#HIV meet

[koruga]

I'm doing my clinical internship in a town known for its huge queer population and I gotta tell you, it's emotionally devastating to constantly be drawing blood from people who are cooler and gayer than I could ever be. My dinky pronoun pin is no match for the unadulerated raw power of a sixty year old who my two preceptors and I cannot figure out the gender of even all working together. I failed to draw blood from someone who's won a Tony. How am I supposed to recover.

[reasonsforhope]

"A large clinical trial in South Africa and Uganda has shown that a twice-yearly injection of a new pre-exposure prophylaxis drug gives young women total protection from HIV infection.

The trial tested whether the six-month injection of lenacapavir would provide better protection against HIV infection than two other drugs, both daily pills. All three medications are pre-exposure prophylaxis (or PrEP) drugs.

Physician-scientist Linda-Gail Bekker, principal investigator for the South African part of the study, tells Nadine Dreyer what makes this breakthough so significant and what to expect next.

Tell us about the trial and what it set out to achieve

The Purpose 1 trial with 5,000 participants took place at three sites in Uganda and 25 sites in South Africa to test the efficacy of lenacapavir and two other drugs.

Lenacapavir (Len LA) is a fusion capside inhibitor. It interferes with the HIV capsid, a protein shell that protects HIV’s genetic material and enzymes needed for replication. It is administered just under the skin, once every six months.

The randomised controlled trial, sponsored by the drug developers Gilead Sciences, tested several things.

The first was whether a six-monthly injection of lenacapavir was safe and would provide better protection against HIV infection as PrEP for women between the ages of 16 and 25 years than Truvada F/TDF, a daily PrEP pill in wide use that has been available for more than a decade.

Secondly, the trial also tested whether Descovy F/TAF, a newer daily pill, was as effective as F/TDF...

The trial had three arms. Young women were randomly assigned to one of the arms in a 2:2:1 ratio (Len LA: F/TAF oral: F/TDF oral) in a double blinded fashion. This means neither the participants nor the researchers knew which treatment participants were receiving until the clinical trial was over.

In eastern and southern Africa, young women are the population who bear the brunt of new HIV infections. They also find a daily PrEP regimen challenging to maintain, for a number of social and structural reasons.

During the randomised phase of the trial none of the 2,134 women who received lenacapavir contracted HIV. There was 100 percent efficiency.

By comparison, 16 of the 1,068 women (or 1.5%) who took Truvada (F/TDF) and 39 of 2,136 (1.8%) who received Descovy (F/TAF) contracted the HIV virus...

What is the significance of these trials?

This breakthrough gives great hope that we have a proven, highly effective prevention tool to protect people from HIV.

There were 1.3 million new HIV infections globally in the past year. Although that’s fewer than the 2 million infections seen in 2010, it is clear that at this rate we are not going to meet the HIV new infection target that UNAIDS set for 2025 (fewer than 500,000 globally) or potentially even the goal to end Aids by 2030...

For young people, the daily decision to take a pill or use a condom or take a pill at the time of sexual intercourse can be very challenging.

HIV scientists and activists hope that young people may find that having to make this “prevention decision” only twice a year may reduce unpredictability and barriers.

For a young woman who struggles to get to an appointment at a clinic in a town or who can’t keep pills without facing stigma or violence, an injection just twice a year is the option that could keep her free of HIV.

What happens now?

The plan is that the Purpose 1 trial will go on but now in an “open label” phase. This means that study participants will be “unblinded”: they will be told whether they have been in the “injectable” or oral TDF or oral TAF groups.

They will be offered the choice of PrEP they would prefer as the trial continues.

A sister trial is also under way: Purpose 2 is being conducted in a number of regions including some sites in Africa among cisgender men, and transgender and nonbinary people who have sex with men.

It’s important to conduct trials among different groups because we have seen differences in effectiveness. Whether the sex is anal or vaginal is important and may have an impact on effectiveness.

How long until the drug is rolled out?

We have read in a Gilead Sciences press statement that within the next couple of months [from July 2024] the company will submit the dossier with all the results to a number of country regulators, particularly the Ugandan and South African regulators.

The World Health Organization will also review the data and may issue recommendations.

We hope then that this new drug will be adopted into WHO and country guidelines.

We also hope we may begin to see the drug being tested in more studies to understand better how to incorporate it into real world settings.

Price is a critical factor to ensure access and distribution in the public sector where it is badly needed.

Gilead Sciences has said it will offer licences to companies that make generic drugs, which is another critical way to get prices down.

In an ideal world, governments will be able to purchase this affordably and it will be offered to all who want it and need protection against HIV."

-via The Conversation, July 3, 2024

[sizzlingsandwichperfection-blog]

A Big TB Announcement

Greetings from Washington D.C., where I spent the morning meeting with senators before joining a panel that included TB survivor Shaka Brown, Dr. Phil LoBue of the CDC, and Dr. Atul Gawande of USAID. Dr. Gawande announced a major new project to bring truly comprehensive tuberculosis care to regions in Ethiopia and the Philippines. Over the next four years, this project can bring over $80,000,000 in new money to fight TB in these two high-burden countries.

Our family is committing an additional $1,000,000 a year to help fund the project in the Philippines, which has the fourth highest burden of tuberculosis globally.

Here’s how it breaks down: The Department of Health in the Philippines has made TB reduction a major priority and has provided $11,000,0000 per year in matching funds to go alongside $10,000,000 contributed by USAID and an additional $1,000,000 donated by us. This $22,000,000 per year will fund everything from X-Ray machines, medications, and GeneXpert tests to training and employing a huge surge of community health workers, nurses, and doctors who are calling themselves TB Warriors. In an area that includes nearly 3,000,000 people, these TB Warriors will screen for TB, identify cases, provide curative treatment, and offer preventative therapy to close contacts of the ill. We know this Search-Treat-Prevent model is the key to ending tuberculosis, but we hope this project will be both a beacon and a blueprint to show that It’s possible to radically reduce the burden of TB in communities quickly and permanently. It will also, we believe, save many, many lives.

