The head of the World Health Organization on Wednesday advised men at risk of catching monkeypox to consider reducing their sexual partners “for the moment” following the U.N. health agency declaring the escalating outbreaks in multiple countries to be a global emergency.
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said 98% of the monkeypox cases detected since the outbreaks emerged in May have been among gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men. He called for those at risk to take steps to protect themselves.
“That means making safe choices for yourself and others, for men who have sex with men,” Tedros said. “This includes, for the moment, reducing your number of sexual partners.”
Infectious individuals should isolate and avoid gatherings involving close, physical contact, while people should get contact details for any new sexual partners in case they need to follow up later, the WHO chief said.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has not suggested that men who have sex with men reduce their sexual partners, only that they avoid skin-to-skin contact with people who have a rash that could be monkeypox.
WHO officials emphasized that monkeypox can infect anyone in close contact with a patient or their contaminated clothing or bedsheets. The U.N. health agency has warned that the disease could be more severe in vulnerable populations like children or pregnant women.
To date, more than 19,000 cases have been reported in more than 75 countries; deaths have only been reported in Africa.
“We know very clearly that one of the main modes of exposure for this particular illness is through direct contact, close contact, skin to skin contact, possibly even face to face contact, exposure to droplets or virus that may be in the mouth,” Dr. Rosamund Lewis, WHO’s technical lead for monkeypox, said.
Andy Seale, a WHO adviser on HIV, hepatitis and sexually transmitted infections, said experts have determined the current monkeypox outbreak is “clearly transmitted during sex,” but he said they have not yet concluded whether it’s a sexually transmitted infection.
Dr. Hugh Adler, who treats monkeypox patients in the U.K., said monkeypox was being transmitted during sex and that sexual networks and anonymous sex with untraceable partners were facilitating its spread.
“It’s just as likely that monkeypox was always capable of transmitting and presenting like this, but it hadn’t been formally reported or so widespread before,” he said.
Last week, British authorities issued new guidance advising doctors that people with just one or two lesions might be infectious with monkeypox, potentially complicating efforts to stop transmission.
The European Union’s health commissioner urged the bloc’s 27 member nations Wednesday to step up their efforts to tackle outbreaks in the EU, which she called “the epicenter of detected cases.”
In a letter to European health ministers obtained by The Associated Press, EU Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides called for a “reinforced, concerted and coordinated action.”
“There is no time for complacency and we need to continue working together to control the outbreak,” she wrote.
There is still hope that Democrats can convince ten Republican senators to join them in codifying marriage equality, even though two Republicans once considered amenable to voting for it have come out against it.
Four Republicans have so far said they will support the measure: sponsors Susan Collins of Maine and Ohio’s Rob Portman; Sen. Thom Tillis from North Carolina, who said he’s a probable vote; and Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin.
Johnson said in a statement Thursday, “Even though I feel the Respect for Marriage Act is unnecessary, should it come before the Senate, I see no reason to oppose it,” according to CNN.
In addition, Alaska’s Sen. Lisa Murkowski says she generally supports the measure but is reviewing the proposed bill. “I have long made known public my support for marriage equality,” she said, the Hill reports.
Eight to 10 Republicans are also possible yes votes, according to the Hill.
The two GOP senators who were once seen as possible supporters of the legislation, Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, announced Wednesday they would not support it.
Graham said he’d defend the Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage as the union between one man and one woman. “I’m going to support the Defense of Marriage Act,” he said.
Graham’s remarks on marriage sparked concern among many, according to The Advocate‘s sibling publication Out.
During his tenure in Congress, Graham has long been one of the most anti-LGBTQ+ members and has refuted rumors of being gay.
Cornyn, on his part, said the bill wasn’t anything but a stunt by Democrats to shift concerns over inflation, the outlet reports. “This is a contrived controversy in pursuit of a political narrative that somehow that decision by the Supreme Court is in jeopardy. I don’t believe it is, and this is an effort to try to stoke the fires of political activists and scare them with a narrative that I think is a false narrative,” Cornyn said.
He added that Supreme Court’s 2015 Obergefell v. Hodges ruling upholds the 14th Amendment’s protection of same-sex marriages, which he said probably wouldn’t change.
Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, who has sided with Democrats in the past, agrees with Cornyn’s position.
