We need to defend our right to masks.

[commiepinkofag]

Outrage! sticker, 1991

[elierlick]

What’s the real story behind “outside agitators?” Joe Biden, the NYPD, and others have been slandering anti-genocide activists with the phrase since protests began in 2023. I did a deep dive into its history via news and book archives. The term is actually much older than you might think.

The concept of "outside agitators" gained prominence to defend slavery during the Bleeding Kansas conflict of the 1850s. The fight broke out over whether to admit Kansas as a free or slave state. White supremacists claimed abolitionists were “outside agitators” and “anti-slavery squatters” (see the 3rd image). After the North won the Civil War, racist Southerners then accused progressive “outside agitators” of “deluding” the newly freed Black population into believing they were equal to whites (4th image).

The term spiked again in the early 1900s during the fights for suffrage and unions (5th-6th images). Unionists found the accusation ridiculous. Working people don’t need to be union members to participate in supporting them!

The term gained prominence again in the 1960s to defend segregation, reaching a peak in 1969. It became so prevalent that the left began to make fun of Southerners using it so often (7th image). Devout racists, including President Truman and Alabama Governor John Patterson, even called the most respectable protesters “outside agitators.”

When my friends and I were called “outside agitators” at Columbia by our mayor Eric Adams, he wasn’t entirely wrong. We weren’t students and we were there to agitate as Jews for Palestinian liberation. We are invested in our communities and want institutions in our city to reject genocide. Is that a morally harmful position to take? Or is it necessary to ensure disclosure, divestment, and amnesty for students?

They call us "outside agitators" because they know we will win. And after the dust settles, even the most milquetoast liberals will tease those declaring protesters "paid," "ignorant," or "dishonest." It wasn't outside agitators who won suffrage, unions, or healthcare, after all. It was the people.

[your-resident-boat-person]

I need everyone who sees this post to do me a favor. If you are in any way, shape or form a member of the LBGTQIA+ community, know someone who is a member of the community, or are an ally in some way, watch a documentary called "How to Survive a Plague". It's about the aids crisis. It will be one of the most important things you've ever watched.

In college, I had a Queer Theory class, and one of the first things we did was watch this. I was 21 years old at the time. At the time, I was just bisexual, but now I'm also trans. I was SHOCKED that as a member of the community, I had never known how bad it was. If you got diagnosed, you had 2 years to live. That's it. People were in the streets fighting and protesting and LITERALLY using their bodies as weapons. The government ignored the aids crisis on purpose. They were trying to kill us. First, Reagan, then Bush. People think I'm exaggerating when I say it was like a fucking war. If the documentary got their numbers right, and I'm remembering correctly, by 1996, 8 MILLION PEOPLE died from aids. People were dropping left and right. The people that made it have fucking survivors guilt. By the time the documentary came out, an estimated 6 million lives had been saved thanks to the medicine that WE fought for. Someone in the documentary says that he thinks that THAT medicine is the single greatest accomplishment our community can lay claim to, and I'm inclined to agree. This may be wishful thinking, but I think this documentary may be able to knock the exclusionism out of anyone who watches it. These were our brothers and sisters out there, literally dying for this cause. One of my favorite protests that they showed was people lined up outside the White House lawn, dumping the ashes of their loved ones who had died of aids all over the White House lawn. Seeing these frail old women out there who had lost their sons and daughters fighting on the front lines with us makes me violently sob every time I watch this documentary. These grieving mothers were standing with us. The pointless bickering and infighting I see in the community today sickens me. It is important to me that we all know what we fought for. It is important to me that we know how much we lost. It is important to me that we know how hard we fought.

Again, it's called called "How to Survive a Plague". It's on tons of streaming services, many of which are free, and there are "other ways" you can watch it if you catch my drift. I watched it here on Pluto TV, completely free:

It's also available on Tubi, AMC+, PLEX, YouTube, Sling TV, and Amazon prime video.

[magicfemme]

“Still loved."

AIDS QUILT SERIES | VIEW THE QUILT

[yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere]

as a queer person #FellowTravelers already means a lot, but THIS episode8-finale ep-ending scene? this scene means absolutely the world, it's everything, for all of us.🌈

can't watch it without sobbing.

