The global fight against AIDS is stalling due to lower investment, marginalized communities missing vital health services, and new HIV infections rising in some parts, the United Nations warned on Tuesday.
More than half of all new HIV infections in 2018 were among sex workers, drug users, men who have sex with men, transgender people, prisoners and the sexual partners of these groups, according to a report by UNAIDS. Many of those populations did not get access to infection prevention services, it said.
Progress in some countries has been “impressive,” the U.N. body’s report said, but others are seeing rising numbers of HIV infections and AIDS-related deaths.
It noted “worrying increases” in new infections in eastern Europe and central Asia, where HIV cases rose by 29 percent, as well as in the Middle East, North Africa and Latin America.
“Ending AIDS is possible if we focus on people not diseases,” said UNAIDS Executive Director Gunilla Carlsson.
She said now was the time to “create road maps for the people and locations being left behind (and) take a human rights-based approach to reaching people most affected by HIV.”
This would need greater political leadership, she said, starting with adequate and well-targeted investment.
Global funding for the AIDS fight dropped off significantly in 2018 – by nearly $1 billion – as international donors gave less and domestic investments did not grow fast enough to plug the gap. Around $19 billion was available for the AIDS response in 2018, UNAIDS said – falling $7.2 billion short of the total $26.2 billion it says is needed by 2020.
Globally in 2018, some 770,000 people died of AIDS and almost 38 million people were living with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes it.
HIV cannot be cured but the infection can be kept in check by AIDS drugs known as antiretrovial treatment.
Around 23.3 million of the 37.9 million people with HIV worldwide currently get the AIDS drugs they need.
Around 1.7 million people were newly infected, the UNAIDS report said, a 16% decline since 2010, driven mostly by steady progress in parts of eastern and southern Africa.
South Africa, for example, has cut new HIV infections by more than 40% and AIDS-related deaths by around 40% since 2010.
But the report warned there is still a long way to go in many parts of eastern and southern Africa – the regions most affected by HIV.
Violence against transgender people continues to be a daunting issue within the LGBTQ+ community. Los Angeles, alone, recorded a nearly 13 percent increase in hate crimes toward LGBTQ+ people and black community members last year, as reported by The Los Angeles Times.
Yet, there are many transgender people who come face-to-face with assailants and live to tell their story. Jessica-Jean de la Vega, a youth education advocate for a Los Angeles-based trans health clinic, is one of them.
De la Vega had downloaded the notorious LGBTQ+ dating/sex app, Grindr. She, like so many other LGBTQ+ people who frequent the app, was looking forward to simply meeting someone for a casual connection. However, she never expected to invite an assailant over — one with the intention to rob as much as he could.
Before inviting the man over, De la Vega did not pick up on any red flags during their exchange on Grindr.
“It was a totally normal conversation,” De la Vega said. “We had a full-blown conversation — pictures were sent, we talked to each other, there wasn’t anything assuming. He had mentioned he was on the DL — I said that’s fine. He sent me his actual photos. Everything matched when he got here.”
After the man made his way into De la Vega’s home, he violently pushes her down and pulls out a gun. “Value your life,” the assailant said while pointing his gun toward her.
“There’s like a sense of security you expect from being on this app that’s targeted toward queer people,” De la Vega said. “You don’t expect that to happen.”
The assailant stole De la Vega’s phone, wallet and even went as far as taking the flat-screen television in the living room, which belonged to her roommate.
Yet, De la Vega feels fortunate that the altercation didn’t escalate to violent heights. If she hadn’t complied with his requests, she fears she might have become a part of a statistic already growing at an alarming rate.
In 2018, 26 transgender people lost their lives by means of brutal violence. So far, in 2019, there have been more than 10 transgender people who have been murdered — many such as Dana Martin, a 31-year-old black transgender women, were fatally shot. Martin was found dead in her car — having lived her final moments in a roadside ditch somewhere in Alabama, according to Human Rights Campaign.