“We all know what the law is. I haven’t given consideration to that legislation, in part because the law isn’t changing and there’s no indication that it will,” he said, according to Insider. “And clearly, the legislation from the House is unnecessary, given the fact that the law is the same, and we’ll take a look at it as it comes our way.”
As of a few weeks ago, Roe v. Wade was also the law of the land. In arguing for the legislation, Democrats raise the concurring opinion of Justice Clarence Thomas in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Americans’ right to abortion access. According to Thomas, the court should review its rulings protecting marriage equality and contraception.
Senate Republican Conference members and voters across the country changing their opinions on marriage equality, the Hill reports Portman, whose son is gay, saying.
“You look at the shifting sentiment about this issue throughout the country. I think this is an issue that many Americans regardless of political affiliation feel has been resolved,” he said.
“My own personal views on this haven’t changed from several years ago when I said people ought to have the opportunity to marry who they want,” Portman said. “I think its time has come.”
A coalition of 83 conservative groups sent a letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Tuesday urging him to block the Respect for Marriage Act.
“H.R. 8404 would require federal recognition of any one state’s definition of marriage without any parameters whatsoever. This would include plural marriages, time-bound marriages, open marriages, marriages involving a minor or relative, platonic marriages, or any other new marriage definition that a state chooses to adopt, including through undemocratic imposition by a state Supreme Court,” the group, led by the Alliance Defending Freedom, claims.
“We call on you to reject H.R. 8404 and to urge your colleagues to thoroughly abandon this harmful and unnecessary legislation,” the letter, signed by Family Research Council president Tony Perkins, Focus on the Family president Jim Daly, and others, concludes.
In a separate letter, the Conservative Action Project claims that the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 case that established the constitutional right to same-sex marriage in the U.S., “unleashed religious freedom violations across the land, launching a new era of harassment and coercion of millions of Americans who hold a sincere religious belief or moral conviction that marriage is, or ought to be, between one man and one woman.”
McConnell has yet to take a stance on the Respect for Marriage Act, which House Democrats passed last week with the support of 47 Republicans. The bill is intended to enshrine the right to same-sex as well as interracial marriage into law following the Supreme Court’s decision striking down Roe v. Wade and Justice Clarence Thomas’s call for the court to reconsider Obergefell v. Hodges.
Senate Democrats need to pick up 10 Republican votes in order to pass the law, and several key GOP lawmakers have signaled their support for the bill. Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Rob Portman (R-OH) have said they will vote for it, while Sens. Thom Tillis (R-NC), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and Ron Johnson (R-WI) have all signaled that they will likely vote for the bill. Along with McConnell, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT) hasn’t said whether or not he will vote for it.
The letters to McConnell are aimed at countering efforts on the part of progressive and LGBTQ organizations to sway Republican senators.
Proponents of the legislation are hopeful that they stand a chance of securing 10 Republican votes, due in part to the strong support for marriage equality across party lines. According to a 2022 Gallup poll, 71% of Americans support the right to same-sex marriage. A 2021 poll found that 55% of Republicans are in favor of marriage equality.
The tasteless, anti-LGBTQI+ comic Dave Chappelle performed five shows at Luther Burbank Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa. It is difficult to believe the LBC staff and board were unaware of Chappelle’s numerous anti-LGBTQI+ comments that are well-documented and for which he has offered no apologies. Chappelle identifies as a so-called “TERF (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist)” joining author J. K Rawlings in such dangerous hate speech. These people refuse to accept that we are in the position to declare our gender or lack thereof.
Netflix came under fire for producing and airing two Chappelle shows that feature anti-Trans comments. LGBTQI+ Netflix employees protested – some even quit. Days before the LBC shows comenced, a Minneapolis Chappelle show switched locations as a direct result of a protest organized after Chappelle referred to Monkeypox as “a gay disease.” Chappelle mocked the members of the local LGBTQI+ Community who brought about the move. The original venue apologized to the local LGBTQI+ Community for once welcoming Chappelle and his hate. Chappelle has never backed down, apologized or even reached out to better understand the concerns of he LGBTQI+ Community. Instead, he continues to mock our Community.
The Press Democrat revealed that mere weeks before the five July shows, Live Nation approached LBC with an offer LBC appears to have found unable to refuse. The LBC staff and board claim there was considerable conversation – considerable, but certainly brief and misguided. Did they notice how few dates Live Nation had booked for Chappelle? None in San Francisco or Oakland or Los Angeles. LBC thought they could sneak this past our Community. No doubt comedy venues in big cities find Chappalle as toxic as the LBC staff and board should have.