(please do check the WHOLE post, and watch How to Survive a Plague 2012, it's a MUST watch (+everything you spot in this post)

+important reading about AIDS/HIV: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/139102124?shelf=about-aids-hiv

+ a special episode where we hear(literally) from listeners of the show who were lovers, nurses, relatives, students, and friends of people who died from AIDS. (have tissues nearby):https://open.spotify.com/episode/4rTjExVqMVoEtCVPISSW5t?si=Dx09EVStQAiNHoTYvwZvFw & https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-a-bit-fruity-with-matt-ber-117844074/episode/stories-from-the-aids-crisis-191687576/ +ofc THIS ep w Peter Staley :https://open.spotify.com/episode/1bpmgbS56oqjpLdhFqPhFQ?si=PKVw0V_MRx-ajGmVF-GM4Q (this ep of the podcast vid on ytube link below in the post(also ep on iheart link below as well!)

.https://yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere.tumblr.com/post/774106565074731008 &https://www.tumblr.com/yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere/774106565074731008?source=share &https://www.tumblr.com/our-queer-experience/774047280444702720/source &https://www.tumblr.com/our-queer-experience/774047280444702720/source?source=share +https://www.tumblr.com/avesseloflanguage/774266385160355840 &https://www.tumblr.com/teaboot/774248223494848512/they-turned-it-inyo-a-different-fucking-piece-like &https://www.tumblr.com/avesseloflanguage/774266385160355840?source=share +https://www.tumblr.com/deuterosapiens/774258045319528448/if-this-doesnt-piss-you-off-this-should-piss-you &https://www.tumblr.com/deuterosapiens/774258045319528448/if-this-doesnt-piss-you-off-this-should-piss-you?source=share +https://www.tumblr.com/our-queer-experience/774337057815511040/boykeats-queerembraces-i-cried-the-first-time-i & https://yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere.tumblr.com/post/757306028817809408 ,https://www.tumblr.com/yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere/757306028817809408?source=share &https://yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere.tumblr.com/post/757306086676168704/nobrashfestivity-david-wojnarowicz1988 ,https://www.tumblr.com/yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere/757306086676168704/nobrashfestivity-david-wojnarowicz1988?source=share &https://yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere.tumblr.com/post/757305994597580800 ,https://www.tumblr.com/yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere/757305994597580800?source=share &https://yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere.tumblr.com/post/757305744641212416 ,https://www.tumblr.com/yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere/757305744641212416?source=share

(+IMPORTANT) (Nov,2023)-A Bit Fruity Podcast (created by Matt Bernstein (gay American Jewish man) Ep with Moe Dabbagh, a gay Palestinian American with family currently in Gaza. ‘Queers for Palestine & The Power of Pinkwashing’. Palestine has been occupied for more than 76 years now, since 1948 year. This ep gives you a LOT of information, especially if you are one of the people who can’t see right through the propaganda; or the ones who go ‘well if you’re gay then go to Gaza and see how that goes for you’. Queer Liberation is a liberation of Palestinian people. We can’t have one without the other. Free Palestine. Free all the people that are not yet free. This is where we start!! Ep on youtube :https://youtu.be/Xsgdk-DDSXc on spotify :https://open.spotify.com/episode/62WOjKJYih6lhuisP8tmZH?si=soRArGs1QeWqEzEaiSVlUg on iheartcom:https://www.iheart.com/podcast/269-a-bit-fruity-with-matt-ber-117844074/episode/queer-palestinians-the-power-of-129612460/(keep learning & keep showing up!)