“I’m really fortunate,” De la Vega said. “Someone else, two weeks later, was robbed by the same person. She got physically hurt, I did not.”
The person that De la Vega is referring to is Luna Lovebad, a 28-year-old transgender Latinx women with a career in music. Lovebad performed a musical set at LA Pride, the day after she was robbed by two men at gunpoint. According to Lovebad, after re-downloading the app in the weeks following the assault, she was messaged by an anonymous profile. The message read: “You was broke anyways bitch. Should’ve shot yo dumb ass,” as reported on her Instagram account.
“I think we face a lot more violence, just in general,” De la Vega said. “I mean we constantly see how many trans women have already died this year. And then, on top of all of the trans violence, they just have funeral services for trans woman in our community — it’s like we constantly face this.”
De la Verga remained off of Grindr immediately following the incident. However, she recently re-downloaded the application. Her reasoning: she deserves to live her life. Moreover, she believes it’s, oftentimes, difficult for LGBTQ+ people to date, or connect for casual fun, without the help of queer apps such as Grindr.
However, she does admit that she is much more cautious about who she meets over the app.
“There are so many different things that can lead to violence [for transgender people],” De la Vega said. “Whether it be from Grindr, whether it be from anywhere else. You have to look at the disparities that transpeople face versus cis-folk. Because it’s not just trans women, it’s every person that falls outside of the gender binary that this happens to.”
De la Vega recently installed a security camera inside of her apartment — it directly faces the front door and is linked in real-time to her cell-phone. She says it makes her feel safer following such a traumatic incident.
As pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) gains acceptance, medical experts and policymakers are finding new ways to make this effective HIV prevention tool accessible to more people who could benefit.
Last month the California Senate passed a bill that will allow pharmacists to provide PrEP and post-exposure prophylaxis (PEP) without a prescription. And in June, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) recommended that health care providers offer PrEP to people at risk of acquiring HIV, paving the way for broader insurance coverage.
PrEP at the Pharmacy
SB 159, co-authored by Senator Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and Assemblymember Todd Gloria (D-San Diego), authorizes pharmacists to offer a month’s worth of PrEP or a course of PEP without prescription from a physician. It also prohibits insurance companies from requiring prior authorization for PrEP coverage.
On May 21, the Senate approved the bill by a wide 34-to-1 margin, sending it on to the Assembly.
“By allowing pharmacists to furnish these revolutionary medications, we will help reduce HIV infection rates and create a stronger path toward ending new HIV infections entirely,” Wiener said. “We have the tools to end new HIV infections, and we can get there in our lifetime.”
San Francisco AIDS Foundation (SFAF) co-sponsored the bill and was involved in the process of moving it forward, said Courtney Mulhern-Pearson, senior director of policy and strategy.
“The goal of the bill is to make PrEP accessible at a point when people are willing and able to start,” she said. “We’re looking at PrEP uptake and realizing we need to do more to increase access across the state. This is an innovative way to increase access to and awareness of PrEP and to make sure it’s available to all who need it.”
The bill’s current language allows pharmacists to provide a 30-day supply of Truvada (tenofovir disoproxil fumarate/emtricitabine) PrEP to individuals who have had a negative HIV test within the previous seven days. The client would then be referred to a medical provider for the recommended monitoring, including screening for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and kidney function tests. Pharmacists would also be able to offer a month-long course of PEP, which can prevent HIV infection if started within 72 hours after exposure to HIV.
Some have raised concerns about providing PrEP without testing kidney function in advance, because the tenofovir in Truvada could potentially cause kidney impairment in susceptible individuals. But studies have shown that kidney problems are uncommon among people using Truvada for HIV prevention.
“One month is not going to be a problem,” according to Robert Grant, MD, of the University of California at San Francisco, who led a major study showing that PrEP is highly effective for gay and bisexual men. “We’re not seeing kidney problems very much at all in people seeking PrEP. These typically occur four to five months after starting and they’re rare.”
