Opinion: Our community fought HIV/AIDs alone. With monkeypox, we'd like more help.

Today, in fact, we know what we know about HIV/AIDS because our community stood up and fought against the silence, the stigma and the violence. We pushed for new research and new Food and Drug Administration protocols, engaged our community with harm reduction practices, became doctors and scientists, and took care of our own. We were at war. Yet we created community, a movement, and we learned about resilience.

Failing to inform the public, beyond alerting the Pride crowds, about these risks during a summer season of major events including Padres games, Fourth of July parades and San Diego Comic-Con, contributes to the stigmatization of spaces and suggests that this is just a gay men’s affair and or that gay men only go to Pride events.

We are now called to rally our troops to educate and inform while we also have to defend ourselves from homophobic and transphobic attacks by people who are quick to blame us and restigmatize us. In the meantime, our queer service providers are at the forefront of serving people and answering the numerous calls and inquiries that LGBTQI services like The San Diego LGBT Community Center, San Diego Pride and the North County LGBTQ Resource Center have begun to receive.

It is a partnership that I believe can be successful if we are allowed to co-lead and direct the messaging — but also if the county and state are open to our community inputs.

United States Latest News, United States Headlines

Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.

Monkeypox and HIV: Same but Different?The first months of the global monkeypox outbreak are reminiscent of the early HIV days.
Source: Medscape - 🏆 386. / 55 Read more »

Opinion: Here's how the monkeypox crisis reminds me of the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemicOpinion: Here's how the monkeypox crisis reminds me of the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic [Opinion]
Source: sdut - 🏆 5. / 95 Read more »

Opinion: Monkeypox is not a sexually transmitted infection, nor is it specific to the LGBTQ communityOpinion: Monkeypox is not a sexually transmitted infection, nor is it specific to the LGBTQ community [Opinion]
Source: sdut - 🏆 5. / 95 Read more »

Monkeypox, COVID responses share central obstacleCalifornia's monkeypox response has been aided and accelerated by lessons learned from COVID, but red tape plagues both.
Source: CalMatters - 🏆 261. / 63 Read more »

US Declares Monkeypox a Public Health Emergency - MedicineNet Health NewsThe Biden Administration on Thursday declared the monkeypox outbreak a public health emergency, a move intended to dramatically ramp up the fight against the spread of the virus.
Source: MedicineNet - 🏆 575. / 51 Read more »