!!.http://alqaws.org/siteEn/index & https://queersinpalestine.noblogs.org/ + https://www.instagram.com/queersinpalestine/

-sometimes i think about gay people who lived centuries ago who thought they were all alone who imagined a world where they could live openly as themselves who met in secret spoke in code defied everything and everyone just to exist and i’m like..i gotta sit down. whew i gotta sit down....THIS POST:https://www.tumblr.com/yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere/764660637347561472/katherinebarlow-phantom-tail-mortuarybees?source=share

+ also queer history/facts from RWRB(Alex engaging with queer history)(thank you SO. MUCH. CASEY MCQUISTON!!)-GREAT POST here on tumblr!!-many links here, lots of information! (Waterloo Vase, Stonewall, SCOTUS decision 2015, Walt Whitman, Laws of Illinois 1961, The White Nights Riots, Paris Is Burning, THAT David Wojnarowicz photo 'If I Die Of AIDS-Forget Burial-Just Drop My Body On The Steps Of The F.D.A' https://www.tumblr.com/yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere/757305651356729344?source=share (I encourage you to research more about David!!) , Thisbe & Pyramus, The V & A, James I & George Villiers and MORE!!) https://www.tumblr.com/yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere/757308307835895808?source=share (Learning about things referenced in Red, White & Royal Blue, thank you @ elipheleh)

+ https://www.tumblr.com/yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere/743725164968214528?source=share

+ https://yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere.tumblr.com/post/746941244472786944/so-alright-here-are-the-moviesmedia-that-make

BOOKS TO LEARN MORE ABOUT BISEXUAL HISTORY & ACTIVISM:https://www.tumblr.com/ruimtetijd/686000390089621504/list-of-books-about-bi-history-and-activism-from &https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/139102124?shelf=bi-bisexual-characters-done-well &https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Q--nIkJu0OS0BgiyZmdKVwOVg1G90SFzWijNDWFTt58/edit#heading=h.wqkaxpi7o5je

.https://anythingthatmovesarchive.carrd.co/ &https://anythingthatmovesarchive.carrd.co/#scans &https://anythingthatmovesarchive.carrd.co/#about

+ https://www.queeringthemap.com/

+ https://www.aidsmemorial.org/interactive-aids-quilt

+ https://www.tumblr.com/yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere/752340111366160384/this?source=share

+Thank You Howard Ashman, I love you forever, so many of us are here and sane because of Your legacy and impact.(DISNEY-QUEER SONGS-MUSIC-POST):https://www.tumblr.com/yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere/753605532240216064/howard-ashman-i-love-you-forever-so-many-of-us?source=share &https://www.tumblr.com/yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere/754612616112046080?source=share

about Howard, about AIDS, listen to the song 'Sheridan Square' if you haven't yet, Howard wrote it with Alan Menken. And yes, it makes me sob every single time i hear it: .https://open.spotify.com/track/5p61V1pNfa4qoZIxm6apex?si=a32ca6011ab44782 &https://youtu.be/-4fr8JGkeO4 &https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97-NzeIkkJI&list=OLAK5uy_l7U2qdUmOPfgWwmsCA0cc_-KDxwjMj5zM +Learn more :https://stanforddaily.com/2019/06/05/sheridan-square/ & please research more about Howard, there's a lot of Him in THIS IMPORTANT post because we, queer people, owe him so so much.

♥.https://open.spotify.com/playlist/19uKl8PZixNjsMBBqSP1bf?si=e6186d9a0a824679 &https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0X8DlZ8X0q9Pzvqq857XlV?si=fa85b32666b94e74 &https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6vdBgNpWvIwjCLD2JrJwxj?si=3274258c86f842

.https://www.tumblr.com/yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere/768931499443699712/historium-second-national-march-on-washington?source=share &https://www.tumblr.com/yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere/768929949815128064?source=share &https://www.tumblr.com/yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere/768929469101686784?source=share

+ :

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by matt bernstein (@mattxiv)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by matt bernstein (@mattxiv)

+ https://twitter.com/beames_josh/status/1500938296209199108 + https://twitter.com/beames_josh/status/1500935379154657281