Luther Burbank Center for the Arts found it necessary to confiscate all audience cell phones before the Chappelle shows. I have attended too many LBC concerts to count but have never had my cell phone taken away before a show. They must have done this so no footage of his anti-LGBTQI+ vitriol would find its way onto social media identifying LBC as the location. Sorry, LBC, you are now forever linked to anti-LGBTQI+ comments.
Should the North Bay’s LGBTQI+ Community allow hate speech and inflammatory comments to be staged in our backyard? Make no mistake – this is not an attack on free speech or about censorship. This is about making LBC aware that Trans people are harmed and even killed as a result of such despicable comments. 2021 saw a record number of Trans-folks murdered. So far this year 57 have been murdered in the United States alone. We once valued this venue, but it’s decision to allow Chapelle a forum for his hate is unacceptable. The LGBTQI+ Community finds Dave Chappelle comments offensive, inflammatory and even deadly.
Let’s stand up to Hate Speech and inform those in power at Luther Burbank Center for the Arts we will boycott the venue. Some shy away from boycotts. If you are amongst them, at least express your opinion by contacting the people listed below.
Let the Staff and Board of Luther Burbank Center for the Arts, its sponsors, those who share the Center’s campus, and elected officials know that such Hate results in harm to members of the LGBTQI+ Community. Email and call, as many as possible and as often as possible.
Call to Action: BOYCOTT Luther Burbank Center for the Arts for Bringing Anti-LGBTQI+ Hate to Sonoma County
The tasteless, anti-LGBTQI+ comic Dave Chappelle performed no less than five shows at Luther Burbank Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa. It is difficult to believe the LBC staff and board are unaware of Chappelle’s numerous anti-Trans comments that are well-documented and for which he has offered no apologies. Chappelle identifies as a so-called “TERF (Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist)” joining author J. K Rawlings in such dangerous hate speech. These people refuse to accept that we are in the position to declare our gender or lack thereof.
Netflix came under fire for producing and airing two recent Chappelle shows that feature anti-Trans comments. LGBTQI+ Netflix employees protested – some even quit. Recently, a Minneapolis Chappelle show switched locations as a direct result of a protest organized after Chappelle referred to Monkeypox as “a gay disease.” Chappelle mocked the members of the local LGBTQI+ Community who brought about the move. The original venue apologized to the local LGBTQWI+ Community for once welcoming Chappelle and his hate. Chappelle has never backed down, apologized or even reached out. Instead, he continues to mock our Community.
The Press Democrat revealed that mere weeks before the five shows, Live Nation approached LBC with an offer they seen unable to refuse. The LBC staff and board claim there was considerable conversation – considerable, but perhaps, but certainly misguiged. Did they notice how few dates Live Nation had booked for Chappelle. None in San Francisco or Oakland or Los Angeles. LBC thought they could sneak this past our Community. No doubt comedy venues in big cities find Chappalle as toxic as the LBC staff should have.
Imagine, Luther Burbank Center for the Arts confiscated cell phones at the Chappelle shows. I have attended too many LBC concerts to count but have never had my cell phone taken away before a show. They must have done this so no footage of his anti-LGBTQI+ vitriol would find its way onto social media identifying LBC as the location. Sorry, LBC, you are now forever linked to anti-LGBTQI+ comments. Did you think this community could be so easily duped?
Should the North Bay’s LGBTQI+ Community allow hate speech and inflammatory comments to be staged in our backyard? Make no mistake – this is not an attack on free speech or about censorship. This is about making LBC aware that Trans people are harmed and even killed as a result of such despicable comments. 2021 saw a record number of Trans-folks murdered. So far this year 57 have been murdered in the United States alone. We once valued this venue, but it’s decision to allow Chapelle a forum for his hate is unacceptable. The LGBTQI+ Community finds Dave Chappelle comments offensive, inflammatory and even deadly.
Let’s stand up to Hate Speech and inform those in power at Luther Burbank Center for the Arts we will boycott the venue. Some shy away from boycotts. If you are amongst them, at least express your opinion by contacting the people listed below.
Let the Staff and Board of Luther Burbank Center for the Arts, its sponsors, those who share the Center’s campus, and elected officials know that such Hate results in harm to members of the LGBTQI+ Community. Email and call, as many as possible and as often as possible.
