#stop hiv stigma

[metz-n-matteo]

Help our friend Shad Cruz (pictured second from the right) raise funds for his AIDS/LifeCycle @aidslifecycle journey. It is a 545 mile cycling trip from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The donations support life-saving services offered by San Francisco AIDS Foundation @sfaidsfound and the Los Angeles LGBT Center @lalgbtcenter.

Donate here!

[southeastasianists]

It was the mid-1980s when Paul Toh came of age as a gay man, decades before smartphones and dating apps made sex a lot more accessible right at your fingertips. Toh has been diagnosed with HIV since 1989. 

Now semi-retired with his own business distributing antiretroviral therapy medication and HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), the 59-year-old said that in those days, cruising in public parks, toilets, and back alleys of dirty shophouses along pre-cleanup Singapore River for sex was par for the course. 

Unsurprisingly, cruising in public made gay men easy targets for police officers. “They started going to these cruising grounds undercover, with the explicit intention of entrapping and arresting gay men,” Toh added.

Police raids in nightlife establishments with gay clientele also became common, with prominent gay discotheque Niche having its liquor license withdrawn by the police in 1989 and the Rascals incident of 30 May 1993, in which multiple patrons were arrested for not having their NRICs on them. This came to be remembered by veteran activists as Singapore’s Stonewall. 

Fear about the spread of AIDS was part of the reason why police intensified their clamp down on queer spaces. In April 1987, Singapore experienced its first AIDS-related death. And one year later, the Director of Public Affairs of the Singapore Police Department said in a Straits Times article that “homosexual activities have been strongly linked to the dreaded AIDS disease,” making it an “added reason in the public interest for police to disallow homosexuals to convert places licensed for entertainment into places where they can congregate.”

Iris’ Work of Fighting Stigma

76-year-old health advisor Iris Verghese was among the first health workers to rise to the occasion when Singapore reported its first HIV/AIDS cases. 

“I knew just as little about HIV/AIDS as everyone else,” said the retired nurse, who first joined Middle Road Hospital, a now-defunct treatment centre for sexually transmitted diseases, in 1974. As part of her job, Verghese was tasked with contact tracing people who had sexually transmitted infections. 

The job brought Verghese to brothels and nightclubs in Geylang’s red-light district, which meant she was no stranger to serving society’s Others with kindness. 

“A lot of it has to do with my faith.”

“I thought about my role models like Jesus and Mother Teresa—they didn’t care what illness you had. If they could hang out with people with leprosy, then who am I to refuse to care for those with HIV/AIDS?”

Verghese’s work is well-documented, and everyone has given her the accolades she deserves—from President Halimah Yacob to the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Singapore to the Straits Times, which named her an everyday hero in 2019.

Plague, a 15-minute short film by Singaporean filmmaker Boo Junfeng, captures the emotional gravity of the care work performed by Verghese and health workers like herself. 

The emotionally-stirring film is inspired by Verghese’s work with HIV/AIDS patients in the ’80s and offers a look into the life of Jamie, a patient who stopped coming to the clinic for treatment and counselling.

In the film’s climax, set in the patient’s HDB flat, Verghese tries to dissuade Jamie from inflicting internalised stigma. Jamie insists on using disposable plastic cups and utensils and cleaning every surface he touches for fear of passing the virus to his loved ones.

Wanting to prove that HIV/AIDS is not transmissible through saliva, Verghese takes Jamie’s plastic cup and drinks from it. She then hands him a regular glass, beckoning for him to drink from it, only for him to swipe it away, breaking the glass and cutting himself in the process. 

Thus comes the true test of Verghese’s dedication to her profession as she steels herself to the drastically heightened risk. Now that her patient is bleeding, she is dealing no longer just with saliva, but with blood carrying the virus. 

In our interview, Verghese recalled many incidents like these. One that stuck with me was her counselling session with Singapore’s first HIV patient, a young gay professional, in 1985. “As I listened to him and gave him a hug, he broke down and cried,” she said. “He said he felt so good afterwards.”

Safe Sex Outreach in the 80s

“Things were very different in the ’80s and ’90s,” said Professor Roy Chan, Founding President of Action for AIDS Singapore (AfA). AfA is a non-government organisation founded in 1988 to fight HIV/AIDS infection in Singapore. 

“There was no internet then. When we set up AfA, we had to rely on word of mouth, phone calls, faxes, pagers, and so on. Mobilisation was not as easy then, but we overcame the obstacles we faced. It was very much more hands-on in those days,” Chan recalled. 

Chan set up AfA as a non-governmental organisation in 1988 to respond to the needs of people living with HIV/AIDS, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, as well as to advocate for greater action and awareness around HIV/AIDS. 

AfA was also one of the first community groups in Singapore that served the needs of LGBTQ+ individuals—namely men who have sex with men—disproportionately affected by HIV/AIDS. 

“Back then, people didn’t have as much access to the internet as we do today, meaning that accurate information on HIV/AIDS was much harder to come by, making education efforts vital,” Chan recalled. “On the flip side, no internet meant the gay nightlife scene was more vibrant than what it is today.” 

Since the gay community in the 1980s and 1990s did not have the internet and mobile phone apps to meet other people online, they had to go to physical spaces to fulfil their need for connection, whether it was nightlife establishments or cruising grounds.

Gay clubs were hence crucial in AfA’s outreach programs on safe sex practices back in the ’80s—even if it meant risking the possibility of police raids.

Back then, there were very few places in Singapore where gay men felt safe enough to gather in abundance, making gay clubs a viable hub for outreach and education.

