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Chilean author and Aids activist Pedro Lemebel during New York's Gay Pride Parade in 1994 (Barbara Alper/Getty Images)
When the head of the UK’s largest and longest-running HIV charity, the Terrence Higgins Trust, told this year’s Pride London parade that Britain could soon be the first country in the world to eradicate HIV, the cheer that went up could be heard across Soho. A few of those cheers turned into confusion, however, when Richard Angell revealed the way to stop the epidemic: by “ending the wait in gender-affirming healthcare”. What does a disease that was originally billed as the ”gay plague” — a disease which has killed in excess of 40 million people worldwide — have to do with trans people wanting easier access to hormone treatments or reassignment surgery?
The answer, it seems, lies in a shift in the global HIV response, one that the United Nations hopes will finally “end Aids by 2030”. To push HIV out of the “crisis” stage, in which it has been stuck for decades, and shrink the rate of new infections, health practitioners want a massive roll-out of the preventative medications that are no longer protected by drug company patents or exclusivities. And they want to target that specific sub-population that is disproportionately affected by HIV: transwomen who have sex with men.
In parts of the world, trans prostitutes are up to 80 times more likely than anyone else to be HIV-positive. It is estimated, for example, that in Brazil, as many as a third of travestis — male prostitutes with a female identity — are HIV-positive. Elsewhere, hijra, kathoeys and waria — names used in different cultures for males who adopt female names, clothing, hairstyles and pronouns — are a significant concern for health officials, since they are tricky to monitor and tend to have risky sex with men who often have a female partner at home.
To encourage these at-risk individuals to take part in HIV testing and treatment programmes, global health experts want to offer them a form of integrated care, which could include hormones, reassignment surgery referrals, and other “affirming” services alongside PrEP. As a study in The Journal of the International Aids Society made clear as far back as 2016: in scaling up PrEP for trans women, it is essential to engage trans communities, utilise trans-inclusive research and marketing strategies and identify and/or train healthcare providers to provide gender-affirming healthcare to trans women.”
In India, for instance, a recent white paper detailed a scheme to incentivise hijra and “transgender persons” to take part in HIV screening that involves a comprehensive package of services including gender-affirming care. In Thailand, one programme found that kathoeys were more likely to show up to clinics if they were staffed by transwomen — inspiring trials of similar initiatives in the Philippines, Myanmar and Nepal. It is a strategy that has been adopted in the developed West, too, albeit one that lacks transparency. In 2021, the US Department of Health and Human Services ordered HIV clinics to start offering “gender-affirming care” — a move celebrated in March this year, when the White House made clear that the federal government’s strategy “to end the HIV epidemic” included providing “access to gender affirming care and treatment services to transgender and gender diverse individuals with HIV”.
It is not unusual for health authorities to group services together, or incentivise individuals to make healthy choices. But we have known for at least two decades that transwomen are inordinately at risk of being exposed to HIV. As long ago as 2009, doctors in community clinics in California reported that the availability of hormones and other affirming care would make trans patients more likely to show up to clinics for prevention.
The shift in attention may be down to the fact that, in recent years, with lesbian and gay equality effectively secured in much of the West, LGBT organisations have started to champion transgender causes. But it may also be down to the fact that, in some countries, HIV transmission is beginning to occur at a faster rate among heterosexuals than gay and bisexual men. And this is perhaps in part due to a subsection of heterosexuals, who have transwomen as partners.
This is a variation on an old trick in the TRA playbook:
Brazilian trans prostitutes are more at risk of violence from johns! …therefore… There is a trans genocide in Colchester!
Trans prostitutes in Thailand are more at risk of HIV! …something something… Put a child in Aberdeen on puberty blockers! Save lives!
It’s not the original issue that they care about, it’s what it can be used to justify in other contexts.
This is a variation on an old trick in the TRA playbook:
Brazilian trans prostitutes are more at risk of violence from johns! …therefore… There is a trans genocide in Colchester!
Trans prostitutes in Thailand are more at risk of HIV! …something something… Put a child in Aberdeen on puberty blockers! Save lives!
It’s not the original issue that they care about, it’s what it can be used to justify in other contexts.
There’s a moral in there somewhere – some kind of a small teaching on responsibility and lifestyle choices. I wonder if anyone else can see what it is?
I completely agree with you. There seems to be an assumption nowadays that people are not moral agents. I was struck by this assertion in Spiked today- ‘Abortion is a necessity for women. Without it we have no ultimate control over whether, when and with whom we bring a child into this world.’ I guess this is an example in support of the slippery slope argument. The author (Ann Furedi) of the abortion statement is using the argument that used to be reserved for pregnancies resulting from rape. Ann Furedi is using it to support the termination of any pregnancy. She is also suggesting women are completely powerless with regards to impregnation (have no control over the process), that they are victims of random sperm that can come from any man entering their wombs.
I completely agree with you. There seems to be an assumption nowadays that people are not moral agents. I was struck by this assertion in Spiked today- ‘Abortion is a necessity for women. Without it we have no ultimate control over whether, when and with whom we bring a child into this world.’ I guess this is an example in support of the slippery slope argument. The author (Ann Furedi) of the abortion statement is using the argument that used to be reserved for pregnancies resulting from rape. Ann Furedi is using it to support the termination of any pregnancy. She is also suggesting women are completely powerless with regards to impregnation (have no control over the process), that they are victims of random sperm that can come from any man entering their wombs.