“We’re only providing PrEP to a small proportion of people who could benefit, and making it more accessible and more convenient at pharmacies will be a step toward stopping HIV transmission,” Grant added.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that less than 10% of the more than 1.1 million people at high risk for acquiring HIV were using PrEP as of 2015. The numbers were even lower for African Americans (1%) and Latinx people (3%), who have high rates of new HIV infections. In California, the state Office of AIDS estimates that as many as 240,000 Californians could be eligible for PrEP, but only around 9,000 people were using it as of late 2016.
“The low rates of PrEP and PEP use across California signal the need to offer these effective prevention tools in additional ways,” said SFAF CEO Joe Hollendoner. “This bill removes unnecessary barriers and streamlines access to PrEP and PEP, so anyone who needs preventative measures can get them.”
USPSTF Recommendation
The new USPSTF recommendation for PrEP carries an “A” grade, meaning it is well-supported by scientific evidence. The Affordable Care Act requires insurers to cover preventive recommended services with an “A” or “B” rating.
“The new recommendation for PrEP is enormously important news for the struggle against HIV,” said Grant. “This grade A recommendation reflects the available evidence, which strongly supports the use of PrEP as a safe, effective method of HIV prevention.”
As described in a June 11 statement in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the recommendation says that clinicians should offer PrEP to sexually active men who have sex with men (MSM) and heterosexual women and men who have an HIV-positive sex partner, do not use condoms consistently, or have had an STI within the past six months. PrEP is also recommended for people who injection drugs who share needles or other injection equipment.
Although few transgender people have been included in trials, PrEP has been shown to reduce the risk of acquiring HIV through receptive or insertive anal or vaginal sex, so it can be considered for cisgender and transgender people alike, according to the authors.
The task force experts recommend once-daily Truvada—currently the only PrEP regimen approved by the Food and Drug Administration—for all at-risk groups. But it also says that tenofovir disiproxil fumarate alone, which is available as an inexpensive generic, is an option for heterosexual men and women and people who inject drugs, based on studies showing that it lowers HIV risk in these groups. No equivalent studies with MSM have been done.
The new recommendation has the potential to substantially expand access to PrEP. Many private insurers already cover Truvada for HIV prevention—which is priced at around $1,600 per month—but cost sharing is common. Gilead Sciences offers a co-pay card that people with private insurance can use to cover out-of-pocket costs, but some claim this benefit is inadequate. Many state Medicaid programs, including California’s, cover PrEP, but this represents a substantial public financial burden given competing funding needs.
Expanding PrEP use among people who need it most will also require raising awareness and combatting stigma.
“PrEP has been proven to be a highly effective intervention in preventing new cases of HIV, and receiving an A grade is an important step towards increased access,” Hollendoner said. “We know, however, that access alone does not result in utilization, so we call on healthcare providers to educate their patients who are at risk for HIV acquisition—especially those who are people of color—about PrEP and how it can protect their sexual health.”
McBride will run for Delaware’s 1st Senate District, where incumbent Harris McDowell, a fellow Democrat, announced July 1 that he would retire in 2020. The district covers Bellefonte, Claymont and parts of Wilmington, the state’s largest and most populous city.
“I’ve spent my life fighting for people to have dignity, peace of mind, and a fair shot at staying afloat and getting ahead,” McBride said in a statement shared with NBC News. “Sen. McDowell’s retirement at the end of this term is a well-deserved cap on a remarkable career of public service, and now our neighbors need someone who will continue to fight for them.”
McBride, currently a spokesperson for LGBTQ advocacy group Human Rights Campaign, first made national headlines in 2012 while still a college student. A day after stepping down as American University’s student body president, McBride came out as trans in the school’s student-run newspaper. During her time in college, McBride also interned in the Obama White House, becoming “the first openly transgender woman to work in the White House in any capacity,” according to her campaign announcement.
Should McBride be elected next year, she would be America’s first openly transgender state senator. According to the Victory Institute, there are currently 715 openly LGBTQ elected officials nationwide.