AfA’s outreach efforts endure today in the form of the Mobile Testing Van initiative on weekends. The van, parked outside popular gay nightlife spots in Singapore, aims to bring HIV testing closer to the public, bridging the fear and stigma of walking into a stand-alone clinic to get tested.

The Consequence of Outreach

The people brave enough to put themselves out there to serve a larger cause were but a small minority, especially given the cultural milieu of the time. 

“There was so much that was unknown about HIV/AIDS even among the medical community, much less the general public,” said Verghese.

“Even at Middle Road Hospital, two doctors resigned, and twenty-five nurses asked to be transferred out.”

AfA’s awareness campaigns and fundraiser drives drew a lot of publicity—and no doubt some backlash.

Still, beneath all the headlines and the star power lent by high-profile celebrity allies was the silence surrounding individual HIV/AIDS cases. 

“It was all very hush-hush. People didn’t want to talk about it. No one wanted to know who died of AIDS,” Verghese shared when I asked if the atmosphere in the 90s was similar to that depicted in films and drama series such as The Normal Heart and Pose. 

The shows portrayed the HIV/AIDS crisis in the disease’s epicentre in New York as being a time of deaths and countless funerals attended by surviving gay men. 

One exception to this veil of silence was Paddy Chew, the first Singaporean person to come out publicly as being a person living with HIV/AIDS. 

Chew—well-known for his one-man autobiographical play Completely With/Out Character—told Verghese and her husband that he wanted no crying at his funeral. 

“He asked me to arrange his funeral such that his ashes will be thrown into the sea from a Singapore Armed Forces boat,” said Verghese. She and Chew’s close friends were instructed to be dressed in their party best, with helium balloons that were to be released out at sea. 

“There was one helium balloon that drifted away from the other balloons. To me, that felt like it was Paddy’s soul saying goodbye to us one last time.”

A Tale of Two HIV Diagnoses

Perhaps by coincidence—or not, since Verghese was one of the very few nurses dedicated to caring for HIV/AIDS patients at the time—Toh’s then-partner was also one of Verghese’s patients. 

“My then-partner Freddie and I handled our HIV diagnoses very differently, but of course, we also came from very different backgrounds and life experiences,” said Toh. 

“I found out about my status because an ex-lover of mine had come down with pneumocystis pneumonia (PCP). I flew to Sydney for a diagnosis so that I wouldn’t be registered in the local system here if I was found to be positive.” 

On the other hand, Freddie found out about his HIV-positive status because he was a regular blood donor. Not only was his diagnosis inevitably recorded in the national registry, but Freddie also ran into legal trouble. He was charged in court for false disclosure of his sexual activity. 

“Because of how the entire trial turned out, Freddie was sentenced to imprisonment for twice the expected duration. It affected his entire outlook in life, feeling like he was being framed by a bigger power with an agenda, with the whole world against him,” said Toh, who cared for Freddie until he passed in 2008. 

Toh, on the other hand, took his diagnosis as an opportunity to re-evaluate his life and make the most of the eight years that the doctor told him back in 1989 he had left to live. 

“When I received my diagnosis, the only thing in my mind was this: it is the quality of life that matters, not the quantity.” And so, the two spent the next few years of their lives travelling the world, making their remaining years as meaningful as they could be. 

Anything for a Chance at Life

Maximising his remaining years did not stop at travel for Toh. Having managed to get his hands on antiretroviral therapy in Sydney in the form of azidothymidine (AZT), he went on to look for more effective forms of medication while the technology was being developed in real-time. Toh wanted to help other HIV patients like himself. 

In 1994, Toh joined the Asia Pacific Network of People with HIV/AIDS (APN+), a regional network advocating for the improvement of the lives of people with HIV/AIDS in the Asia-Pacific region, later becoming a Board member and secretariat.

“North America and Europe were progressing swiftly in their battle against HIV/AIDS thanks to the work of activists there putting pressure on their governments and the medical community to channel funding towards the research and development of suitable treatment for HIV/AIDS,” said Toh.

“In Asia, however, it’s a different story. We had to be street smart in our advocacy while also looking elsewhere for allies.”

This meant looking to donors in the West who could be persuaded to recognise the importance of HIV/AIDS advocacy in Asia.

“I was very lucky to have the opportunity to be one of the first few Asians who had access to HAART, said Toh. 

HAART (Highly active antiretroviral therapy) is a triple-combination of antiretroviral drugs discovered in 1996 by Professor David Ho. Toh had been invited to attend the 11th International Conference on AIDS in Vancouver, Canada, where the discovery of this triple cocktail was announced. 

Within three months of beginning HAART treatment in 1996, Toh saw his health improving tremendously, with his CD4 count—a measure for the immune system of PLHIV—increasing exponentially and his viral load becoming undetectable within the fourth month. 

Although Toh already had a supply of free antiretroviral medication from his healthcare provider in Sydney, he continued to look elsewhere for alternative sources for patients who were unable to afford the patented medication. 

“Unlike Taiwan, Hong Kong, and South Korea, where medication for HIV/AIDS was provided to patients for free, Singapore was the only Asian Tiger which did not do so,” said Toh. 

“Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies in developing countries like Brazil, India, and Thailand were manufacturing their own generic antiretroviral medication in spite of patent laws, making it more affordable.”

While still not free, MOH announced in 2020 that HIV medication would become subsidised.

Singapore’s Very Own ‘Buyers Club’

With patented HIV/AIDS medication in the ’80s continuing to be inaccessible to many who needed it, buyers clubs—similar to the one featured in the 2013 film Dallas Buyers Club—would soon emerge worldwide, including Singapore. 