—

I believe we can’t end TB without these kinds of public/private partnerships. After all, that’s how we ended smallpox and radically reduced the global burden of polio. It’s also how we’ve driven down death from malaria and HIV. For too long, TB hasn’t had the kind of government or private support needed to accelerate the fight against the disease, but I really hope that’s starting to change. I’m grateful to USAID for spearheading this project, and also to the Philippine Ministry of Health for showing such commitment and prioritizing TB.

—

One reason this project is even possible: Both the cost of diagnosis (through GeneXpert tests) and the cost of treatment with bedaquiline are far lower than they were a year ago, and that is due to public pressure campaigns, many of which were organized by nerdfighteria. I’m not asking you for money (yet); Hank and I will be funding this in partnership with a few people in nerdfighteria who are making major gifts. But I am asking you to continue pressuring the corporations that profit from the world’s poorest people to lower their prices. I’ve seen some of the budgets, and it’s absolutely jaw-dropping how many more tests and pills are available because of what you’ve done as a community.

—

I don’t yet have the details on which region of the Philippines we’ll be working in, but it will be an area that includes millions of people–perhaps as many as 3 million. And it will include urban, suburban, and rural areas to see the different responses needed to provide comprehensive care in different communities. This will not (to start!) be a nationwide campaign, because even though $80,000,000 is a lot of money, it’s not enough to fund comprehensive care in a nation as large as the Philippines. But we hope that it will serve as a model–to the nation, to the region, and to the world–of what’s possible. 

—

I’m really excited (and grateful) that our community gets to have a front-row seat to see the challenges and hopefully the successes of implementing comprehensive care. Just in the planning, this project has involved so many contributors–NGOs in the Philippines, global organizations like the Partners in Health community, USAID, the national Ministry of Health in the Philippines, and regional health authorities as well. There are a lot of partners here, but they’ve been working together extremely well over the last few months to plan for this project, which will start more or less immediately thanks to their incredibly hard work.

[celluloidrainbow]

THE LIVING END (1992) dir. Gregg Araki Luke is a restless and reckless drifter and Jon is a relatively timid and pessimistic film critic. Both are gay and HIV positive. After an unconventional meeting, and after Luke kills a homophobic police officer, they go on a road trip with the motto "Fuck everything." (link in title)

[rubyvhs]

CHASING FIRE

pairing. firefighter!dean x sex addict!fem!reader

wc. ongoing

summary. dean, a well known and respected firefighter helps you through something you never thought you’d get help for and falls for you along the way. dean winchester saves your life and, unknowingly, you save his — think fire country meets addicted to you (by krista and becca ritchie).

tags. reader is a sex addict, which is something I did research heavily before writing and a lot of it is from the addicted to you books. mentions of hiv/aids, cursing, smoking, smut between reader and dean but also mentioned reader x moc and just soo many mentions of sex and pornography. a little bit of blood and injuries because of dean’s job, chapters will be tagged accordingly.

꩜ .ᐟ deal with it — deans pov

꩜ .ᐟ pounding rhythm — your pov

꩜ .ᐟ seconds, hours — deans pov

꩜ .ᐟ silver spoon — your pov

꩜ .ᐟ goddamn patience — deans pov

[warningsine]

Wait a second. Glinda is lesbian in the book? How many characters are gay?

Glinda’s sexuality in the "Wicked Years" series is not explicitly defined, but there's room to interpret her as either a closeted lesbian or bisexual.

What you need to understand about Maguire's books is that the default orientation is not heterosexuality, but bisexuality.

So even when a character's sexuality is not stated, never assume they're straight until proven otherwise.

Liir, Elphaba's son, is explicitly bisexual. He has sex with Trism, a soldier, and often pines for him.

While he is unconscious, a nun, Candle, rapes Liir to save him from dying and impregnates herself.

(Liir sleeping beside Candle)

Elphaba's parents were in some sort of 3-way relationship with Turtle Heart:

(he is talking to Elphaba in the last one)

There's talk about Elphaba being intersex when she's born:

(Fiyero talking about Elphaba's genitals and wondering whether his tattoos rubbed off on her there or if it's "a scar")

Later in life, she's quite androgynous and defies traditional gender roles.

Elphaba is not supposed to be conventionally attractive, yet, both Fiyero and Glinda find her "beautiful."

Rain's (Liir's daughter) sexuality isn't stated, but her relationship with Tip is the heart of the last book and there are romantic undertones in their connection.

Who is Tip? A young boy Rain meets, except by the end of the book, we learn that Tip is actually Princess Ozma, the rightful ruler of Oz, who had been transformed into a boy by Mombi (the witch who raised Tip) to hide her identity. Upon this revelation, Tip is magically transformed back into Ozma.

Then there are Crope and Tibbett, flamboyant gay students at Shiz University and friends of both Elphaba and Glinda in "Wicked." They're a couple.

Tibbett sleeps with a male Animal and then dies of a disease that sounds like HIV complications.

There are other minor/side characters that aren't straight (implied).

But back to Glinda.

She's a background character. One of the things the musical has over the books is that it made Glinda a coprotagonist, but it also made her shallower (bookverse Glinda seems like an airhead, but she's actually much smarter), so check and mate?

Maguire about Glinda and Elphaba:

It's open to interpretation whether Glinda is in love with Elphaba. Personally, I think she is, given how she:

waits for her and hopes against hope that Elphaba is alive and will come to free her from her imprisonment (to the point that Rain, Elphie's granddaughter, and other characters think that she lost it due to her age),

helps Liir and later Rain, whom she raises as her own child for some time.