+once you're here check out this important post(s):

bi ig highlight : https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/18280848235083086/

also i recommend this podcast ‘A Little Queer Podcast’ by two incredible bisexual people Capri Campeau and Ashley Whitfield. episode linked here, ‘Debunking Bisexual Myths and Stereotypes’ :https://open.spotify.com/episode/3wcP8HBIY0IyVxROjpZPNg?si=TIHDv-eFQi-mdsCS6zKzNA (all covered here for real!) +also check ‘A Bit Fruity Podcast’ by Matt Bernstein (very educating one!!) + Bisexual Brunch Podcast (UK) by 3 bisexual people, 2 men and 1 woman! here:https://open.spotify.com/show/3tH2DAjYrk2cXdYRSqt5nS?si=2ae6bb60b1534366

let’s talk about biphobia/Kit Connor (Max Hovey TikTok) important video:https://www.tumblr.com/yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere/770851818143186944?source=share +Bisexuality has never excluded trans and non-binary people. Please stop spreading this lie. It actively harms trans/n-b bi people and bi people with trans/n-b partners. STOP BI ERASURE :https://www.tumblr.com/yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere/770848612526735360?source=share + WHAT IS BISEXUAL ERASURE:https://www.tumblr.com/yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere/770848534830399488?source=share+ ‘ANYTHING THAT MOVES’ ATM 90s Bisexual Magazine is Shockingly Relevant Today--- Despite the joy of reading this bi-centric work, however, it's telling how little has changed since 1991--The first several stanzas of "This Poem Can Be Put Off No Longer" by Susan Carlton, featured in the first issue of 'Anything That Moves.' Credit: Anything That Moves / The poem continues, but the point is clear from the start: Bisexual people aren't believed for who they are. They're belittled and told to "choose a side," that they're bisexual for attention. It's difficult to think that this poem is over 30 years old. The poem "truly could've been written yesterday... or 50 years ago," said Marshall. "How long do we have to keep screaming the same things to the world over and over until people stop pretending we're speaking another galaxy's language?" --- The solace of Anything That Moves, however, is that even though progress has been slow, fellow bisexual people can relate to the shared experience detailed in its pages.:https://www.tumblr.com/yourartmatters-itswhatgotmehere/770848263124500480?source=share

[dandyads]

ACT UP NY, 1989

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our archive

A lot of good sources linked in the original article!

By Bruce Mirken

As the dangers of Long COVID become more recognized, the country's going backwards on preventing new infections.

While I’m far from the only person worried about Long COVID and our society’s general inclination to look away and pretend it’s not there, people like me certainly feel badly outnumbered. It’s beginning to feel reminiscent of how people with AIDS and their loved ones felt circa 1986—and maybe it’s time for the same kind of response.

For those of you lucky enough not to have lived through that era, by the end of 1986, AIDS had killed nearly 25,000 Americans, but president Ronald Reagan had yet to speak the word “AIDS.” His press secretary had joked about it and the White House press corps laughed. While individual scientists were doing important work, the bureaucracies running the NIH and FDA seemed very much to be in business-as-usual mode. Because the casualties had largely been gay men and injection drug users, it seemed like no one with any power cared whether we lived or died.

So, a group of New Yorkers – mostly gay men – decided it was time to start raising hell. Calling themselves ACT UP, they disrupted the New York Stock Exchange and, as chapters sprang up nationwide, they staged protests that shut down the FDA and NIH. Eventually, people like Anthony Fauci began to see they had a point. I joined the Los Angeles ACT UP chapter in 1988 and ended up getting arrested half a dozen times in protests at the LA federal building, the County Board of Supervisors and the U.S. Capitol, among others. We won major improvements in HIV/AIDS care in the Los Angeles County health system, which cared for thousands of people with AIDS who had no health insurance. When I landed in San Francisco in 1993, I connected with ACT UP Golden Gate.

Here I am (with my late boyfriend Tim at the left) at one of the protests in that L.A County healthcare campaign. Most of my closest friends from that era have been dead for decades.

I get that COVID has played out very differently than HIV/AIDS. AIDS ramped up slowly and seemed not to affect “normal” people until it killed closeted gay movie and TV star Rock Hudson in 1985, and even then officials largely looked the other way. Only scientific breakthroughs in the 1990s finally stemmed the tide of death. In contrast, the much more highly transmissible SARS-CoV-2 virus came on fast and furious, turning Americans’ lives upside-down almost immediately.

But now, we’ve arrived at what seems in some ways like an eerily similar place. When needed precautions to curb a highly infectious airborne virus spurred frustration and political pushback, officials largely threw up their hands and gave up. Even measures that don’t involve mandates or restrictions on behavior have mostly either been dropped or never happened in the first place.