“The funny thing was that Australia had easy access to HIV/AIDS medication, so there was a lot of stock available in Sydney,” said Verghese. A family vacation down under in 1987 turned into an informal research trip for her to network and gather the information that she needed to perform her job optimally. 

During her trip, she met HIV researcher Dr David Cooper, who brought her to Albion Street Centre (now known as The Albion Centre), which specialises in HIV/AIDS management. 

Through her newfound contacts, Verghese managed to get her hands on some of the unused stocks of medication in Sydney back to Singapore for her support group. 

“We even got the help of the Singapore Airlines flight attendants to pool together their unused baggage allowance to bring this medication back,” she recounted with a laugh. 

Antiretroviral medication was not the only asset that Verghese brought back. She learned a lot about the virus from the professionals she met in Sydney, allowing her to move faster than the national response and gather the information needed to tend to her patients. 

A Ground Up Initiative

“George Yeo was actually very impressed with what we were doing,” recounted Verghese. “He wanted to meet with the community to learn more about our efforts and arranged a closed-door meeting with us.”

The meeting was the culmination of months of sending letters to Yeo, the Minister of Health at the time. The dialogue session was held to discuss the government’s rule that mandated the bodies of AIDS sufferers to be buried or cremated within twenty-four hours of dying. 

This rule was finally lifted in December 2000, after four years of advocacy by AfA.

They argued that the policy was outdated, having been implemented in the mid-1980s when hardly anything was known about HIV/AIDS. 

“I think we’ve certainly had to prove ourselves as an organisation over the years,” Chan said. “There might have been concerns among some who thought of us as a gay rights organisation, or misconceptions that AfA worked solely on issues that concern gay people.”

“But we’ve proven ourselves over the years to be a serious and effective organisation tackling HIV/AIDS and sexual health with clear metrics of success, and the results and continued support from the government speak for themselves,” added Prof Chan. 

Toh, who served as AfA’s Executive Director from 2007-2009, concurs. 

“Actually, not many people know this, but MOH has been quite supportive of AfA over the years. Even during my term, they would hold closed-door discussions with us, intently wanting to work with us on eliminating HIV/AIDS,” said Toh. He reckoned that MOH did not want to be publicly seen as supporting something considered by society as ‘morally corrupt’ no matter how beneficial it is to wider society. 

The Fruits of Our Predecessors’ Labour Are Not Handed on a Silver Plate

The history of HIV/AIDS and its role in fomenting community-building among the LGBTQ+ community has always been a topic of fascination for me.

I can only imagine what it must have been like to see everyone in your social circles and communities succumbing, one by one, to an unknown disease. 

Covid-19 provided the closest representation of the tumultuous and uncertain time in the ’80s.

In the midst of writing this, however, the comparison became a much closer one. Monkeypox is now affecting men who have sex with men more than the rest of the general population. 

“It’s not the same thing,” Chan said, cautioning against making blanket comparisons between monkeypox and HIV/AIDS.

“For starters,” he intoned, “monkeypox is not an unknown disease. We’ve known about monkeypox for decades, so it is nothing close to HIV back in the ’80s.”

Admittedly, life is easier for a gay man like me, who came of age at a time when HIV/AIDS is no longer considered a significant threat. 

With common knowledge of medication as well as preventative measures like safer sex and pre and post-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP and PEP), it is easy for me and my peers to take for granted the freedoms that we now enjoy, thanks to decades of advocacy and destigmatisation. 

But as Prof Chan said, “It is important not to be complacent. The freedoms and advancements we have today were not handed on a silver platter. Earlier generations had to fight very hard for all of these things.”

[briarpatch-kids]

I hate how much people's stigma of use disorder and addiction prevents us from having decent things. Like I'd LOVE for people to not get bloodborn disease from both re-used and discarded needles. But when the subject of a needle exchange came up recently, the people I was with (not friends) wouldn't stop focusing on how it's "enabling" to have a system where people have to trade their used needles for new ones because addicts get to have access to fresh clean methods of use rather than having to share or re use needles.

From what I know about the cost of doing business and the cost of medicine in the US, a single case of HIV prevented would likely save a year's worth of operating costs. That's not even taking into account the value of human life, imagine if addiction and use disorders didn't usually mean hitting "Rock Bottom" or dying of overdose because your cousin or brother or ex or whatever was able to get help when they needed without stigma and the social safety net prevented them from all the infections and worse that can come from an unsafe supply or consumption method. Yeah, they'd still have a problem, but it could be addressed before people die from it. I know this is America and bootstraps and choice and all that, but I also know you're not supposed to sentence people to death without a fair trial either. And right now, the way we're treating addicts is a death sentence. Just a long, slow, drawn-out death sentence.

[cripplecharacters]

Hi! I apologize if it's not 100% in your stands. I'm not sure where to ask. This isn't "can I write about X". I try to just think with others, if you may have advice?

I was thinking about writing a story, in which MC is HIV-positive.

The thing is. He dies in a part of the story, and then comes back with a new body. Which is very much "healing" trope.

Another thing I'm not sure about is that he was in sex work as a minor.

Problem: I don't want to stereotypical, or bring stigma.

Thing is, if I go this root:

It brings a whole new underlayer to his story.

1. He was a superhero as a teen (that's how he dies).

2. when he comes back, he's a crime lord. But very in helping people. It's important to me to add that he's funding PEP and PREP for sex workers, and an anonymous free clinic.

I know this can all be made by having a side character with HIV, but. I want to talk about it (and shame and stigma and life long implications of things).

Background: I'm not HIV-positive, but I do have an invisible disability, and was/am in sex work. We never see STDs in fiction or treatment (I know it's not the only way to transform HIV, I'm talking in general.)