She definitely has romantic tension with Elphaba and there's a kiss--two kisses--when they part ways.

It's also open to interpretation whether they slept together or not. The Midwife says to the younger characters that they might have been more than friends.

Glinda gets married, but it's a strategic decision. Her marriage is devoid of passion. There are rumors that she did it to hide her true interests.

When she is young (at school), she lets Boq kiss her, but then she regrets it.

Glinda and Fiyero are not a thing in the books. Only Elphie has an affair with him.

There's a brief moment where Glinda fantasizes about sex with a rich guy (Morrible causes that hallucination/fantasy) except it is unclear whether that thought arouses or repulses her. While that happens, she finds herself in Elphaba's arms and is clearly into that.

So, yes, there's a good chance she's not straight.

[mooniel]

Cherik hidden gems - part 1

Here you have some nice fics with with under 10k hits!

(part 2)

Repeat Offenses by popluxe; 35k: “Prickly bits aside—hell, for the two of them, prickly bits included—it almost felt like a date. Which is stupid on multiple fronts. Grudgingly buying your ex a meal after he grudgingly bails you out of jail is obviously not a date.”

Five times Charles bailed Erik out of jail—and one time he didn’t.

Wardrobe Malfunction by Sophia_Bee; 11k : Charles Xavier, Professor Hottie, the very first mutant Bachelor has a problem. It comes in the form of his wardrobe guy, one six foot sex on legs Erik Lehsherr. Oh, and the fact that he's gay. And on The Bachelor. To find his wife.

Three Days in April by Sophia_Bee; 11k: Charles Xavier is holding the envelope with the results of his HIV test from earlier that day, to afraid to look at them, when a handsome stranger named Erik plops a drink down in front of him. Charles finds he can tell a stranger about his woes easier than he can tell his friends and family, and he and Erik embark on a journey of friendship, starting with opening the test results together.

A Weeding Planner Walks Into a Bar by 1sttimefeeling; 19k: When Raven hires Erik to be the bartender at her wedding, he becomes quickly infatuated with the wedding planner, Charles Xavier, who he thinks is her fiancé.

A Toast to the Happy Couple by TurtleTotem; 4,7k: Charles needs to get married to get his inheritance; his best friend Erik is the obvious choice. Erik's straight, but it's all pretend anyway; of course he can keep seeing other people during their sham marriage. It would be just silly for Charles to be jealous.

Talk, Baby, Talk by lyonet; 20k: “Enough,” Erik said furiously. “It’s over. Let it die.” “Be fair, sugar,” Emma said. “We made good music. It was your choice to wear magenta armour and a cape.”

Best Ex Ever by 1sttimefeeling; 12k: Charles wakes up drunk on the pavement of a gas station, phone dead. He finds a payphone but can only remember one number. Erik Lehnsherr's. The problem? They broke up two years ago.

The Plus-One by Populuxe; 14k: When Erik grudgingly agrees to play Raven's boyfriend at her terrible family's holiday party, he'd thought the biggest challenge would be staying sober enough to make it convincing. But then he meets Raven's extremely hot—and extremely infuriating—stepbrother, and everything starts to get complicated.

Special Topics in Mutant Studies by Populuxe; 24k: The trouble with Charles Xavier isn’t just that he teaches genetics and holds terrible views about mutant rights—it’s also becoming increasingly clear that everyone but Erik seems to love him.

The Last Love Song & Testament of Charles F. Xavier by midrashic; 20k: When Erik is accused of domestic terrorism, Charles has no choice but to marry him to keep him out of jail.

Here it is! Now, i plan on making a part 2 of this if anyone is interested! I wanted to make the list under 5k hits but there were some nice ones that I wanted to recommend as well that had a bit more so here we go!

[t3acupz]

you know that scene where hannibal gets his blood drawn and that health insurance guy implies that hannibal might have hiv. it got me thinking about where hannibal fucks around with other men and it’s totally the pool where matthew tried crucifying him. he goes there after work. the place is super empty. he probably meets men there every once in a while to get his rocks off.

[drdemonprince]

Is "safe sex" even real? Never done it so idk but you mentioned risk profiles once. I feel like demographically I've got a higher risk profile and the anxiety about that really prevents me from going and trying anything. Do you think that's overly anxious in a negative way?

"safe sex" is a really misleading and binary term. There is never any guarantee of safety in anything we do. Every choice we make comes with risks. Hell, choosing not to connect with other people sexually (if you have any desire to) does ITSELF come with its own risks and costs over time.

The chase after perfect, guranteed safety will only lead to us feeling powerless and afraid, because it is an impossibility. All that we can do is inform ourselves of the risks, mitigate the risks we are the most concerned about and that affect others, and then knowingly accept what risks we still face as the cost of leading a full, enjoyable life.

When we inform ourselves about risk mitigation, we learn there are certain steps that we should probably take to protect ourselves and others if we are engaging in behavior that carries risk. If you're having sex with a complete stranger, it's probably smart to use a condom. If you have sex regularly you might want an HPV vaccine or to be on PreP to prevent HIV transmission. When you meet up with people you should get tested for COVID. You should get vaccinated against COVID. If you want to get suspended in rope from the ceiling don't use a hardware store $3 carabeener, get the good shit from the rock-climbing supply store. Things like that.

But even if you use a condom, you might get herpes or HPV or crabs or a yeast infection. Even if you never have sex, you might already have herpes or HPV or crabs or a yeast infection. I've had several of those things, including some of the "scarier" sounding ones, and they're really not that big a deal. They're just a thing that happens in life. Most people have them. You pop a Valtrex when you have symptoms, you shove a suppostiory up your vulva when it itches, you sleep without underwear on, you communicate with partners, you move on with your life.