LONG COVID’S GROWING TOLL

Unfortunately, the virus hasn’t gone away, even if the initial wave of mass death has receded. In August, as a summer surge peaked, US COVID-19 deaths exceeded 1,000 per week, though the latest September data suggests the numbers have begun declining toward pre-surge levels, when deaths were generally in the 300-400 per week range. That’s still equal to a 9/11 every eight to 10 days. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracking of SARS-CoV-2 levels in wastewater—probably the best data on US viral prevalence now that cases aren’t being reliably tracked—showed 15 states with “very high” levels and another 19 rated as “high” as of Sept. 19.

But COVID is not just a matter of cases and deaths. The disease’s long-term effects have disabled millions of Americans, and the numbers keep growing with each new wave of infection. An updated review published in Nature Medicine puts the current global number of Long COVID sufferers at 400 million and estimates the worldwide economic impact at a staggering $1 trillion.

We now have plenty of people experiencing repeated SARS-CoV-2 infections. The good news, if you can call it that, is that these reinfections may produce fewer new cases of Long Covid than a person’s first infection – but they absolutely produce some, and the Omicron variants circulating in the last year or two seem to produce more Long Covid than earlier viral varieties. Every time you get COVID, you roll the dice with your health – maybe for the rest of your life.

If I sound alarmed, well, I am. As longtime readers may know, I have some first-hand experience with Long COVID, though in milder form than many experience. My January 2022 infection left me with peripheral neuropathy—painful nerve damage—in my legs and feet. It’s incurable and nearly impossible to treat, as conventional pain drugs don’t help. I will likely never live another day without pain and walking more than six or seven blocks at a stretch is a struggle. I used to enjoy hiking, but will probably never do it again. Still, I don’t have the more debilitating symptoms like crushing fatigue or dysautonomia—disruption of the part of the nervous system that controls automatic functions like heartbeat, blood pressure, digestion and breathing—that afflict some Long COVID sufferers. Lots of people have it way worse than I do.

We know that COVID can have lasting impacts on many parts of the body, including the brain. A recent study of 52 COVID survivors—about half with mild to moderate initial illness and half with more severe disease—found that compared to healthy controls, both groups “had a significantly higher score of cognitive complaints involving cognitive failure and mental fatigue” 27 months after their original illness, with no significant difference based on the severity of that initial illness. On a series of tests, researchers found “changes in brain function” that may explain the reported problems.

Just as scary, a study of people aged 65 and up just published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease reports that “people with COVID were at significantly increased risk for new diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease within 360 days after the initial COVID diagnosis.” This review of the medical records of over six million patients found that the risk escalated with advancing age. As with many of these long-term impacts, the mechanisms involved remain unclear.

Survivors of an initial SARS-CoV-2 infection also have increased rates of high blood pressure, now documented in multiple studies. High blood pressure increases your risk of deadly cardiovascular complications like heart attack and stroke.

I can’t help but wonder whether these issues have affected me, but there’s no way to be sure. My blood pressure, well-controlled for a dozen years with a very low dose of medication, began ratcheting upward about a year and a half ago, necessitating three medication adjustments since then. I’m also definitely more forgetful than I was, mostly little things like walking into a room and forgetting why I went there. But those things can happen to older people with or without COVID, and it’s hard to know cause-and-effect in a given individual.

But I sure as hell know I don’t want to get this virus again and risk these and other issues getting worse. Unfortunately, avoiding it is getting harder by the day, and neither government at any level nor public health authorities seem to care.

PREVENTION? WHAT PREVENTION?

While there’s some evidence that the antiviral drug Paxlovid can reduce the likelihood of Long COVID if administered early enough, the results so far are mixed and not overwhelming. The best way to avoid Long COVID is to not get infected in the first place. As a society, we’ve pretty much stopped trying.

The government is still encouraging vaccination, as it should. But it’s been clear for some time that while the vaccines are very good at reducing the chance of severe illness and death if you get infected, they offer only limited protection against getting infected in the first place. “Vax and relax” can prevent mass death, but it can’t prevent mass infection and an ever-growing number of cases of Long COVID, even if most people get vaccinated. And vaccination rates have been declining for a while, with a new Ohio State University survey reporting that only 43% of U.S. adults have gotten or plan to get the new COVID-19 shot.