Thank you ❤️

Hello, thank you for your ask! I don’t know how revival works in your story, but there are plenty of ways to bring him back without curing him! I’m assuming his ‘old’ body won’t be used, but what if his blood needed to be used to make the new body? You could also change it to make his previous body used to make the new one. He could even briefly go back to sex work to fund his plans and contract it again. There’s so little representation of HIV positive characters in media that I’d really love if your character didn’t magically stop having it.

The idea of a hero turning grey to support their morals isn’t an uncommon one, and I don’t think it would be necessarily bad! Just on the safe side I’d recommend adding morally good characters who are also HIV positive and making it clear his diagnosis wasn’t what caused his shift in morals.

I don’t believe having him be in sex work as a minor is stereotypical, especially if he was initially forced into this line of work. Just be very careful and respectful of writing about it, I’d recommend reading (non biographical) works from survivors to get an idea of how to respectfully discuss it if you don’t know anyone to ask.

Have a lovely day!

Mod Rot

[demonqueenart]

To be loved

Pairing: Dan Howell/Phil lester

Rate: Explicit

Warning: no ao3 warning apply

Tags: hurt/comfort, angst, smut, au, established relationship, HIV🎗️, U=U, stigma, discrimination

Words: 4.9k

Summary: Dan knows Phil insisted they’re together. Dan knows Phil loves him. But it doesn’t stop Dan from feeling dirty when he wants to touch Phil.

(hurt/comfort au to reduce today’s HIV stigma, but now it’s smutty too >:))

a/n: This is a continuation of my last fic, Keep me from you, which you can easily find when you enter Ao3. Special thanks to @absolutefilthimsosorry and @thistooisphanyuri who helped me beta this!

Click on NOTES to find Ao3 link 👇👇 then copy and paste it to your browser. Alternatively, you can find superlink on my header 👆👆, or search “To be loved” by ‘Thedemonqueen’ on Ao3.

[ladyimaginarium]

fellas. canadian fellas. canadian folx. canada. y'all better fucking vote for the ndp in october 2025. we're not like in america where there's only two major parties & a few minority parties, there's more than two major political parties to choose from ! the ndp specifically are fighting for all of these things:

like. idk about y'all but all of this seems a lot better than what we have rn. if you give a fuck about indigenous peoples, if you give a fuck about black people, if you give a fuck about asian people, if you give a fuck about people of color & racialized people, if you give a fuck about human rights, if you give a fuck about queer rights, if you give a fuck about two spirit rights, if you give a fuck about trans rights (ALL trans rights, they've called for specific care approaches for trans girls & trans women, trans boys & trans men & for nonbinary people too!), if you give a fuck about intersex rights (they support the ban of intersex genital mutilation until intersex children are old enough to consent if they want cosmetic surgery or not & have spoken about intersex issues!), if you give a fuck about women's rights, if you give a fuck about reproductive rights, if you give a fuck about feminism, if you give a fuck about intersectionality, if you give a fuck about religious freedom, if you give a fuck about multiculturalism, if you give a fuck about workers' rights, if you give a fuck about farmers, if you give a fuck about sex workers' rights (they support the decriminalization of sex work & stigma of sex work!), if you give a fuck about addicts (they support decriminalization of drugs & stigma of drug addiction!), if you give a fuck about the poor & the homeless, if you give a fuck about people with HIV/AIDS, if you give a fuck about disabled & neurodivergent people, if you give a fuck about autistic people, if you give a fuck about the environment & the earth sea & sky, if you give a fuck about palestine (they support the statehood of palestine & have been actively been calling out antipalestinian racism & have been calling the government to stop sending & selling weapons to the israeli government & have called for a ceasefire!), if you give a fuck about lebanon, if you give a fuck about sudan & congo (they actively support the sudanese & congolese people!), if you give a fuck about armenia, if you give a fuck about ukraine, if you give a fuck about jewish lives (they adamantly are against antisemitism & have spoken out about protecting jewish people & bringing the israeli hostages home to their families!), if you give a fuck about arab & muslim lives (they have actively spoken out against antiarab racism & islamophobia!), if you give a fuck about international peace, if you give a fuck about immigrants, refugees & asylum seekers, if you give a fuck about prisoner's rights, if you give a fuck about people living in rural & remote & reservation & northern communities, if you give a fuck about free universal healthcare, if you give a fuck about free mental healthcare, if you give a fuck about free eye & free hearing care & free dental care & infertility procedures & prescription drugs, if you give a fuck about food sovereignty, if you give a fuck about antiterrorism & antiextremism & deradicalization, if you give a fuck about the demilitarization of the police & using alternative methods like social workers & psychologists, if you give a fuck about taxing the ultra rich & billionaires & polluters, if you give a fuck about renewable energy, if you give a fuck about affordable childcare & housing & abolishing the poverty line, if you give a fuck about affordable post-secondary education & affordable quality internet & cellphone service & transportation all across the country, if you give a fuck about affordable groceries so everyone can feed their families, if you give a fuck about healthy food in every community, if you give a fuck about your children, if you give a fuck about the elders in your community, you'll vote for these guys. & on TOP of that? the leader of the ndp, jagmeet singh, is a son of immigrants & an indian punjabi man of color & a SIKH, he's not some privileged ass white guy, he's been on the ground himself as an activist & has actively been fighting for all these rights with quite literally everything i've seen so far. noncanadians are also encouraged to reblog too!