Two new cases presented Wednesday at the International AIDS Conference in Montreal have advanced the field of HIV cure science, demonstrating yet again that ridding the body of all copies of viable virus is indeed possible, and that prompting lasting viral remission also might be attainable.
In one case, scientists reported that a 66-year-old American man with HIV has possibly been cured of the virus through a stem cell transplant to treat blood cancer. The approach — which has demonstrated success or apparent success in four other cases — uses stem cells from a donor with a specific rare genetic abnormality that gives rise to immune cells naturally resistant to the virus.
In another case, Spanish researchers determined that a woman who received an immune-boosting regimen in 2006 is in a state of what they characterize as viral remission, meaning she still harbors viable HIV but her immune system has controlled the virus’s replication for over 15 years.
Experts stress, however, that it is not ethical to attempt to cure HIV through a stem cell transplant — a highly toxic and potentially fatal treatment — in anyone who is not already facing a potentially fatal blood cancer or other health condition that would make them a candidate for such a treatment.
“While a transplant is not an option for most people with HIV, these cases are still interesting, still inspiring and illuminate the search for a cure,” Dr. Sharon Lewin, an infectious disease specialist at the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity at the University of Melbourne, told reporters on a call last week ahead of the conference.
There are also no guarantees of success through the stem cell transplant method. Researchers have failed to cure HIV using this approach in a slew of other people with the virus.
Nor is it clear that the immune-enhancing approach used in the Spanish patient will work in additional people with HIV. The scientists involved in that case told NBC News that much more research is needed to understand why the therapy appears to have worked so well in the woman — it failed in all participants in the clinical trial but her — and how to identify others in whom it might have a similar impact. They are trying to determine, for example, if specific facets of her genetics might favor a viral remission from the treatment and whether they could identify such a genetic profile in other people.
The ultimate goal of the HIV cure research field is to develop safe, effective, tolerable and, importantly, scalable therapies that could be made available to wide swaths of the global HIV population of some 38 million people. Experts in the field tend to think in terms of decades rather than years when hoping to achieve such a goal against a foe as complex as this virus.
The new cure case
Diagnosed with HIV in 1988, the man who received the stem cell transplant is both the oldest person to date — 63 years old at the time of the treatment — and the one living with HIV for the longest to achieve an apparent success from a stem cell transplant cure treatment.
The white male — dubbed the “City of Hope patient” after the Los Angeles cancer center where he received his transplant 3½ years ago — has been off of antiretroviral treatment for HIV for 17 months.
“We monitored him very closely, and to date we cannot find any evidence of HIV replicating in his system,” said Dr. Jana Dickter, an associate clinical professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at City of Hope. Dickter is on the patient’s treatment team and presented his case at this week’s conference.
This means the man has experienced no viral rebound. And even through ultra-sensitive tests, including biopsies of the man’s intestines, researchers couldn’t find any signs of viable virus.
The man was at one time diagnosed with AIDS, meaning his immune system was critically suppressed. After taking some of the early antiretroviral therapies, such as AZT, that were once prescribed as individual agents and failed to treat HIV effectively, the man started a highly effective combination antiretroviral treatment in the 1990s.
In 2018, the man was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, or AML. Even when HIV is well treated, people with the virus are still at greater risk of a host of cancers that are associated with aging, including AML and other blood cancers. Thanks to effective HIV treatment, the population of people living with the virus in the U.S. is steadily aging;themajority of people diagnosed with HIV is now older than 50.
He was treated with chemotherapy to send his leukemia into remission prior to his transplant. Because of his older age, he received a reduced intensity chemotherapy to prepare him for his stem cell transplant — a modified therapy that older people with blood cancers are better able to tolerate and that reduces the potential for transplant-related complications.
Next, the man received the stem cell transplant from the donor with an HIV-resistant genetic abnormality. This abnormality is seen largely among people with northern European ancestry, occurring at a rate of about 1% among those native to the region.
According to Dr. Joseph Alvarnas, a City of Hope hematologist and a co-author of the report, the new immune system from the donor gradually overtook the old one — a typical phenomenon.
Some two years after the stem cell transplant, the man and his physicians decided to interrupt his antiretroviral treatment. He has remained apparently viable-virus free ever since. Nevertheless, the study authors intend to monitor him for longer and to conduct further tests before they are ready to declare that he is definitely cured.