There’s a moral in there somewhere – some kind of a small teaching on responsibility and lifestyle choices. I wonder if anyone else can see what it is?
‘But it may also be down to the fact that, in some countries, HIV transmission is beginning to occur at a faster rate among heterosexuals than gay and bisexual men. And this is perhaps in part due to a subsection of heterosexuals, who have transwomen as partners.’
I don’t understand this. Surely, if a heterosexual has a trans woman as a partner and trans women are women, then a heterosexual and a trans woman is in fact two men and a homosexual relationship: a relationship between two gay men.
Aaaah, but it’s all subjective you see. If the man you’re having sex with is dressed as a woman, you can kid yourself that this doesn’t count. It’s like calories that ‘don’t count’ in diets.
I read an article where someone who was gay managed to hook up with all sorts of ‘straight’ men as long as he had on his wig from a skip and Primark leggings. But they would never do it with him if he came as nature intended.
The human mind is verily a master at self-deception where your appetites are concerned.
He thought that the men just wanted to have kinky sex in a way they could square with their image of themselves as straight men.
Does this explain the support from the top for trans ideology? Does Keir Starmer indulge?
Keir never indulges in anything. He’s far too noble
The sort of individual my old ma used to refer to as “lights off, through a hole in the nightie”
The sort of individual my old ma used to refer to as “lights off, through a hole in the nightie”
In the YT vid by Jennifer Bilek she has investigated the rapid rise in this particular ideology and found that it is top-down (unlike gay rights which was bottom up lol) and is being pushed by a few billionaires who are in thrall to AGP (autogynephilia).
They have bankrolled apparently neutral think tanks and charity-type organisations to promote all this and create a non-stop news cycle which they can then claim is grassroots driven. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on this and they have high-level contacts all over the place. The tiktok nutters are merely travelling in their slipstream but handily disseminate the nonsense to future converts on the Internet.
Keir never indulges in anything. He’s far too noble
In the YT vid by Jennifer Bilek she has investigated the rapid rise in this particular ideology and found that it is top-down (unlike gay rights which was bottom up lol) and is being pushed by a few billionaires who are in thrall to AGP (autogynephilia).
They have bankrolled apparently neutral think tanks and charity-type organisations to promote all this and create a non-stop news cycle which they can then claim is grassroots driven. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on this and they have high-level contacts all over the place. The tiktok nutters are merely travelling in their slipstream but handily disseminate the nonsense to future converts on the Internet.
No self-deception necessary, simply a Greco-Roman pagan attitude toward sex. (See my reply to the same comment by Aphrodite Rises.)
Does this explain the support from the top for trans ideology? Does Keir Starmer indulge?
No self-deception necessary, simply a Greco-Roman pagan attitude toward sex. (See my reply to the same comment by Aphrodite Rises.)
“Surely, if a heterosexual has a trans woman as a partner and trans women are women, then a heterosexual and a trans woman is in fact two men and a homosexual relationship: a relationship between two gay men.”
I don’t get this – don’t you mean to say:
“Surely, if a heterosexual has a trans woman as a partner and trans women are MEN, then a heterosexual and a trans woman is in fact two men and a homosexual relationship: a relationship between two gay men.”
This is the whole point; that the whole matter is subjective, self-defined and incapable of coherent debate.
Interestingly, since your screen name references the Greek goddess of (erotic) love, you seem fixed on the modern classification of sexuality. Men who mostly lust after women, but will happily satisfy their urges with a feminized man, are simply reviving the old Greco-Roman pagan attitude toward sexual relations, in which the relevant categories were based on roles — active (penetrating) and passive (penetrated) — rather than biological sex. A man with a Greco-Roman pagan attitude toward sex, will equate “straight” with active.
Aaaah, but it’s all subjective you see. If the man you’re having sex with is dressed as a woman, you can kid yourself that this doesn’t count. It’s like calories that ‘don’t count’ in diets.
I read an article where someone who was gay managed to hook up with all sorts of ‘straight’ men as long as he had on his wig from a skip and Primark leggings. But they would never do it with him if he came as nature intended.
The human mind is verily a master at self-deception where your appetites are concerned.
He thought that the men just wanted to have kinky sex in a way they could square with their image of themselves as straight men.
“Surely, if a heterosexual has a trans woman as a partner and trans women are women, then a heterosexual and a trans woman is in fact two men and a homosexual relationship: a relationship between two gay men.”
I don’t get this – don’t you mean to say:
“Surely, if a heterosexual has a trans woman as a partner and trans women are MEN, then a heterosexual and a trans woman is in fact two men and a homosexual relationship: a relationship between two gay men.”
This is the whole point; that the whole matter is subjective, self-defined and incapable of coherent debate.