[twig-tea]

Love in the Big City Part 3: Kylie Recontextualizes Everything

I have waffled all week about what to write about this chapter. There have been some great essays about HIV and the stigma in Korea by @stuffnonsenseandotherthings here, as well as how antiretrovirals and pre-exposure prophylactics work and when they were available from @wen-kexing-apologist here. This context was all critical to understand everything Young doesn’t talk about in this section of the book. 

I’ve been stuck on so many parts of this section of the book. The way stigma holds people back from care, from maintenance, from life-saving treatment and knowledge, from understanding their condition and preventing them unnecessarily from living a full life, which @doyou000me had me thinking about with their comments about Young’s coping mechanisms of minimization and emotional distance that possibly worked in conjunction with the Korean government healthcare policies and social stigma to keep Young from being informed about his own condition. The way Young holds himself back from happiness, and how it’s so heartbreaking to watch him open up to it slowly in this section and then, as @my-rose-tinted-glasses wrote , he let the shame and self-loathing take control again. The way this relationship feels so real; @lurkingshan wrote so eloquently on how this section describes the details of a relationship as it started to settle. The relationship with Hyung was entirely ephemeral, in the liminal period of time between when Young was visiting his mother in hospital and before everything opened again for the day. There is so much that Young and Hyung never talked about–more than was obvious in chapter 2, because he never told Hyung about Kylie. In contrast, as @bengiyo pointed out, his relationship with Gyu-Ho started with honesty and was rooted in the physical presence of their apartment, which as a beautiful metaphor was grounded and improved slowly over time through the work they put into it but was also too small for them. 

I keep thinking about how Part 3 is bookended by Young disappointing Gyu-Ho with his absence. How he leaves him at the airport both times, thinking he’s doing Gyu-Ho a favour actually–he characterizes Gyu-Ho’s trip to Japan without him as much more fun, and he imagines Gyu-Ho’s future in Singapore will be better. In both cases, Gyu-Ho was only going because of Young, because Young wanted to, and Young planned it. But our narrator cannot get past seeing himself as something that brings Gyu-Ho down, and so he sabotages his own future. I feel for Gyu-Ho, being shepherded onto a plane alone when he was envisioning his future with the man he loved. It must have been devastating to be pushed away. 

This is not related to anything but I just love the detail of Young’s split lip and how he tastes blood when he kisses Gyu-Ho while drunk at the club and not yet knowing his name, and then panics, and we as readers don’t yet know why. Brilliant storytelling. 

I can’t stop thinking about how this reveal recontextualizes everything in parts 1 and 2. How the “incident that earned me a medical discharge” means Kylie was already in Young’s life as he took the engineering student he was seeing with him to get an STD check; as he was screamed at by an ex who prophesied that Young would get sick from being promiscuous and called him a ‘dirty rag that could never be cleaned’, which Young took with stoicism. I loved @bengiyo ‘s observation in his post linked above that Kylie’s presence likely coloured his reaction to Jaehee outing him to her fiance. 

Kylie was present as he watched his coffee be stolen by Hyung, when he thought about introducing Hyung to his mother, while he was wrestling with how Hyung (and, I think the narration makes clear, how he) was ashamed at how Young couldn’t ‘pass’ and was ‘obviously gay’, when he choked Hyung in his mother’s kitchen and it was seeing his tears on Hyung’s face that made Young let go. Kylie was part of him when he drank pesticide and tried to die, while he sat by his mother’s sickbed and had her head in his lap in the park, when he said “disease can turn anyone into a completely different person”, when he said he would “hope that she would die without having known.” 

Mostly, my brain keeps getting stuck on how familiar Young is to me. His choices, his self-loathing, his refusal to take anything seriously because at his core he’s terrified of facing what his reality means. And that fear ironically gets in the way of him understanding that his reality is not as scary as he thinks it is. He functions like he has to be alone, and so much of that comes from his internalized homophobia and his HIV diagnosis. He’s been told he’s dirty, something to be cleaned but irreparable, by so many people in different ways through his life. The man he claims as his greatest love barely even liked him as a person, and didn’t fully know him. I think that’s why he was able to feel more fully with Hyung, because in a way that relationship felt safer..Gyu-Ho, the person who knew all of him, and who wanted to build a life together with that complete and full knowledge of him, must have been terrifying, and I’m not surprised it felt easier to push him away than to fight for their future together. But it breaks my heart. 

There’s something rattling in my head about the T-aras that I don’t really know how to get out onto the page. In this chapter it’s revealed that the T-aras have been around the whole time, but they weren’t mentioned in parts 1 and 2. I think the fact that Young’s life feels more rounded, filled in with other people, and rich, than in parts 1 and 2 speaks to his emotional state in this part, as well as to how his time with Gyu-Ho wasn’t obsession but was more grounded in the mundane and the everyday. The T-aras themselves feel like familiar friends. Like with Hyung and JaeHee (at first), Young is drawn to people who he can remain emotionally distant from and who remain emotionally distant from him. People who will buy the story of “ruptured disc” for why he left military service early. People who joke about being poz and won’t ask questions and who hear the news about his new boyfriend as an ‘in’ to their favourite club. People who don’t take things seriously (or in Hyung’s case take things so seriously that Young can’t take him seriously). I was so glad to find out they existed because up to this point Young felt so isolated most of the time, with his world circling around one obsession in each part. But he had the T-aras the whole time; I’m choosing to read this as he just didn’t hold their importance to him in the same way in parts 1 and 2. As was already clear in the narrative but this makes even more obvious, Young’s isolation is not only self-inflicted but it’s in some ways a lie he tells himself to feel safer. He has friends, he just refuses to acknowledge their presence or importance, or to let them in to be more important, because he is so braced for being rejected for core parts of him that cannot be excised.