And in a bit of absolute madness, Florida’s Ron DeSantis-appointed Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo has actually advised against use of the newly updated mRNA vaccines. In a post on Mastodon, Yale epidemiologist Gregg Gonsalves called this “beyond irresponsible. It is malpractice.”

Ladapo is an outlier, but even his saner colleagues around the country downplay the fact that we don’t have to limit ourselves to vaccination. It’s an airborne virus, so there are two main ways to stop it from spreading: 1) Get the virus out of the air, or at least reduce its concentration to a very low level, and 2) Protect yourself from breathing in any virus that’s in the air around you. We know how to do both.

Masking works, but the type of mask matters. As the Mayo Clinic notes, “Respirators such as nonsurgical N95s give the most protection. KN95s and medical masks provide the next highest level of protection. Cloth masks provide less protection.” Two and a half years ago, a CDC study found that those who reported regularly wearing an N95 or KN95 respirator in indoor public settings had an 86% lower risk of catching COVID-19.

Recently, during my first return visit to San Francisco after moving in early 2022, I met my nieces for lunch at the Ferry Plaza. It was a Saturday, Farmers Market day, and the place was jammed. In three-plus hours I saw no more than half a dozen people wearing any sort of mask, and only a couple were N95s. In my new hometown of Hilo, masking is only slightly more common. At the supermarket, I see barely 10% of customers and staff in some sort of mask. In some venues, it’s less.

A recent Ipsos survey found that half of Americans believe they���ll never get COVID again. Only 20% described themselves as “trying to stay as safe as possible.”

None of this is a surprise—people are simply responding to the messages they get from the people supposedly leading on health issues. The CDC promotes vaccination but barely talks about masking anymore; it acknowledges the value of indoor air quality but doesn’t seem to be doing much about it. In interviews, CDC Director Mandy Cohen regularly urges vaccination but almost never brings up masking or air quality and says little about Long Covid. Political leaders mostly talk about COVID in the past tense and pat themselves on the back for a job well done in prior years. The result is what you’d expect: Most Americans now treat COVID like a common cold, disregarding most precautions and not bothering to test when they get sick.

Back in 2022, when public policy on COVID was still relatively sane, the Biden administration published indoor air quality guidance and made congressionally-approved funds available that “that can be used in schools, public buildings, and other settings to improve indoor air quality.” It’s unclear exactly how much of that money has been used and for what, although some school systems have definitely made HVAC upgrades. But we’ve never had either enforceable indoor air standards or a coordinated plan to implement them. As Science noted in July, “The COVID-19 pandemic has clearly shown the vulnerability of society to the spread of infectious diseases. At the same time, with frequent outbreaks in elder care facilities and school classrooms, it became clear that it was a fatal mistake to largely neglect the recommendations of scientists and engineers regarding minimum standards for ventilation and indoor air quality.”

In any case, those federal dollars were aimed at schools and public buildings. It’s been left entirely to the private sector to do, or not do, anything to reduce airborne pathogens in supermarkets, theaters, clubs, malls and other privately owned spaces. Local groups like Chicago’s Clean Air Club and Austin’s Clear the Air ATX have tried to fill the gap by lending HEPA filters and other clean air equipment to arts and performance venues and other gathering places.

A RADICAL IDEA: DO WHAT WORKS

We know what to do. As Clean Air Club founder Emily Dupree and co-author Shelby Speier wrote in Sick Times in May, “We possess the technology to make public spaces safer. Studies show HEPA air purification and far-UVC lamps drastically reduce the number of airborne pathogens in a room and therefore lessen the likelihood of COVID-19 transmission. When combined with other layers of protection, these tools have the potential to finally make our shared spaces more accessible during an airborne pandemic.”

A key word here is accessible. Failure to address indoor air quality and other prevention measures makes public spaces seriously dangerous for those at highest risk, including the elderly, the immunocompromised and those with long-term health issues, including Long Covid.