Sure, I do what I can to avoid the risks I am most concerned about. I take PreP right now because not getting HIV would be preferable to me. But I could still live if I got it. I am informed about the realities of living with HIV today, which makes that fear more manageable. It is easier for me to make carefully considered and yet realistic decisions surrounding my risk profile because I can confront the realities that scare me and learn more about them.

The body is not separable form its environment. We are connected to our surroundings and the people around us, and our bodies get sick, catch viruses, grow old, get messy, and die inevitably and return to the earth. With our one life, we each have to choose what is most important to us and what potential costs we can stand. But with each year that passes, a cost to our bodies is already incurred, and there's nothing we can do to prevent aging and death from coming our way.

So what would you like to do while you are around? Would you like to have sex with condoms? Go on PreP? Get the HPV vaccine? Take random loads in a glory hole? Make out and dry hump with a cutie at a party and catch her cold sore? Cross the street in the dark after looking both ways? Go out dancing so late that your sleep is disrupted for the whole week? Get your heart broken? Have a great all-consuming love? Have children? Endure a torn labia while giving birth? Try psychedelics? Go on a swinger's cruise? Get a UTI from spermicide? Roleplay online instead of meeting in person? Fuck people with a strap-on?

The choice is yours. And no choice you make will be perfect or come without risk. No life is safe. Accepting loss is one of the necessary tasks of leading a life. But you can educate yourself, reflect on what you most want out of life and what you fear, and then take steps to demystefy your worst fears and mitigate the risks that loom largest to you and the people you care about.

Whatever you decide, I hope you have some fun.

[imagining-in-the-margins]

🌈 CM Pride Fics ❤️

Hey everyone! Thank you so much to everyone who participated. I am so happy to share everyone’s hard work. If you have a oneshot or masterlist you’d like me to add, please send me a message - new additions are always welcome.

First, check out @blackbird-brewster's 🌈 Masterlist of Entries☀️: This lovely prolific writer has entered several fics, which include Jemily, Temily, Jara, and Je T’Emily fics! Check out their page for even more!

WLW Entries

Out Loud [Ao3] by @gaelic-symphony: [Gen] A series of short fics about Emily Prentiss coming out to each member of the BAU team.

Freedom-Seeking Hearts by @foxy-eva: [Emily/Reader] For how much longer will Emily and Reader be able to contain their freedom-seeking hearts?

Say Something by @mismatched-sockss: [Emily/Reader] Reader and Emily have been seeing each other for a while now but she can't keep being her secret.

Dress by @railingsofsorrow: [Emily/Reader] Reader is dressed in red, and Emily has a hard time wrapping her mind around the fact she wants to kiss her senseless. 

11:11 by @emberfrostlovesloki: [Emily/Reader] Penelope and Derek play matchmaker after Emily meets Reader, who’s allegedly off the market.

Bailed Out by @snixkers: [Elle/Reader] Elle has a crush on Reader. Elle doesn't want to.

Soft & Sweet by @foxy-eva: [Jara, NSFW] A confession between Tara and JJ leads to a night full of soft and sweet moments

Red Wine Supernova by @snixkers: [Emily/Reader, NSFW] Reader teases Emily at a party and she decides she's had enough.

MLM Entries

Bi the Way by me: [S.R./Reader] Derek learns something very interesting about Spencer after he leaves his bag at his significant other’s house.

For There is Danger in Our Pining by @andiebeaword: [S.R./Reader] Spencer is falling for his new library pen pal. Spencer also has a blind date.

Happy Hydrangea by me: [S.R./TransMan!Reader] JJ is corrected in finding out Spencer has had a boyfriend for a while now.

Off the Top by me: [S.R./TransMan!Reader] Spencer is driving his boyfriend crazy after his top surgery.

The Calamity by @masterwords: [Hotchgan] A series dedicated to HIV/AIDS and how it has touched the lives of Morgan and Hotch (Morgan is HIV+).

Assorted Entries

Like Father, Like You by me: [S.R., Child!Reader] In which Spencer’s child comes out as not-straight.

Pair of Aces by me: [S.R./Reader, Asexual] Reader decides to share something with the team this Pride Month.

(In)visible by @foxy-eva: [S.R./Fem!Reader, Bisexual] There are a lot of obstacles for Reader as a queer woman, but she never thought falling in love with a man was one of them.

Proof of Concept? by @mimicdive: [S.R./AFAB!Reader, Bisexual] Reader feels insecure in their sexuality and Spencer offers validation.

Teacher's Pet by @emberfrostlovesloki: [Ally!Reader/Hotch] Jack’s teacher gets injured during the school day keeping her students safe, so Hotch goes to check on her that evening.

Euphoria by @blackbird-brewster: [Trans!JJ/Tara, NSFW] Jay recently came out as trans, but he still doesn't feel like the man he wants the world to know. His girlfriend, Tara, knows exactly how to help.

Fireworks by @blackbird-brewster: [Trans!JJ/Tara, NSFW] Tara gives her husband, Jay, a blow-job and a New Year's Eve he'll never forget.

Happy Reading!

P.S. If I missed your fic or you have a new one to add, feel free to send me a message. I would love to add it!

[pluckyredhead]

Character Profile: Gregorio de la Vega and Hugh Dawkins (Extraño and Tasmanian Devil)

I was thinking that it's been too long since I've done a character profile, and then I realized that I don't think I've ever posted about DC's CANONICALLY MARRIED, HISTORICALLY SIGNIFICANT DILFS, a.k.a. Wizard Daddy and his furry husband. I'm so sorry. I've failed you all.

ANYWAY MEET GREGORIO AND HUGH:

Gregorio (on the right) is the first out superhero in comics, ever, from before the Comics Code even allowed gay characters. Hugh is DC's third gay superhero (Pied Piper came out a year before him) and the first canonically queer member of the Justice League. See? Historically significant!