The viral remission case
A second report presented at the Montreal conference detailed the case of a 59-year-old woman in Spain who is considered to be in a state of viral remission.
The woman was enrolled in a clinical trial in Barcelona in 2006 of people receiving standard antiretroviral treatment. She was randomized to also receive 11 months of four therapies meant to prime the immune system to better fight the virus, according to Núria Climent, a biologist at the University of Barcelona Hospital Clinic, who presented the findings.
Then Climent and the research team decided to take the woman off her antiretrovirals, per the study’s planned protocol. She has now maintained a fully suppressed viral load for over 15 years. Unlike the handful of people either cured or possibly cured by stem cell transplants, however, she still harbors virus that is capable of producing viable new copies of itself.
Her body has actually controlled the virus more efficiently with the passing years, according to Dr. Juan Ambrosioni, an HIV physician in the Barcelona clinic.
Ambrosioni, Climent and their collaborators said they waited so long to present this woman’s case because it wasn’t until more recently that technological advances have allowed them to peer deeply into her immune system and determine how it is controlling HIV on its own.
“It’s great to have such a gaze,” Ambrosioni said, noting that “the point is to understand what is going on and to see if this can be replicated in other people.”
In particular, it appears that what are known as her memory-like NK cells and CD8 gamma-delta T cells are leading this effective immunological army.
The research team noted that they do not believe that the woman would have controlled HIV on her own without the immune-boosting treatment, because the mechanisms by which her immune cells appear to control HIV are different from those seen in “elite controllers,” the approximately 1 in 200 people with HIV whose immune systems can greatly suppress the virus without treatment.
Lewin, of Australia’s Peter Doherty Institute, told reporters last week that it is still difficult to judge whether the immune-boosting treatment the woman received actually caused her state of remission. Much more research is needed to answer that question and to determine if others might also benefit from the therapy she received, she said.
Four decades of HIV, a handful of cures
Over four decades, just five people have been cured or possibly cured of HIV.
The virus remains so vexingly difficult to cure because shortly after entering the body it infects types of long-lived immune cells that enter a resting, or latent, state. Because antiretroviral treatment only attacks HIV when infected cells are actively churning out new viral copies, these resting cells, which are known collectively as the viral reservoir and can stay latent for years, remain under the radar of standard treatment. These cells can return to an active state at any time. So if antiretrovirals are interrupted, they can quickly repopulate the body with virus.
The first person cured of HIV was the American Timothy Ray Brown, who, like the City of Hope patient, was diagnosed with AML. His case was announced in 2008 and then published in 2009. Two subsequent cases were announced at a conference in 2019, known as the Düsseldorf and London patients, who had AML and Hodgkin lymphoma, respectively. The London patient, Adam Castillejo, went public in 2020.
Compared with the City of Hope patient, Brown nearly died after the two rounds of full-dose chemotherapy and the full-body radiation he received. Both he and Castillejo had a devastating inflammatory reaction to their treatment called graft-versus-host disease.
Dr. Björn Jensen, of Düsseldorf University Hospital, the author of the German case study — one typically overlooked by HIV cure researchers and in media reports about cure science — said that with 44 months passed since his patient has been viral rebound-free and off of antiretrovirals, the man is “almost definitely” cured.
“We are very confident there will be no rebound of HIV in the future,” said Jensen, who noted that he is in the process of getting the case study published in a peer-reviewed journal.
For the first time, University of Cambridge’s Ravindra Gupta, the author of the London case study stated, in an email to NBC News, that with nearly five years passed since Castillejo has been off of HIV treatment with no viral rebound, he is “definitely” cured.
In February, a research team announced the first case of a woman and the first in a person of mixed race possibly being cured of the virus through a stem cell transplant. The case of this woman, who had leukemia and is known as the New York patient, represented a substantial advance in the HIV cure field because she was treated with a cutting-edge technique that uses an additional transplant of umbilical cord blood prior to providing the transplant of adult stem cells.
The combination of the two transplants, the study authors told NBC News in February, helps compensate for both the adult and infant donors being less of a close genetic match with the recipient. What’s more, the infant donor pool is much easier than the adult pool to scan for the key HIV-resistance genetic abnormality. These factors, the authors of the woman’s case study said, likely expand the potential number of people with HIV who would qualify for this treatment to about 50 per year
Asked about the New York patient’s health status, Dr. Koen van Besien, of the stem cell transplant program at Weill Cornell Medicine and New York-Presbyterian in New York City, said, “She continues to do well without detectable HIV.”