A total of 206 companies have signed onto a legal brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to find Title VII of the Civil Rights Act bars discrimination against LGBT people in the workforce.
The friend-of-the-court brief — organized by the Human Rights Campaign, Lambda Legal, Out & Equal, Out Leadership and Freedom for All Americans — is signed by the nation’s top businesses and argues anti-LGBT discrimination is a form of sex discrimination, thus illegal under the Title VII.
Among the signers are food companies like Domino’s Pizza and Coca-Cola Company, tech companies like Facebook and Mozilla Corp., and defense contractors like Northrup Grumman Corp.
“Even where companies voluntarily implement policies to prohibit sexual orientation or gender identity discrimination, such policies are not a substitute for the force of law,” the brief says. “Nor is the patchwork of incomplete state or local laws sufficient protection —for example, they cannot account for the cross-state mobility requirements of the modern workforce. Only a uniform federal rule can enable businesses to recruit and retain, and employees to perform, at their highest levels.”
According to the Human Rights Campaign, the brief has more corporate signers than any previous business brief in an LGBT non-discrimination case.
The brief was written by Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP, a Los Angeles-based law firm that also represents the signers in the case along with Robinson Curley P.C. and Taylor & Cohen LLP.
Erin Uritus, CEO of Out & Equal Workplace Advocates, said in a statement the brief “exposes the lie that affirming Civil Rights protections for LGBTQ Americans is somehow anti-business.”
“The opposite is true,” Uritus said. “Equality is good for businesses and employees. And consumers — who are increasingly savvy and intentional about their spending power — are demanding equality. I’m inspired by all of the leaders who have joined with us today in submitting this brief. The Civil Rights Act needs to be affirmed in a way that serves and protects all Americans.”
A man serving 30 years for not disclosing his HIV status to sexual partners has been released 25 years earlier.
Former college wrestler Michael ‘Tiger Mandingo’ Johnson left Boonville’s prison, Missouri, yesterday (9 July).
In 2013, Johnson was the protagonist of what many defined a racially charged trial. His case was also one of the most relevant in the ongoing discussion about the criminalization of HIV transmission.
Criminalizing transmission
‘I feel great,’ Johnson told BuzzFeed as he left Boonville Correctional Center.
‘Leaving prison is such a great feeling.’
Police arrested Johnson, a black man, for ‘recklessly’ transmitting HIV to two men and exposing four others to it. Four out of these six sexual partners are white men.
The jury found him guilty of one of the two transmission cases and of all four exposure cases.
Johnson was serving 30 years
What struck many was the way Johnson’s trial was handled, particularly the fact that jurors were reportedly shown images of the man’s penis.
Johnson ended up receiving a lengthier sentence than Missouri’s average for second-degree murder, 30.5 years.
In December 2016, the Missouri Court of Appeals for the Eastern District overturned his conviction because prosecutors had waited until the last moment to disclose evidence.
To avoid another trial, Johnson took a no-contest Alford plea deal. He was later granted suspended parole.
Black men and HIV
Some argue that Johnson’s case proved that race plays a part in HIV transmission trials in the US.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published research projecting that if current trends continue, one in every two black men who have sex with men in the US would become HIV positive in their lifetimes. This would happen despite them having ‘fewer partners and lower rates of recreational drug use than other gay men’.
On a global level, a disproportionate number of the roughly 1 million people a year who die of AIDS are black.
HIV transmission law in Missouri
Current state law in Missouri punishes HIV-exposure by up to 15 years in prison, or as many as 30 years if HIV is transmitted.
A Republican bill tried to change the law by reducing punishment for knowingly transmitting HIV from a felony to a misdemeanor. If passed, the new law would have taken into account several factors. Among these, whether the accused used a condom or was taking medication.
The bill’s sponsors say they will try again to get it passed in the next legislative session.
Established in Istanbul in 1890, Bomonti is Turkey’s oldest modern brewery and produces one of the country’s most popular lagers. The rainbow-coloured bottle was unveiled in an Instagram post by the head of Bomonti’s branding agency, alongside the caption: “We did it!”