CONTENT WARNING: Homophobia, racial stereotypes, attempted suicide, HIV/AIDS, and some particularly gory fridging (Hugh got better).

Gregorio de la Vega first appeared in Millennium #2. Now, they never actually use the word "gay" in the eight issue Millennium miniseries, but, well...

No, seriously, despite the fact that they never use words like "gay" or "homosexual" in the pages of the comic itself, the art and dialogue make Gregorio's sexuality very clear - and in case that wasn't enough, the editors do use the word "gay" in the letter columns.

Millennium was an event in which the Guardians and the Zamarons identified a group of diverse humans to be "the vanguard of human evolution" and gave them all superpowers. Gregorio is hanging out in a cantina in Peru when they show up to give him the news:

He's calling himself a fruit do you get it??? Honestly I love him so much. He's so extra.

I want to emphasize again how groundbreaking Gregorio is. Like, yes, obviously he is a raging stereotype and arguably a problematic one. But this was 1988. The Comics Code Authority would not be updated to permit queer characters until the following year (probably because of Gregorio, in large part). The fact that he existed at all, and not cloaked in layers upon layers of subtext, was a huge step forward. No, he's not perfect, but when you're the only canonically queer superhero in mainstream comics, that's an impossible ask.

Anyway. Gregorio's not super into the idea of being a main character at first, but after a self-loathing suicide attempt (Wally saves him), he decides fuck it, why not be a superhero, and joins the team that will become the New Guardians. He's granted his superpowers, which are generic magic ones, and takes the codename Extraño.

Unfortunately, in the spinoff series that followed Millennium, New Guardians, things get...uh...kind of rough. By which I mean that a) the original writer left, b) the new writer dialed Gregorio's gay stereotyping waaay back in favor of, um, Latino stereotyping instead (he stops calling everyone "honey" and starts calling them "amigo"), and c) the team is attacked by the Hemo-Goblin, an HIV-positive white supremacist vampire. Yes, really. It's fucking awful.

The Hemo-Goblin scratches Gregorio and bites Jet, a Black woman on the team. They both subsequently test positive for HIV. There are many letters from fans pointing out that it's nearly impossible to contract HIV that way, but the editors insisted that actually it was totally plausible, and then implied that probably Gregorio already had HIV because he was gay (even though he had tested negative earlier in the book). Then Jet dies. Again: it's fucking awful.

New Guardians was canceled soon after that and Gregorio pretty much disappeared. By the 2000s, he was viewed as basically an embarrassment, if anyone even remembered him at all: so stereotypical, so flamboyant, so offensive, so cringe. In the Love Is Love anthology, everyone's least favorite human Dan DiDio wrote a story where he claimed that Extraño died of AIDS back in the 80s, which...literally wasn't true??? The publisher of the goddamn company and even he assumed that the Cringey Stereotype must have died the Stereotypical Death.

And then in 2016, Gregorio got a makeover, courtesy of Steve Orlando and Fernando Blanco:

HELLO.

Yeah, so Gregorio is a silver fox now who hangs out with Apollo and Midnighter, does wizard shit, and lives in Lima with his husband and their adopted daughter. SO LET'S TALK ABOUT THAT HUSBAND:

Could you tell he's Australian???

Hugh Dawkins, a.k.a. Tasmanian Devil (no relation to the Looney Tunes character except that they are both owned by WB and, obviously, Tasmanian) actually first appeared in the Super Friends tie-in comics to the cartoon of the same name, in 1977, as part of a plotline where the Justice League teamed up with a bunch of international superheroes.

As you can see above, Hugh, like the other international superheroes, is a massive stereotype. He's also a were-Tasmanian devil who can grow really big, like many Australians. (Even though he's been around for 50 years, there are very few panels of Hugh in human form, but if you need to know for reasons of all the fanfic I hope you are about to write: he's blond.)

In the late 80s, Hugh and the other international superheroes from this story were incorporated into the main DCU as a team called the Global Guardians. They became occasional supporting characters to the various Justice League International books, and some of them joined various Justice League branches. Others had random cameos here and there, and in a 1992 issue of Justice League Quarterly, Hugh's random cameo involved casually mentioning that he is gay:

Again, this is a big deal. It's only 1992, meaning the only canonically queer superheroes in mainstream comics are Extraño (1988), Pied Piper (1991), and Northstar (1992). And this is a Justice League book. AND IT'S 1992. When Hugh talks about things being hateful for gays, he's likely referring to the virulent homophobia in Tasmania at the time (homosexuality wouldn't be decriminalized there for another five years).

Which means it was also a big deal that Hugh went on to join the European branch of the Justice League shortly after this, making him the first canonically queer member of any branch of the League. Of course, his sexuality was never mentioned during the year and a half he was on the team...or in any comic...until 2006. And then it was a vaguely homophobic joke involving Hal Jordan. But still!

(There is a panel that I SWEAR exists from the JLI era of Hugh describing a total bullshit version of his origin which granted him "the power of 106 Tasmanian devils!" which I cannot for the life of me find but was the first thing that made me fall in love with this character. If you stumble across it, please let me know what issue number it is?)

Hugh then had the misfortune of next appearing...sort of...in the infamously awful Cry for Justice in 2009. I say sort of because it's revealed that the villain, Prometheus, has skinned him and turned him into a rug. So we only see his skin. The late 2000s were really, really rough, guys.

However, a year later he appeared in the Starman/Congorilla special and he was totally fine? Don't ask me how. Gorillas were involved. The issue ended with the possibility of him and Starman (the Mikaal Tomas version) hooking up, but then the New 52 happened, so that never came to anything.