[importantwomensbirthdays]

Hydeia Broadbent

AIDS activist Hydeia Broadbent was born in 1984 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Broadbent was born with HIV and diagnosed at age 3. She had developed AIDS by the time she was 5. A member of the first generation of children born with this condition, Broadbent began speaking publicly by the time she was 6. She made numerous television appearances and worked to raise awareness and reduce the stigma around HIV. When Broadbent was 12, she spoke at the Republican National Convention. Her activism continued throughout her life. She took part in the CDC's Let's Stop HIV Together campaign, established the Hydeia L. Broadbent Foundation, and worked with the AIDS Healthcare Foundation.

Hydeia Broadbent passed away in 2024 at the age of 39.

[avdentia]

— is that KAREEM SOTO stepping out of the L-train? rumor has it they’ve lived in the windy city for 15 YEARS and currently lives in HAMLIN PARK. the 38 year old works as a CHILD PSYCHOLOGIST and originally hails from DETROIT, MI. HE has been given the reputation of being SELFLESS and BLUNT around town, but friends say they’re more DETERMINED and HARD-WORKING. either way, I think they’re really fitting in here!

they remind me of loving the person you are now more than the person you used to be, laughing out loud in the rain, carefree dancing when no one's watching, perfectly organized bookshelves, being a pet-less pet lover.

TL;DR — Kareem's parents' marriage fell apart when he was barely five years old. His mother worked for a rich family in Detroit and when she passed, they took him under their wings and raised him as their own. He studied Psychology and Social Work in Stanford and after a few years dating someone, he found out he was HIV positive (his virus is indetectable now thanks to his treatments, and he's a big advocate on ending the stigma behind the illness). In Stanford was also where he met his wife, though currently separated due to lots of family drama. They've moved to Chicago 15 years ago to build their lives together, but it wasn't exactly how they wanted it to be. He works as a child Psychologist and is currently finishing his PhD. He's a demi-man and while he doesn't have a preference of pronouns, he's not really fond of gendered terms being used to refer to him. Will definitely stop to pet your dog.

( FULL BIO. )

possible connections: friends from detroit, friends he's lost touch with, former acquaintances from when he worked at CPS, exes turned friends (any gender), exes that ended on a bad term, his ex-wife, sports buds, gym buds, neighbors (hamlin park), etc.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Christopher Wiggins at The Advocate:

In the aftermath of Tuesday’s presidential debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, Trump’s running mate, Ohio U.S. Sen. JD Vance, made a series of controversial, bigoted, and inflammatory statements during an interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. Vance doubled down on debunked claims about Haitian immigrants abducting pets to eat them and falsely linked the migrant community to rising rates of HIV and tuberculosis in Springfield, Ohio. His remarks have since drawn widespread condemnation for their harmful, fear-mongering nature.

During the interview, Vance insisted on the veracity of a discredited conspiracy theory circulating in Springfield that claims Haitian immigrants have been abducting pets for food, a laughable claim Trump made during the debate. Local officials have already said that “no credible evidence” supports these allegations, but Vance continued to push the narrative. “We’ve heard from a number of constituents on the ground… saying this stuff is happening,” Vance said. When Collins pointed out that officials had found no evidence, Vance responded, “They’ve said they don’t have all the evidence.” Collins pressed Vance on his responsibility as a public figure to avoid spreading misinformation. “If someone calls your office and says they saw Bigfoot, that doesn’t mean they saw Bigfoot,” Collins asked. Vance, however, stood firm, responding, “Nobody’s calling my office and saying that they saw Bigfoot. What they’re calling and saying is we are seeing migrants kidnap our dogs and cats.”

Vance’s continued insistence on pushing the discredited claims has drawn sharp criticism from immigration advocates, who accuse him of stoking racial fear and division. Vance escalated his claims by linking the supposed arrival of Haitian immigrants to a rise in infectious diseases in Springfield, including HIV and tuberculosis. “Communicable diseases like HIV and TB have skyrocketed in this small Ohio town. This is what Kamala Harris’ border policies have done,” he said, without offering evidence to support his claims. Vance’s comments tap into a broader, troubling pattern of discrimination that Haitian migrants have faced for decades. Historically, U.S. immigration policy has treated Haitians disproportionately, often in ways that are harsher than those directed toward other groups. According to a 2021 U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants report, Haitians have frequently been misclassified as economic immigrants rather than political refugees, even when fleeing violence during authoritarian regimes, stripping them of asylum rights and leading to mass deportations. One of the most egregious examples of discrimination occurred in the early 1990s, when Haitians attempting to flee their country were subjected to HIV and AIDS screenings by U.S. authorities. Even as the HIV epidemic was waning, Haitians who tested positive for the virus were held to higher standards when seeking asylum. Many were sent to quarantine camps in Guantanamo Bay, where they lived in squalor and were denied proper medical care, the report notes.

This history of associating Haitians with disease resurfaced during the Trump administration, when Title 42—a public health measure aimed at stopping the spread of communicable diseases—was invoked to justify the expulsion of Haitian migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border. Vance’s claims that Haitian immigrants are responsible for a rise in HIV reinforce these historical stigmas, stoking xenophobia and racial fear. Public health experts have widely discredited the idea that immigrants are driving HIV transmission. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that approximately 1.2 million people in the U.S. are living with HIV and that effective treatment can suppress the virus, making it undetectable and untransmittable.

Racist pathetic excuse of a human being JD Vance now implies that Haitian immigrants are “spreading HIV” after his cat-eating hoax claim went up in smoke.