It’s a bold move in a country which has been named the second-most restrictive on gay rights in Europe. Amnesty International previously told PinkNews in 2018 that Turkish LGBT+ people are “living in more fear than ever.”
Although courts ruled in April that the two-year ban on Pride parades could technically be lifted, Amnesty reported in May that “appalling” violence had been used against students holding a Pride march in the capital city of Ankara. Authorities also stripped the scholarships of students detained in the march.
And on Sunday (June 30) another Pride rally in Istanbul ended with tear gas and rubber bullets.
This current political climate makes Bomonti’s decision to embrace LGBT+ rights particularly significant — and while the commercialisation of Pride may be common in other countries, the Turkish LGBT+ community couldn’t be happier to see the beer brand following suit.
@zekibaskaya said, “I’m shocked! but really excellent idea,” @logolepsi said, “You’ve made us even more happy with rainbow marketing,” and @benimadimsencer said: “We’re so happy, so excited. For the first time in Turkey, a brand is investing in Pride and standing behind us like a door.”
LGBTI tour operator, Toto Tours, has decided to cancel their 16-day package tour to Ethiopia that was schedule for this October, amid concerns for the safety of their clients. The tour itinerary was to include visits to several religious sites.
The Ethiopian Orthodox organization, the Sileste Mihret United Association, alluded to violence.
The chairperson said: ‘Homosexuality is hated as well as being illegal in Ethiopia.
‘If Toto Tours comes to Ethiopia where 97% of Ethiopians surveyed oppose homosexuality, they will be damaged. They could even die.’
Toto Tours canceled Ethiopia trip after death threats
Dan Ware, owner of the company, decided to cancel the tour after consideration of the above statement, and also receiving several other threats of violence should the tour proceed.
According to reports from NBC Chicago, Ware explained: ‘We had descriptions of buried alive, burned alive; I had an ISIS-type video with a guy with a mask on his head, brandishing his sword saying we are going to cut your throat. It was not something to ignore.
Spokeswoman for the US Embassy in Ethiopia, Amanda Jacobsen, stated: ‘Our country specific information for Ethiopia notes the challenges American citizen LGBTI travelers to Ethiopia may face, including the fact that consensual same-sex sexual activity between adults is illegal and punishable by imprisonment.
‘There is no law prohibiting discrimination against LGBTI persons.
‘Ethiopians do not generally identify themselves as LGBTI due to severe societal stigma.’
Tour company still planning trips to countries where being gay is illegal
Ware stated that he hopes to one day still plan a tour to Ethiopia.
However, in the meantime, he’s refunding all clients who were booked on the October departure.
Toto Tours has been serving the LGBT community since 1990.
Their website states the name is derived from the Latin word meaning ‘all-inclusive,’ not in reference to Dorothy’s infamous dog from the Wizard of Oz. The company website still has trips planned to Botswana, Bhutan, and Egypt, all places where same-sex activity is illegal.
Amazon has removed books by a ‘gay cure’ conversion therapy author.
Joseph Nicolosi penned a book that spread the dangerous and harmful practice of attempting to ‘cure’ a person’s sexual or gender identity.
He was the co-founder of the National Association of Research & Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) and a prominent leader in the ex-gay movement.
His book, A Parent’s Guide To Preventing Homosexuality, is one of the most well known ‘conversion therapy’ books.
But now, it has been removed from the UK and US versions of Amazon.
Rojo Alan, from Peterborough, wrote to Amazon several times to get the book removed from listings.
He previously went through conversion therapy himself as a young child.
Failing to get the right response, he engaged with others to leave negative reviews on the website. Quickly, the rating fell from four stars to two stars.
‘I looked into the “rules of publishing” on Amazon, to see what sort of things they allow and don’t allow,’ he said.
‘Once I wrapped my head around that I started to look into the laws of conversion therapy. The legal side of things.