...BUT WHO CARES, BECAUSE NOW HE'S MARRIED TO GREGORIO AND THEY HAVE A DAUGHTER AND THEY ARE IN LOVE.

The nickname! The clutching! I'm dying.

Did I mention the canon threesome with John Constantine?

HUGH LOVES HIS RIDICULOUS HUSBAND SO MUCH. Tragically the JLQ only showed up in these two stories but all the baby queer superheroes in the DCU call Gregorio "Tio" and it makes me want to weep. HE WAS ALL ALONE IN 1988 AND NOW HE HAS A FAMILY. I AM VERKLEMPT. 😭😭😭

Unfortunately Gregorio and Hugh are pretty much relegated to occasionally appearing in Pride specials these days, but maybe if we all wish really hard, DC will let Steve Orlando or Andrew Wheeler write a miniseries about how they met and fell in love. I think Nick Robles should draw it.

ANYWAY I LOVE THESE HISTORICALLY SIGNIFICANT HUSBANDS, THE END.

[batboyblog]

Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #17

May 3-10 2024

Vice President Harris announced 5.5 billion dollars to build affordable housing and address homelessness. The grants will go to 1,200 communities across all 50 states, DC and Puerto Rico. 1.3 billion will go to HUD's HOME program which builds, buys, and rehabs affordable housing for rent or ownership. 3.3 billion is headed to Community Development Block Grants which supports housing as well as homeless services, and expanding economic opportunities. Remaining funds focus on building housing for extremely low- and very low-income households, Housing for people struggling with HIV/AIDS, transitional housing for those with substance-use disorder, and money to support homeless shelters and homeless prevention programs.

At the 3rd meeting of the Los Angeles Declaration group in Guatemala Security of State Blinken announced $578 million in new US aid to Latin America. The Los Angeles Declaration is a partnership between the US and 20 other nations in the Americas to address immigration, combat human trafficking, and support economic development and improved quality of life for people in poor nations in the Americas. The bulk of the aid, over $400 million will go to humanitarian assistance to the Venezuelan people. Inside of Venezuela over 7 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance due to decades of political and economic instability. Over 7 million more have been forced to flee the country and live in poverty across the Americas. The aid will help Venezuelans both inside and outside of Venezuela.

The Department of Energy lead an effort to get the G7 to agree to phase out coal by the early 2030s. The G7 is a collection of the 7 largest Industrial economies on Earth, the US, the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, and Italy. To avoid catastrophic climate change the International Energy Agency believes coal needs to be phased out by 2035. However this has been a sticking point with the G7 since 1/3rd of Japan and 1/4th of Germany's energy comes from Coal. This agreement to phase out represents a major breakthrough and the US plans to press for even wider agreement on the issue at the G20 meeting in November.

President Biden announced a major investment deal in Racine, Wisconsin, site of the failed Trump Foxconn deal. In 2018 then President Trump visited Racine and declared the planned Foxconn plant "the eighth wonder of the world.". However the promised 13,000 jobs never materialized and the Taiwan based Foxconn after bulldozing 100s of homes and farms decided not to build. President Biden inked a deal with Microsoft for the land formally given to Foxconn which will bring 2,000 new jobs to Racine to help replace the 1,000 job losses during Trump's Presidency in the community.

200 tribal governments and the US territories of American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, published climate action plans. The plans were paid for by the Biden Administration as part of a 5 billion dollar Climate Pollution Reduction Grants program. The federal government is supporting all 50 states, territories, DC, and tribal governments to draft climate action plans, which will be used to apply for more than 4 billion dollars in grants to help turn plans into reality

As part of marking Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day), the Biden Administration announced a number of action aimed at combating antisemitism and supporting the Jewish Community. This included $400 million in new funding for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program. The Program has supported Synagogues and Jewish Community Centers with security improvements like bullet proof windows and trainings for staff in how to handle active shooter and hostage situations. The Department of Education issued guidance to all schools districts and federally funded colleges stressing that antisemitism is banned under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. These actions come as part of the Biden Administration's National Strategy To Counter Antisemitism, the first ever national strategy addressing the issue by any Administration.

USAID announced $220 million in additional humanitarian aid to Yemen. This new funding will bring US aid to Yemen over the last 10 years to nearly $6 billion. Currently 18 million Yemenis are estimated as needing humanitarian assistance, 9 million of them children, and the UN believes nearly 14 million face imminent risk of famine. The US remains the single largest donor nation to humanitarian relief in Yemen.

The Department of Interior announced nearly $150 million to help communities fight drought. The funds will support 42 projects across 10 western states. This is part of the President's $8.3 billion dollar investment in the nations water infrastructure over the next 5 five years.

[nerdygaymormon]

Certainty vs Uncertainty

I spoke to the Gatherings group which meets in Deltona, FL. I shared these thoughts with them, and want to also share them on my blog.

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When I was growing up, I didn’t see LGBTQ people. I didn’t know any. I didn’t consume any media which portrayed them, at least not until I was a teenager in the 1980’s when the news would have stories about gay people protesting for recognition of the pandemic wiping them out and demanding more research and attention to HIV/AIDS.

As a teenager I began understanding that I might be one of “them,” and that scared me. I denied the possibility and doubled down on being the best Mormon that I could be. But there were moments where my thoughts would go to “what if?”

At the time, the LDS Church had very strong teachings against gay people. Here I was with my identity fully invested in the church, and so was my family's. To explore the idea that I might be gay meant to shake the foundations that provided stability and meaning in my life. Every indication I had is that if I were gay I would be kicked out of church and probably out of my family. That made it critical for me to press down the queer part of me.

Even though I was in denial, I still heard those negative messages and thought what if that’s me? What if I’m an abomination? What if I’m a threat to the family? What if I’m an enemy to God? I certainly didn’t want to be those things.