Over the past two years, investigators have announced the cases oftwo women who are elite controllers of HIV and who have vanquished the virus entirely through natural immunity. They are considered likely cured.
Scientists have also reported several cases over the past decade of people who began antiretroviral treatment very soon after contracting HIV and after later discontinuing the medications have remained in a state of viral remission for years without experiencing viral rebound.
Speaking of the reaction of the City of Hope patient, who prefers to remain anonymous, to his new HIV status, Dickter said: “He’s thrilled. He’s really excited to be in that situation where he doesn’t have to take these medications. This has just been life-changing.”
The man has lived through several dramatically different eras of the HIV epidemic, she noted.
“In the early days of HIV, he saw many of his friends and loved ones get sick and ultimately die from the disease,” Dickter said. “He also experienced so much stigma at that time.”
As for her own feelings about the case, Dickter said, “As an infectious disease doctor, I’d always hoped to be able to tell my HIV patients that there’s no evidence of virus remaining in their system.”
There are at least 1,008 out candidates running this year, surpassing the record of 1,006 set in 2020, according to the LGBTQ Victory Fund, which supports out candidates who are also qualified and viable.
“We’re excited to continue making historic firsts,” Sean Meloy, Victory Fund’s vice president of political programs, tells The Advocate.
The field this year is significantly more diverse than previous ones as well. “We have a lot of folks who’ve stepped forward to represent the most underrepresented parts of our community,” Meloy says. There are over 100 more LGBTQ+ people of color running in 2022 than in 2020, a 58 percent increase from that year and a 225 percent increase from 2018.
Fifty-five transgender people are running in 2022, a 62 percent increase from 2020 and a 15 percent increase from 2018. There are 20 gender-nonconforming candidates, compared to none in 2020 and two in 2018. There are also 103 bisexual candidates, a 32 percent increase from 2020 and a 264 percent increase to 2018.
Since 2020, there has been a 73 percent increase in LGBTQ+ people running for federal office, a 12 percent increase in out candidates for state legislatures, and a 543 percent increase in LGBTQ+ candidates for statewide office.
Visibility and participation in the political process are especially important at a time of escalating political attacks on LGBTQ+ people, Meloy says. “If we’re not in the room, we’re not going to be able to respond,” he says.
Victory Fund President and CEO Annise Parker made that point as well in a Victory Fund press release. “The writing is on the wall for the LGBTQ community and our allies: Our rights are on the ballot this year,” she said. “The people we elect this cycle will make decisions about what our kids are allowed to learn and say in the classroom, what health care choices people will be allowed to make about their own bodies and possibly, whether we will continue to be allowed to marry those we love. With more LGBTQ people running than ever before, this election also brings incredible opportunity to elect fiercely pro-choice, pro-equality leaders up and down the ballot. The LGBTQ leaders we elect will not only be critical voices in halls of power across the country, their success will be a deafening rebuke to the wave of hate impacting our community.”
So far, Victory Fund has endorsed 314 candidates this year, with more likely to come before November. The organization’s criteria, in addition to being out, include supporting reproductive choice and other privacy-related rights; endorsing the diversity of the LGBTQ+ community; being qualified for the office sought; and having a viable campaign plan.
Numerous Victory Fund-endorsed candidates stand to make history this year. Maura Healey in Massachusetts and Tina Kotek in Oregon could become the nation’s first lesbian governors. Jared Polis, seeking reelection in Colorado, would be the first out gay man elected to a second term.
Dana Nessel, a lesbian, is seeking reelection as Michigan’s attorney general; she’s only the second out AG in the nation (Healey was the first). In Arizona, Kris Mayes, another gay woman, is running to be that state’s first out attorney general. There are some others running for statewide offices, such as Erick Russell, a gay man running for Connecticut treasurer; he’d be the first Black member of the LGBTQ+ community to hold statewide office.
Several states are likely to elect their first out members of the U.S. House, including Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, North Carolina, Oregon, and Vermont. State legislatures in Minnesota, Montana, and Pennsylvania stand to have their first trans or nonbinary members.
For people with political aspirations, there are opportunities before 2024, Meloy notes. Many school boards and city councils hold elections in odd-numbered years, and those bodies can be a good place to start one’s political career, he says. For those interested in those races, he suggests receiving training through Victory Institute (Victory Fund’s sister organization) or another group, studying the issues, forming a message, and making a campaign plan. “A lot of that is knocking on doors and knowing your neighbors,” he says.