See Also:

MMFA: Right-wing media are celebrating JD Vance for his racist lie that Haitian immigrants are widely spreading disease in Springfield, Ohio

[granvarones]

On December 10, 1989, a significant event in New York City would set the stage for Ray's remarkable journey. Thousands of activists, many living with AIDS themselves, gathered for the "Stop The Church" demonstration outside St. Patrick's Cathedral. Their target: Cardinal John O'Connor, an influential Catholic authority whose statements on homosexuality, abortion, and AIDS had sparked outrage. O'Connor, despite being appointed to Ronald Reagan's AIDS commission in 1987, controversially claimed that condoms were only 50% effective at preventing HIV transmission.

Led by AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT-UP) New York, the "Stop the Church" direct action made international headlines and introduced the activist group to mainstream consciousness. Amidst this historic event, a queer, HIV-positive visionary named Ray Navarro boldly declared, "Make sure the second coming is safe - use condoms!"

Ray Navarro's became a member of ACT UP New York in 1988. Known for their bold, innovative, and powerful organizing in demanding greater attention, research, and resources for people living with AIDS, ACT UP marked the beginning of Ray’s tireless advocacy for those affected by HIV/AIDS.

For the 1989 "Stop the Church" protest, Ray masterfully incorporated performance art by dressing as Jesus Christ. He reclaimed this religious figure, which had been weaponized against queer and HIV-positive people by Cardinal O'Connor, as a radical savior who believed in safer sex and HIV prevention.

Ray was also a founding member of DIVA TV (Damned Interfering Video Activists), a collective of artists who used multimedia to document the work and history of ACT UP. They ensured that police violence during protests, often ignored by mainstream media, was captured and preserved.

Ray's dedication extended to the Latinx LGBTQ+ community, where he recognized the unique challenges faced by individuals affected by AIDS. His bilingual activism bridged gaps and ensured that vital information and support reached this community.

Ray's performance art, challenged stereotypes and misconceptions surrounding AIDS and LGBTQ+ identity. In 1990, after losing his vision to AIDS-related illness, Ray collaborated with artist Zoe Leonard to create the photographic series "Equipped." This project centered on disabled people, shedding light on the complexities of disease, race, class, and sexuality.

Ray Navarro died from complications due to AIDS in November 1990 when he was just 26 years old. His passing was a devastating loss to the LGBTQ+ community and the broader AIDS activist movement. However, his legacy endures through his art, performances, and activism, inspiring subsequent generations of activists and artists.

Ray Navarro's life, art, and activism challenged stigma, demanded justice, and helped change the trajectory of the AIDS crisis. Today, we remember him not only as an AIDS activist but also as a pioneering artist and a fearless advocate for LGBTQ+ rights and visibility so that someone like myself could exist, breathe and thrive. His legacy testifies to the resilience and strength of all people living with HIV and AIDS.

[living-n-theastraldigital]

Thinking about covid and hiv and the way that diseases are a form of control. The connotations around disease are shaped for political aim . I wonder how people will talk about it 40 years, will I know for sure that these pandemics were constructed by the 9 corporations who run the world? Thinking about myself at age 62. Will people listen to me? Will the mass brainwash been achieved and no one gives a fuck or wants to remember how they felt during this time being alive? because the collective doesn't stop being alive. We all have to endure this shit. Maybe we accept defeat and acclimate to climate and pretend things have always been the same. Black women are most affected by AIDS in the us and there is still so much stigma. Lets not forget that they planted crack in our neighborhoods at the damn same time...

Anyways, I just always think about time being cyclical, nothing new has ever happened. Thats why everything is possible.

[huachengapologist]

So, The Midnight Club is good. Just started episode 5 and one thing that has meant a lot to me so far is the dynamic between Mark and Spencer.

STI's aren't as rare as you'd think. The likelihood of you having friends with one is higher than you'd think. If you're friends with me, that likelihood is actually 100%.

In some regards, I'm lucky. Mine isn't deadly, doesn't tend to cause health problems, and while it's stigmatized and can be embarrassing to talk about, it could also be a lot worse.

But I have friends with HIV. People I care about a lot, some I've even been intimate with. There is such a stigma, and that stigma plus the absolute evil that was Reagan means that a lot of younger gay men are low on older role models. I think about that image of the SF Gay Men's Choir, where the majority, wearing black, represented those that we lost. The handful of people wearing white were the ones that survived. The ones that were alive to watch their friends and loved ones fall, one by one.

The scene in the show that I can't stop thinking about is the one where Mark is reassuring Spencer, when he says plainly and calmly that he was wearing gloves for Spencer's benefit, to keep Spencer safe, not the opposite. That reassurance was so fucking important. Spencer's just a kid, being told by everyone he cares about that it's his fault. For him to have an adult there that not only has first hand experience with the stigma of being gay, but is also assuring him every chance he gets that he deserves to be happy, deserves to be treated with respect, not like something dirty or shameful, it.... well, there's a lot of scenes that made me tear up, but that one made me straight-up start bawling.

Idk. Part of me is worried I'm going to end the season with Mark either dying or betraying him, and I hope with all my heart I'm wrong.

[demonqueenart]

All My Phanfic Masterlink

my Ao3 account: Thedemonqueen

Reblog my fics from here!

Keep me from you - rated Gen, 1.7k (Part 1 of Red Ribbon series)

Summary: Even though Dan knows he can’t date anyone ever again, he can’t help but drag Phil away from a man that’s flirting with Phil.

A hurt/comfort au I wrote to reduce today’s HIV stigma <3

To be loved - rated Explicit, 4.9k (Part 2 of Red Ribbon series)

Summary: Dan knows Phil insisted they’re together. Dan knows Phil loves him. But it doesn’t stop Dan from feeling dirty when he wants to touch Phil.