As my teenage years progressed and it became more and more clear that I feel things for guys that I never do for girls, I accepted the idea that I’m defective. God would never want someone to feel these things therefore something is wrong with me.

When I was 19 years old, my bishop called me into his office to talk about serving a full-time mission. Even though I didn’t share why, he could tell I wasn’t excited about this idea. He told me to go home and pray to ask God if the church is true, if the Book of Mormon is true, if Joseph Smith was a true prophet. I went home and prayed, but not about those things. I asked, “God, do you love me? All of me? Can you love who I am and what I am?”

That was the first time I was honest with God about what I was experiencing, and this prayer was answered with an overwhelming feeling of love and warmth, and I heard the answer, “You are not broken.”

First, how sad that someone who grew up in this church, all those years of Primary, Sunday School, and youth programming, would wonder if God could love me.

Second, this answer contradicted what the presidents of the church taught. God shot an arrow through the idea that everything I had been taught and believed was true, certain, and unwavering.

This is a church of certainty. “I know this church is true.” “I know the Book of Mormon is true.” “I know the president of the church is a prophet of God.” Being an LGBTQ member is an experience that pushes against that certainty. I think many, probably most people will question some of what they’re taught, but generally queer people enter faith transitions earlier than their non-queer peers.

Over the years, I have received answers that are out of alignment with the church. It caused dissonance for me. But that’s also what allowed me to find a way to stay. I didn’t have to believe the things this church taught about LGBTQ people because I had very clear answers to the contrary. Nevertheless, being a queer Latter-day Saint was, and is, a difficult space to exist in. Over the years, I’ve seen the church change how it talks about gay people and in the policies. Things weren’t as fixed and certain as I’d been taught.

For 9 years now, I’ve been serving as a stake executive secretary. I make appointments for the stake presidency, I create & maintain the stake calendar, I create agendas for meetings, and I attend lots of meetings. It’s just as exciting as it sounds. It also means that when a general authority comes to my stake and meets with the stake presidency, they also bump into this gay man.

I have a small blog where I write about being a queer Latter-day Saint. I wrote about the first general authority I met and I told him I’m gay and that he reacted with love and kindness. This post went viral, over 500,000 hits. Even though at the time I was anonymous on my blog, suddenly I was out to everyone. As my sister’s friend asked, "How many single, stake executive secretaries who live in Florida and work at a university can there possibly be?"

Several of these general authorities have invited me to meet with them when I travel to Salt Lake City, and I’ve had some interesting conversations with them, including with Elder & Sister Renlund. It's been insightful to hear members of the Seventy and an apostle speak without certainty.

Sister Renlund’s father had a brother who was married to my grandma, he died in World War II. My grandma remarried and my mom is from the second marriage. My grandma was sealed to her first husband, and that was fine for my granddad until his wife died. That’s when certain questions became a big concern for him. Is he going to have no one in heaven? Does this mean he won’t be exalted? Are his children sealed to the other husband and he'll be their dad in heaven? While alive, a woman can only be sealed to one husband, but when she passes away she can be sealed to all the husbands she was legally married to during her life, and it will all get sorted out in heaven. If she chooses to be sealed to my granddad, the person she spent 70 years with, where does that leave her first husband?

We were talking about that and Elder Renlund said that we don’t know how it works, we don’t really know what heaven is like, but we’ve seen enough glimpses to know that it does work out for everyone and it is wonderful.

He has said something similar to that answer several times when I’ve visited with him. In a church of “I know this,” and “I know that,” this is not how I expected an apostle to answer. I’ve gotten similar responses from the Seventy I’ve met with.

This idea of not being certain, not knowing what the answer will be, not defining what the outcome must be, gives us the capacity to learn and grow, to seek what God wants for us. Until I was willing to be honest with God about how I experience life and ask if God could okay with me, I didn’t get an answer. God never was willing to respond to prayers begging Him to “fix” me, because I came with an answer, an outcome, and it wasn’t what God wanted for me.

The answer that I’m not broken sustained me for a long time. I’ve gotten a few other answers like that, such as it’s okay to date and seek a relationship, and it is fine to leave this church, which these answers clearly go against what our church leaders say. It puts me in a situation similar to the one that Joseph Smith described when local pastors were telling him that he was wrong and is a liar, yet he knew the answers he’d gotten from God. “I had seen a vision. I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it.”

Many people like that our church culture is one of certainty. It gives them a sense of safety. Here are the answers. They know if they check these boxes then they’ll receive the blessings they desire.

Having a culture of certainty creates a monoculture. People who have different viewpoints are likely going to be shy about sharing their thoughts in a Sunday School class. And it’s easy for others to become defensive and reply that is the incorrect answer, here’s what the acceptable answer is, and help keep everyone in line and the lesson on track. It leaves us blind to lessons we could learn from other perspectives. I don’t think that’s how God wants us to operate.

As I read the scriptures with my queer eyes, I more and more see that the things important to God are that we love each other, that we look for people who are vulnerable and try to make them more secure. We are to be welcoming to the foreigner and open our home to them and we are responsible for their safety because we’re operating from a place of security.

Earlier this year we got new policies about trans people at church. How certain are we that God wants these policies? If these are hurting trans people, what do we do about it? Do these seem like the policies a God of love would approve? Are they consistent with the idea of loving and treating others how I want to be treated?

Having queer people in church is powerful, it shakes up the certainty. I’ve heard parents of queer people say, “I know a loving God won’t separate me in heaven from my child.” “I trust that God will make it all okay.” That’s another way of saying, “Maybe our leaders are wrong, maybe God isn’t beholden to the rules we say He has to follow.” It’s their way of making some space for the dissonance they feel between what is being taught and the reality of their queer family member.