‘Once I gathered everything I went back to Amazon and I threw all the information I had at them in several conversations. Yet I was given the same “we will refer this to the relevant team”. Again it felt hopeless and I wasn’t too sure what else I could do.’
But, sure enough, Amazon removed all of the English language books by Nicolosi. It took Alan three months from the first email to removing the books.
‘Huge step’
‘These books were “how to” books,’ Alan told Gay Star News, also describing it as a ‘huge step in the right direction’.
‘These were books that were lying to parents on how they could cure their children from being gay or trans. It’s lying because it’s actually just a form of abuse.
‘The books went into ways in which you can mentally and physically abuse your child.
‘If this helps anyone from being harmed, that would be a good reason to do it.’
He was previously quoted in a documentary: ‘Everyone is heterosexual.’
‘The idea that some people are naturally homosexual, or naturally gay, is just a social construct.’
He also said: ‘So when you have individuals with same-sex attraction, we it as something went wrong developmentally and we try to resolve the issue and put them back on the path toward their natural heterosexuality.’
The World Psychiatric Association has condemned so-called ‘gay cure’ conversion therapy.
The group said they consider sexual orientation to be ‘innate’. They also said it is determined by ‘biological, psychological, developmental and social factors’.
‘WPA believes strongly in evidence-based treatment,’ they also said.
‘There is no sound scientific evidence that innate sexual orientation can be changed.
‘Furthermore, so-called treatments of homosexuality can create a setting in which prejudice and discrimination flourish, and they can be potentially harmful … The provision of any intervention purporting to “treat” something that is not a disorder is wholly unethical.’
As the U.S. — and many other parts of the world — celebrates the 50th anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall uprising, rainbow flags and LGBTQ-inclusive ad campaigns appear to be omnipresent, especially in big cities. The ubiquity of these Pride campaigns make it easy to forget that this was not always the case. While many point to corporate America’s embrace of LGBTQ inclusivity as a major sign of progress, others believe corporations are coopting the movement.
Advertisements geared toward gay and lesbian consumers began to appear in earnest in the 1970s, inspired in part by the energy of the Stonewall uprising, which is widely considered the spark that fueled the modern LGBTQ movement.
So-called “sin” products, like alcohol and tobacco, were the first marketed to gays. These companies had little or nothing to lose from a potential boycott by the religious right, according to Katherine Sender, a communications professor at Cornell University and author of “Business, Not Politics: The Making of the Gay Market.”
“Now, getting a gay boycott is a much worse thing than getting a boycott from the religious right.”
PROFESSOR KATHERINE SENDER
Absolut vodka was the first brand to build itself with an eye toward the gay market, featuring full-page ads in gay outlets, such as The Advocate. Other alcohol brands like Boodles Gin ran ads in gay publications, but most ad revenue came from local gay bars and businesses.
However, with the exception of Absolut, much of the advertising aimed explicitly at gays came to a halt in the 1980s because of the HIV/AIDS crisis and the stigma surrounding the disease.
Things changed in the 1990s. Marketing surveys, namely the 1988 Simmons Market and the 1990 Overlooked Opinions survey, presented an image of gays and lesbians as an affluent, untapped market. Marketers estimated the total annual income of the gay community at over $500 billion. The surveys, however, were not representative and helped to start what researchers have since described as the “myth of gay affluence.”
In 1994, Ikea launched the first television ad to feature a gay couple. In the commercial, the two men tease each other about their taste in furniture.
“I remember it extremely well, because it was radical,” said Bob Witeck, president of Witeck Communications, a firm specializing in LGBTQ marketing. The couple “behaved in every sense like a married couple, and it was radical because it was normal and natural,” he said.
Not everyone loved the ad. In fact, the backlash was swift and strong. The American Family Association staged a boycott, and an Ikea store in New York received a bomb threat.
That same year, AT&T launched a direct-marketing mail campaign, making them the first US phone company to openly target lesbian and gay customers (MCI ran an earlier campaign, but used suggestive statements and imagery rather than a direct appeal).