Such simple, factual messages are rarely heard in official statements about COVID. “What I find the most frustrating about official handling of COVID and prevention is the lack of care, education, and honoring the science around COVID,” comments Clear the Air ATX founder and Long Covid activist Katie Drackert. “Telling people to ‘stay home when they feel sick’ for a virus that spreads asymptomatically? Well, they are just straight up ignoring science.”

Admirable as they are, the small, volunteer-driven efforts of groups like Drackert’s and Dupree’s are not remotely comparable to the scale of the problem. For now, people must take matters into their own hands. “In the year 2024, people still need to be wearing a well fitted KN95 or above for optimal communal and individual protection,” Drackert says. In the absence of reliable information about air quality in indoor spaces, she suggests getting a portable air quality monitor, which can be reasonably affordable. “High CO₂ levels indicate poor ventilation, which may lead to higher concentrations of aerosols that could contain the virus,” she explains. “Some air quality monitors track particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10), which are small airborne particles. While COVID is smaller than these particles, high PM levels may indicate poor indoor air quality.”

Most of us can’t entirely avoid being in spaces with poor air quality, and that leaves us with masking, which the country has largely abandoned. Worse, we’re starting to see bans on face coverings in public spaces being enacted—for example, in Nassau County, New York, and North Carolina.

These laws typically contain exceptions for people masking for health reasons, but, as New Jersey’s Star-Ledger noted in a recent editorial opposing a proposed mask ban, “t leaves it up to the cops to decide whether someone has a legitimate medical reason for wearing a mask at a public gathering. “How will they know that? It’s subjective. And based on past experience, we know what that means: Police will disproportionately stop and question Black and brown people, who have also been the most likely to continue wearing masks to protect against COVID-19.” It’s hard to imagine a more demented public policy than making disease prevention illegal. And it’s not hard at all to imagine a COVID-19 prevention framework that would make a meaningful difference without causing a nationwide freakout: Encourage masking. Even if mask mandates are a political non-starter, there’s still plenty we can do. First, officials can talk about it and actively encourage people to wear high-quality protection like N-95s when in busy, indoor spaces. They can remind people of its importance—that COVID is not over, not just a cold, and that even a “mild” case can change your life forever. Federal, state and local governments could distribute N-95s or KN-95s free or at minimal cost. Get serious about indoor air purification. Build on what the Biden administration started a few years ago: Develop medically informed, enforceable indoor air quality standards and create a verification system so that people know when a building they enter meets them. Start with public buildings and the largest, busiest private venues, like sports arenas, concert halls and theaters, and move on from there. Give business owners generous technical and financial support in meeting those standards, and a reasonable amount of time in which to do it. While this program is ramping up, fund the local organizations now struggling with limited resources to fill the gap. None of this is that difficult. It’s not even that expensive when you consider that the federal government is in the process of spending $634 billion to upgrade nuclear weapons that with any luck will never be used. What’s missing is political will, and that won’t be there until people scream bloody murder. That’s why I think it may be time for a new version of ACT UP focused on COVID-19. The issues are somewhat different, but less so than you might think. While the original ACT UP focused a lot on research, treatment and care, it also addressed prevention. ACT UP chapters around the country started syringe exchange programs, handed out condoms at high schools, and sometimes succeeded in shaming the system into doing the right thing. And of course, there are issues to tackle around Long Covid research that I haven’t addressed here, but which I will try to cover in a future piece. The fundamental problem is much the same as people with AIDS faced in 1986: a system stuck in neutral, politicians stuck in denial, and a public closing their eyes, covering their ears and shouting, “I don’t hear you!” The first task must be to break the system–and the broader population, as much as possible–out of its present inertia, complacency and denial. I honestly don’t know whether ACT UP tactics like occupying the CDC and disrupting state and local health commission meetings will have the same effect they did decades ago, but at this point I don’t know what else to try. Nothing good lies at the end of our current path.

[andrewisdoing]

Things That Definitely Made Me GAY (Part 2):

MUSIC ICONS: Part of my Coming Out would be incomplete without the music that found me during that time. I’d wager my survival had every bit to do with the singers, songwriters and entertainers I was playing at the time. I especially credit Madonna, Janet Jackson, Barbara Streisand and Rufus Wainwright. They were the unexpected heroes in my ears everyday reminding me it was okay to embrace the dramatic, funny, complex, sexual situations of life in song.