In the Genesis story we read about binaries. God divided darkness from the light. God created the heaven and the earth. God separated the water from the land. God created male and female. And yet, if we look around, none of those are binaries, they are spectrums. There’s sunsets and sunrises and eclipses. There’s swamps and marshes and bogs where the land and water are mixed. The sky has clouds and humidity, that’s water in the air. These spectrums are pleasing to God.

In Romans 1:20, the apostle Paul teaches that we have an invisible God but can know them by the things that God makes. When we want to know about God, we look at God’s creations and these will testify of what God is like. Considering all we can see around us, God loves diversity. God loves exceptions. God loves peculiarities. God doesn’t stick to binaries. God revels in variety. Same-sex behavior (courtship, sex, pair-bonding, and parental activities) have been documented in over 450 species of animals. What does this tell us about God? Having people whose gender is trans, nonbinary, genderfluid, intersex, androgynous, and so on, is more in line with what we observe about God from His creations than the idea that there is strictly one kind of man and one kind of woman and that’s it, no other variety allowed.

I leave these thoughts with you, and hope it helps lead you away from certainty and towards the humility of belief that perhaps we don’t perfectly know God, that our leaders can be wrong about things and as we grow in understanding perhaps it’s time to question if it’s time to change.

We say that people are to endure to the end, and that can sound like hold tight and don't question and suffer to the end. I think a better way is to say it is we should grow to the end. Athletes work to increase their endurance, they grow their ability. How can we as individuals and as a community grow? When we see policies are harming people we can ask what God would have us do? That’s a path to growth and spiritual maturity. Are we more concerned about being certain or about finding truth?

[twig-tea]

Love in the Big City Timeline in the Series

Here are the facts I've put together about the timeline in the series (which feels, unlike the book, a little more linear and so actually possible to do this with):

[indeterminate, elementary school, est. early 2000s] Yeong's mom finds out about Yeong's father's second family and divorces him

[indeterminate, high school, est. late 2000s] Yeong is caught kissing another boy on the playground and institutionalized by his mother

2012: The year that T-ara's song Sexy Love comes out (at this point I've just kept this on here for reference)

2014: As per his own narration in ep5, this is the year Yeong contracts HIV (in Feb) and is diagnosed by the military (and he only spends 1 month in the military before getting a medical discharge). He meets with the T-aras a few months later and says they're next for the military (shoutout to @impala124); he meets Nam Gyu and Mi Ae in late 2014, and Mi Ae tries to bum a cigarette from him in Dec 2014 (shout-out to @my-rose-tinted-glasses); Yeong moves in with Mi Ae in either late 2014 or early 2015, and soon after that is the T-ara karaoke sendoff after which he breaks up with Nam Gyu.

2015: Mi Ae's application to her job had 2015 on it; Mi Ae goes to the job retreat for a month, meets Jun Ho, and then several months after that, Yeong stops talking to Mi Ae for 10 months after she outs him. Some time in late 2015/early 2016, Yeong breaks things off with Nam Gyu again.

2016: We know Yeong won the contest in 2016 as per the book we see on Yeong Su's nightstand, and since Yeong called Mi Ae after that, we know they reconciled in 2016. Also, as per the last text message from him, Nam Gyu dies in 2016. After his funeral, Yeong takes over Mi Ae's apartment and Mi Ae gets married. Also, Yeong's mother gets diagnosed with cancer 3 years before she dies, which would be 3 years before Yeong tells Gyu Ho about Kylie, so that means her cancer diagnosis was also in 2016.

2017: Yeong Su tells Yeong he's moving to America [guessing based on how much time seemed to pass in their relationship]; Yeong attempts suicide

2018: Yeong Su sends Yeong the manuscript (which he throws out) [we know this was a year after Yeong Su leaves, but before Yeong's mother dies]

2019: Yeong's mother dies [I'm inferring because we know Yeong tells Gyu-Ho about Kylie in Jan 2020 after his mother's death and after they'd been seeing each other for a little while, so that puts Yeong's mother's death in 2019]

2020: We see Yeong's phone date the day he tells Gyu-Ho about Kylie as Saturday, Jan 25, which was a date in 2020 (but not 2019) [shoutout to @my-rose-tinted-glasses for pointing this out]; Yeong also has an article in his office with 2020 on it, so he was definitely dating Gyu-Ho and had moved from his job at the musical theatre to the company by 2020.

2021: [This is a guess, but we know Yeong's been together with Gyu-Ho for a year when he complains to the T-aras about their relationship and they suggest a trip, so I'm guessing the trip to Bangkok took place in Feb 2021 (around Chinese new year)--my best attempt to date this was the reference to the construction of the Pearl Building in Bangkok but that was constructed 2015-2017]

2022: Shoutout to @my-rose-tinted-glasses for catching the label on the package of his suitcase that Gyu-Ho buys for Shanghai, which says Jan 2022. We know Gyu-Ho leaves for Shanghai soon after that because in Feb 2023 the T-aras check in with Yeong saying it's 'that time of year'.

2023: In Feb 2023 we see Yeong quits his company to be a full-time writer; he writes the date on the book he signs for his former colleague and on his phone screen we can see Feb 2023 as well. We also got some confirmations of the timeline above, since he says in his voiceovers in eps 7&8 that it's been a year since Gyu-Ho left and he's been living with Kylie 9 years. [Note: there were subs in ep7 that said 2022, but they don't align with what's actually on screen]. In March, Yeong goes to Bangkok with Q/Habibi (Habibi's phone screen says it's March 8 when Yeong looks at it in the shower).

Feel free to correct me or add any concrete dates that I missed! I've now updated this with details from the last 2 episodes on Nov 12.

[pinene]

feels like every dude I talk to is either like “oh im on prep which basically creates a force field around my body to prevent STDs” or “I want to meet up but I’m afraid of getting hiv from a handjob”