Hurt/comfort au to reduce today’s HIV stigma, but now it’s smutty too >:)

Voice Unheard - rated Mature, k COMING UP NEXT!

Summary: For most of Phil’s life, he has been tormented by the voices inside his head. He is so lost of what’s real and what’s not, he wants to give up. But Dan is there, holding him close.

Schizophrenia hurt/comfort au to reduce stigma.

(Trigger warning: suicidal thoughts, no self-harm, no attempts. Happy ending <3)

[puppyvomits]

Navigating HIV in the age of Sniffies and PREP.

I am HIV neutral. This is a term coined by DogBoiBailey to designate people like us: those living with HIV who are on treatment and undetectable. People who are living with HIV who are on medication and undetectable neutralize the virus' effects on our bodies and are unable to transmit the virus. I have been living with HIV since 2021 and have often discussed that despite my transparency with my status, that I do not believe that any person living with HIV owes disclosure of their status to others at the beginning of an interaction or when you show interest in them. This belief has often times been met with pushback from community members who believe that it is irresponsible to say that people with HIV should have a choice in whether they disclose their status to others. I also recognize that certain states have laws that require disclosure and yet despite this, I assert my belief that upfront disclosure is not owed to anyone. Disclosure laws are rooted in the historic homophobia and stigma that is associated with HIV/AIDS in the United States and was often times used as a means of weaponizing the criminal justice system against marginalized communities who were deemed as "dirty" and "suffering the repercussions of being men who sleep with men". It forced HIV patients in the 80s out to employers in a time where there were no laws protecting people from being fired for their HIV status or sexual orientation. Even today, people who argue that people living with HIV owe others disclosure ignore the very real stigmas associated with HIV and ignore that not all states, cities, and communities accept or treat people living with HIV with understanding or acceptance. On hookup apps, we often see bios that boldly demand you "Be clean" or "disease free". There are tattoo artists who refuse to tattoo people with HIV. Prisons have refused HIV neutral individuals access to their antiviral medications, causing them to fall ill and die. Your perceived fear of infection does not take seniority to people's safety. The reality is, we are all in charge of our own sexual health. It is not a person living with HIV's responsibility to disclose their status upfront when your express interest in them, it is also your responsibility to foster a conversation that promotes healthy sexual practices for all parties involved. It is everyone's responsibility to lead with kindness, understanding, and the knowledge that we must take the necessary steps to ensure our own wellbeing in sexual encounters especially when we are engaging in these encounters with strangers. We must have the empathy to understand that not everyone can share their status on their profiles. Undetectable means untransmittable. As a person living with HIV, I take care of my health because I love myself and I love my community enough to stop the spread of HIV. I urge other people in our community to do the same by getting on PREP if they're negative and by getting undetectable if they are positive. Don't reward those people with cruelty and make demands of them when you could take the steps to ensure your safety regardless of another persons status.

[ringo-ichigo]

Reminder to you all: calling known historical bisexual figures "gay" is a form of bisexual erasure. Hans Christian Andersen was bisexual. His own personal writing shows this, his relationships (all of which never worked out) show this, and historians agree on this. Julie d'Aubigny was bisexual. She was known to sleep with men and women. She, at best, just preferred women. And these are just two examples of bi+ people I've seen called "gay" in the "attracted only to the same gender as them" way. Vita Sackville-West was bisexual. Virginia Woolf was bisexual but chose mainly female partners because of sexual abuse trauma with men. Lord Byron was bisexual having multiple affairs with men and women. Eleanor Roosevelt was bisexual, having affairs with both her male bodyguard and female reporter Lorena Hickok. I can go on but let me just leave it at some of these names to show that bi people have existed all along and move on to the underlying problem here.

Why do people keep calling bi and bi+ people other monosexual identities? Because the idea of multiple attraction threatens the idea of not only single attraction in your mind but also monogamy. Because then, you think it is harder to prove your sexual attraction. Just because you are uncomfortable with fluid sexuality doesn't make it all right to do this. Whether bi+ people are with another or same gender, binary or non-binary, they are still bisexual. Stop erasing our sexuality both historically and now and then telling us we should feel welcome in the community while you actively disrespect us. That's not how this works.

It's not all right and frankly, I'm sick of it. I should not have to wake up nearly daily to see someone erasing some bisexual person's sexuality to pretend that they only loved one gender. My daily routine should not have to involve correcting someone on bisexuality existing and this particular historical figure being bisexual, not straight or lesbian or gay. And the worst part is it's not even coming from outside the house so to speak. No, I get to do this within our walls where I am supposed to be able to just be myself openly.

And this doesn't even touch on how the bisexual erasure occurring here was actively used to discriminate against bi people during the AIDS crisis. That happened and this tactic of erasing bisexuality is part of the fallout still happening from it. It happened before then, but the AIDS crisis took it and ran with it to demonize bisexuals and made it so we erased our own identity at times to avoid discrimination. All the while, bisexuals like the San Francisco Bi Center did the hard work of actually educating people on how to prevent the spreading of HIV and AIDS, YOU ARE WELCOME. We have been here doing the hard work to prevent stigma and being active and proud, setting up your parades, being the feet on the ground for political change and every step of the way, the rest of the LGBT+ community has erased our identities, stolen credit for our work, tried to kick us out of the community, and treated us like shit. This is not fine. You all need to take a long hard look in the mirror and ask yourselves why you are treating the majority of this community (fun fact: estimates show bi+ could make up close to 50% of the LGBT+ community) like absolute garbage. Our daily routines shouldn't have to be justifying our right to exist both in the past and now.