For those who want to support candidates, campaigns always need volunteers to make phone calls, go door-to-door, and more, and above all, it’s important to register and vote.
Meloy adds that even with the record number of candidates this year and more than 1,000 out politicians in office nationwide, the U.S. is far from having proportional representation of the LGBTQ+ community. “We need to elect 35,000 more LGBTQ people to have parity,” he says. But this year’s record field provides a chance to work toward that.
Sunday July 31 at 4 pm. Samba Noma at Occidental Center for the Arts Amphitheater. Samba Noma, a talented ensemble of accomplished Bay Area musicians performs in our outdoor amphitheater, showcasing a jazzy, eclectic mix of Brazilian compositions including works by Toninho Horta, Hermeto Pascoal, Egberto Gismonte and Antonio Carlos Jobim, plus original compositions. SambaNoma is Ruth Ahlers – sax and flute, Christian Foley-Beining – guitar, Jim Passarell – bass, and Kendrick Freeman – drums and percussion. Tickets are $25 GA / $20 for OCA members @ www.occidentalcenterforthearts.org, or at the door. Outdoor event – please bring your own seat cushion or low back chair. Disabled patrons may reserve seating at ground level @ info@occidentalcenterforthearts.org . Fine refreshments for sale, art gallery open during events. Become an OCA Member and get discounts/free admission. Occidental Center for the Arts, 3850 Doris Murphy Ct. Occidental,CA. 95465. 707-874-9392.
On Saturday, July 23, World Health Organization Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus declared the spread of monkeypox to be a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), the organization’s loudest alarm bell signifying an emerging outbreak.
Since early May, more than 15,000 cases of monkeypox have been identified across more than 60 countries. Disease caused by the monkeypox virus typically involves a few days of fever and lymph node swelling followed by a rash, which can leave scars. Most cases in the current outbreak have resolved without hospitalization or the need for medication. As of July 7, there have been three deaths, all of them in Africa.
When the WHO first convened a committee in late June to determine whether monkeypox was a PHEIC. As cases have continued to rise worldwide, the committee reconvened on July 21 — and this time, the outcome was different.
“We have an outbreak that has spread around the world rapidly through new modes of transmission, about which we understand too little and which meets the criteria in international health regulations,” Tedros said when announcing the emergency.
Tedros made the declaration despite the the WHO’s emergency committee for monkeypox, which did not come to an unanimous consensus on whether to declare an emergency. “There are uncertainties on all sides,” said Michael Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s health emergencies program, explaining Tedros’s reasoning in deciding to declare a PHEIC. “He sees a window of opportunity to to bring this disease under control,” said Ryan. The committee offers a recommendation, but ultimately it was Tedros’s decision.
The last time the WHO declared an international emergency was in early 2020, for Covid-19. While the disease caused by the currently spreading monkeypox virus is much less severe than Covid-19 and spreads far less easily, there are good reasons for the WHO to declare an emergency.
For starters, said Ana B. Amaya, an expert in global health governance at Pace University in New York, this monkeypox outbreak is just very different from past outbreaks of the disease. The vast majority of the latest cases have been identified among gay and bisexual men, and sexual contact with multiple sexual partners has emerged as an important risk factor. Scientists are now trying to determine if the virus spreads through sexual fluids like semen and vaginal fluid in addition to the ways it’s already known to spread: via skin-to-skin contact and, to a lesser degree, by respiratory transmission.
Prior to the current outbreak, monkeypox often spread throughout households via close contact and, possibly, shared items like utensils and linens. In the past few weeks, isolatedreports of infections in children, who are thought to be at higher risk for severe outcomes of monkeypox infection, reinforce the worry that without containment, outbreaks often spread beyond the populations where they start.
The prospect that the virus might be spreading in ways not seen before raises the concern that it will surprise us in other ways — for example, by causing severe disease if it reaches certain populations it has not yet reached, like large groups of immunocompromised people, said Amaya. “All of that is really alarming. And that’s why it’s very important for us to have a coordinated response that starts from the WHO level,” she said in a late-June interview, before the WHO’s first meeting to discuss issuing an emergency declaration.
But beyond that, this kind of declaration encourages countries to coordinate to stop the virus’s spread in a few different ways. Here’s how that works.