“They got a big pushback from the religious right,” Sender said.
Companies remained more focused on gay men, though a notable exception was Subaru. In the late ‘90s, Subaru undertook a very successful lesbian-focused marketing campaign after research revealed its sturdy, practical cars appealed to this demographic. “It’s not a choice, it’s the way we’re built,” a 2000 print ad boasted.
This new interest in the “pink dollar” coincided with a massive increase in gay and lesbian visibility in the media. Ellen came out on TV in 1997, which Sender called “a massive deal.” Shows like “The L Word,” “Queer as Folk” and “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” ushered images and information about gays and lesbians into homes across the country.
Despite the increased visibility and a number of successful ad campaigns, even into the early 2000s mainstream companies still risked a backlash for gay and lesbian inclusivity, according to Sender. Many companies were still afraid to be labeled as selling a “gay product.” Representation of transgender people was almost always negative, relying on transphobic tropes of deceit or mistaken identity, according to Sender’s research.
FROM THE GAY MARKET TO THE LGBTQ MARKET
Rich Ferraro, chief communications officer at GLAAD, a national LGBTQ media advocacy organization, has been consulting on LGBTQ images in advertising since 2008. He sees a very different media landscape today.
“The backlash that once occurred if a brand had LGBTQ marketing campaigns is no longer,” Ferraro wrote in an email. “For instance, fringe organizations like Family Research Council, National Organization for Marriage and One Million Moms would start petitions (which never really reached large numbers), but now they do not.”
Sender agreed, saying, “Now, getting a gay boycott is a much worse thing than getting a boycott from the religious right.”
More and more companies are engaging in LGBTQ-inclusive advertising, Ferraro said. “Categories have exploded — spirits and travel were typically leaders in LGBTQ-inclusive campaigns, but now it’s retail, cars, banking and financial services, food and beverages, youth-oriented brands,” he explained.
Witeck said “there is probably no more efficient way to say we are a contemporary brand” than to make your ad campaigns LGBTQ-inclusive.
For legacy brands, like Coca Cola, they must always be refreshed and made relevant, Witeck added. “LGBTQ marketing is an effective way to say, ‘We get it. We look and talk and act like we are in the 21st century.’”
However, Sender said that LGBTQ consumers are not only looking for inclusion in campaigns, but are holding companies accountable in their employment and production practices.
“Now, people are asking more questions, particularly around transgender polices and health care,” she said.
“What constitutes the responsibility of the advertising companies is expanding in ways that are really quite powerful,” Sender added, noting that consumers are asking questions like, “Are they buying products or services or in countries that have extremely bad policies and legal enforcement around LGBTQ people?”
Because of their resources, companies are also in a position to exert powerful political influence if they want to. Witeck mentioned the corporate boycotts of North Carolina after the passage of HB2 (the so-called “bathroom bill) that helped to precipitate its repeal and major companies’ outspoken support for transgender equality.
While historically there has been much less representation of transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals, this year examples of such campaigns abound: Raquel Willis for Express on a Times Square billboard, Gillette’s commercial featuring a young trans man and his dad, and Uber running a campaign featuring trans, genderqueer and bisexual pride flags.
“Traditionally, one or two campaigns are inclusive of transgender people, now it is a norm,” Ferraro said.
GAY INC.
Kristin Comeforo, associate professor of communications at Hartford College, worries that advertisers often take a “check-the-box approach” to the inclusion of gender and racial diversity, rather than a genuine engagement with intersectional experiences.
She also worries that corporate sponsorship can silence the voices of LGBTQ people who face intersectional marginalization.
Sender agreed, noting that “the 50th anniversary of Stonewall is such a big deal everyone wants a piece of that.” As a result, she added, Pride marches have become “a party for everybody.”
“What gets left behind are the very real struggles of LGBTQ people in this country — trans people in particular and people of color facing multiple layers of discrimination,” she added. “This ‘party’ suggests that being gay is just an excuse to have a lovely time, but there is still a long way to go.”