FILMS: I am a firm believer that people are always searching for bits of themselves in the movies. So, being the teen I was, I wanted to find parts of my being in the movies to be affirmed that I wasn’t alone. Whether it was a documentary or rom-com, I wanted to escape into a potential future or an idea of what it looked like to be a gay man in 2009. Documentaries were a gift from heaven because I got to see where we had been and where we were going. I still feel that way as a 30 year old. I feel like I still am eager to see stories of us and find parts of myself on celluloid.

VOGUEING/PARIS IS BURNING: This movie quite simply changed and saved my life in a LOT of ways. When Madonna’s Vogue (BEST SONG FOREVER ON REPEAT) came into my life, my godmother introduced to me to the Houses of New York City, the Ballrooms and the origins of Vogueing. I had never felt so seen as a black gay person in a film prior to seeing PIB. It was the antidote to existing in a suburb in Washington. To know I wasn’t alone in the world and that there was a place beyond Washington where people like me exist, was (and still is) the greatest gift anyone, especially from kin, could’ve given me.

QUEER AS FOLK: THIS SHOW TOOK ME THERE. I remember hiding the box sets at many friends’ houses when I first had come out. While the show can be a bit dated, the stories and original characters really shaped what being a part of the LGBTQ+ community could potentially be as I grew into adulthood.

HISTORY: When I first came out, I made it my personal mission to read up on all things gay history to understand who came before me and whose footsteps I was walking behind. I found so much solace in the bravery we displayed as a community. I know that I am free to be me because of the folks who came before me. I hope that as time goes on, we discover more unsung gay heroes.

HEROES: I went out to of my way to find people who were like me and people who had the same interests as me. Finding people who made me feel understood and created the work to express all the facets of not only the human experience but the gay experience. Whether it be through dance, poetry, filmmaking or photography, I credit these artists for saving my life through their work.

FATSO: Some kids first cartoon crushes were Aladdin, Hercules, HELL, I could even bet that some had crushes on The Beast, BEFORE HE BECAME HUMAN! Me? Mine was (and still is) Fatso. Some have read him as a queer coded character and for my sake, I really hope that it’s true.

PORN & The Pornstars That Make Em’ : As weird as it may seem, discovering Porn really helped me feel liberated and free to understand my sexuality and what I really liked. Also..boy, oh boy, the men and the videos that still to this day..get me off is a list that’s too long to count. From Zeb Atlas to Tom Katt, these men served the fantasies that were so hot and beefy, I still can’t believe my eyes. Being gay certainly has its perks.

NOAH’S ARC: In the same vein as QAF, Noah’s Arc made me feel not only seen as a gay man but as a black man. I love that the show gave the community so many versions of our existence. Making us more than a side character or the uplifting and sassy character, at that. We were portrayed as human and proof that we exist.

[squidinkarchives]

1989 Keith Haring “Silence = Death” 152/200

Haring was able to leverage his celebrity to support causes and activist groups, like ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power. The sale of his art and merchandise, was among the first of the organization's sources of fundraising. The present screenprint, Silence = Death, was created by Haring as a fundraiser for the Arts Outreach Fund for AIDS, using ACT UP's slogan and iconic pink triangle, which was originally used by the Nazis to identify and persecute homosexuals. The logo was created by the art collective, Silence = Death Project, co-founded by artist and activist Avram Finkelstein, in 1987 as a poster campaign. The logo was later donated to ACT UP, of which Finkelstein was also a founding member.

[source: Swann Galleries]

[efemmera-archive]

"Read My Lips - Fem" design by ACT UP, created late 80s-early 90s.

Seen in the bathroom of Nowhere bar in NYC.

[troutreznor]

Pride, NYC, mid '80s. My friend Jason, in the middle, with other members of Act Up.

photo & caption by Mariette Pathy Allen [website] [instagram]

[commiepinkofag]

state by state our civil rights & basic human rights are stripped away.

the federal government enables, codifies & otherwise remains silent.

silence = death

no one should think they can coast through an election.

resistance without representation.

we are criminals after all.