A public health emergency is not the same thing as a pandemic
To be resoundingly clear: The WHO did not declare monkeypox to be a new pandemic. There’s a difference between a pandemic and a PHEIC.
A pandemic is squishily defined as “an epidemic occurring over a very wide area, crossing international boundaries, and usually affecting a large number of people,” according to A Dictionary of Epidemiology. Public health experts use the phrase “pandemic” to emphasize the global reach of an outbreak. They seem to agree that calling something a pandemic means it demands a coordinated international response — and potentially, that it’s too big to contain.
On the other hand, a PHEIC is a more carefully defined term. It describes a situation that has not necessarily grown out of control, but has the potential to do so.
According to the WHO’s International Health Regulations, an outbreak qualifies as a PHEIC if 1) it’s unusual or unexpected, 2) has potential for international spread, and 3) requires an immediate international response.
The WHO has only declared six PHEICs to date, including Ebola, Zika, and Covid-19.
The monkeypox outbreak easily meets the first two criteria for an emergency: the virus’s spread outside West and Central Africa and among sexual networks are both unusual patterns, and the virus has already spread internationally, with cases now present in about 60 countries. And given that spread, containing monkeypox will clearly require an international response.
Why did the WHO wait to declare an emergency?
Some experts think this outbreak easily met the PHEIC criteria when the WHO first addressed the question about a month ago. Why didn’t it declare an emergency then?
Former Texas solicitor general Jonathan Mitchell is representing clients in six separate lawsuits in the state targeting LGBTQ rights. As TheDallas Morning News reports, the cases are currently making their way through state and federal courts and could have dire consequences for LGBTQ rights throughout the U.S.
Mitchell is credited with coming up with the Texas law that allows private citizens to sue those who help pregnant people access abortions. In a 2021 Supreme Court brief, he argued that the decisions that legalized same-sex relations and same-sex marriages in all 50 states should both be overturned along with Roe v. Wade, a sentiment echoed by Justice Clarence Thomas in his concurrence in the court’s recent decision striking down Roe.
In 2018, he opened his one-man law firm with the express purpose of bringing cases involving religious freedom, abortion, and affirmative action before the Supreme Court’s new conservative majority.
Two of the lawsuits Mitchell has filed involving LGBTQ rights concern same-sex marriage. Dianne Hensley v. State Commission on Judicial Conduct and Brian Keith Umphress v. David Hall, et al., were brought by Texas officials who do not want to perform same-sex marriages because they say it violates their religious beliefs. Umphress explicitly argues that “there is no constitutional right to same-sex marriage” and that the Supreme Court should revisit Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 decision establishing marriage equality in the U.S.
Another case involving so-called religious freedoms argues that private insurers should not have to cover certain preventive medical care, specifically PrEP. Mitchell’s clients in John Kelley, et al., v. Xavier Becerra object to the Affordable Care Act’s mandate that insurance providers cover such medication.
“The PrEP mandate forces religious employers to provide coverage for drugs that facilitate and encourage homosexual behavior, prostitution, sexual promiscuity, and intravenous drug use,” the lawsuit states. “It also compels religious employers and religious individuals who purchase health insurance to subsidize these behaviors as a condition of purchasing health insurance.”
Again citing religious liberties, Braidwood Management v. EEOC targets the Supreme Court’s 2020 ruling barring discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, arguing that religious employers should be able allowed to hire and fire employees based on their sexuality and gender identity. The case is currently in federal court where a Texas judge agreed with Mitchell. The EEOC is currently fighting that decision in the federal appeals court.
Mitchell also represents defendants in Leila Green Little, et al. v. Llano County. The plaintiffs in the suit say local leaders violated their First and Fourth amendment rights by removing LGBTQ books from the local library’s children’s and young adult sections. A win for the plaintiffs could discourage similar book bans.
In Patrick Von Dohlen, et al. v. city of San Antonio, private citizens are suing the city for violating Texas’s “Save Chick-fil-A” law, which prohibits the state government from taking “adverse actions” against businesses for their contributions to or memberships in religious organizations. Mitchell’s clients claim the city violated the law when it banned the fast food franchise from opening in the San Antonio International Airport due to its history of supporting anti-LGBTQ causes and organizations.
Events sponsored by TRANSLIFE for the transgender/gender-expansive community in Sonoma County. Please contact us at info@translifeconference.org for more information.