Interestingly, since your screen name references the Greek goddess of (erotic) love, you seem fixed on the modern classification of sexuality. Men who mostly lust after women, but will happily satisfy their urges with a feminized man, are simply reviving the old Greco-Roman pagan attitude toward sexual relations, in which the relevant categories were based on roles — active (penetrating) and passive (penetrated) — rather than biological sex. A man with a Greco-Roman pagan attitude toward sex, will equate “straight” with active.
‘But it may also be down to the fact that, in some countries, HIV transmission is beginning to occur at a faster rate among heterosexuals than gay and bisexual men. And this is perhaps in part due to a subsection of heterosexuals, who have transwomen as partners.’
I don’t understand this. Surely, if a heterosexual has a trans woman as a partner and trans women are women, then a heterosexual and a trans woman is in fact two men and a homosexual relationship: a relationship between two gay men.
The combination of blue hair, pasty skin and a figure the same shape as a Russell Hobbs toaster, does encourage sexual abstinence, I’ll give you that.
Then again, some people will just ‘insert’ no matter where an orifice is located, which again verifies that there’s no accounting for taste.
I don’t get it. Why go for that when real women are so much more attractive. It’s like voting for DeSantis over Trump.
It’s just a kink thing; transgressive but kind of looks like the real thing. How to have your cake and eat it ?
The simple answer is that no-one goes for the blue-hair, Russell-Hobbs-toaster-physique crowd.
They have entered the ‘LGBTQ’ mainly because of narcissism and wanting to seem special. I don’t think many of them are there to date anyway, which is just a as well, since I know almost no gay men who go out with them.
It’s just a kink thing; transgressive but kind of looks like the real thing. How to have your cake and eat it ?
The simple answer is that no-one goes for the blue-hair, Russell-Hobbs-toaster-physique crowd.
They have entered the ‘LGBTQ’ mainly because of narcissism and wanting to seem special. I don’t think many of them are there to date anyway, which is just a as well, since I know almost no gay men who go out with them.
Then again, some people will just ‘insert’ no matter where an orifice is located, which again verifies that there’s no accounting for taste.
I don’t get it. Why go for that when real women are so much more attractive. It’s like voting for DeSantis over Trump.
The combination of blue hair, pasty skin and a figure the same shape as a Russell Hobbs toaster, does encourage sexual abstinence, I’ll give you that.
Is the implication that men who ‘identify as women’ are working in prostitution purely to be able to afford ‘gender affirming’ treatment? This is simply not true. Trans prostitutes are very much an essential part of the queering project – which is absolutely centred transgressing all sexual and gender boundaries.
Romans 1:24-28
Romans 1:24-28
Is the implication that men who ‘identify as women’ are working in prostitution purely to be able to afford ‘gender affirming’ treatment? This is simply not true. Trans prostitutes are very much an essential part of the queering project – which is absolutely centred transgressing all sexual and gender boundaries.
Those affirming moms and dads should read this. When you enable Little Jimmie to become “L’ll Hot Jam” and get those breast implants, what you are doing is greasing the skids to that high-paying career as a prostitute.
Those affirming moms and dads should read this. When you enable Little Jimmie to become “L’ll Hot Jam” and get those breast implants, what you are doing is greasing the skids to that high-paying career as a prostitute.
Why not give out free drugs to needle users to incentivise screening.
Why not give out free drugs to needle users to incentivise screening.
The Terence Higgins Trust goes full Iran.
The Terence Higgins Trust goes full Iran.
Isn’t HIV almost 100% preventable, where as, say cancer is not? Wondering where the funding should be going.
When reading this article the word ‘condom’ came to mind.
When reading this article the word ‘condom’ came to mind.
Isn’t HIV almost 100% preventable, where as, say cancer is not? Wondering where the funding should be going.
Reminiscent of the famous stat whereby Iran has the largest number of gender transition operations in the world because it’s safer to change sex than to be gay.
This is also said to be a driving force for gender interventions in multicultural society where it’s better to have an ‘opposite-gendered’ than a gay child.
I cannot get away from the instinct that an eschatological cult is involved in propagating the gender cult here. Yes, it is obviously transhumanism but is ever-widening revolutionary scope suggests a sect is driving the push to infiltrate public health policy: Freemasons, Manicheans, Gnostics or Hermetics, or a new spin on the Satanism of the San Francisco churches?
“Reminiscent of the famous stat whereby Iran has the largest number of gender transition operations in the world because it’s safer to change sex than to be gay.”
Also applies to Catholics. My sister married a Catholic man who has at the age of 58 decided he wants to be a woman. Turns out he’s gay, ie, no more relationships with vagina-havers.
But the only people he hangs around with & who’ll have him, with his fancy new breasts, lasered face, pumped up lips & 50s stereotype clothing preferences are other men with the same proclivities & who also have fake breasts etc.
It’s a subset all of its own…
“Reminiscent of the famous stat whereby Iran has the largest number of gender transition operations in the world because it’s safer to change sex than to be gay.”
Also applies to Catholics. My sister married a Catholic man who has at the age of 58 decided he wants to be a woman. Turns out he’s gay, ie, no more relationships with vagina-havers.
But the only people he hangs around with & who’ll have him, with his fancy new breasts, lasered face, pumped up lips & 50s stereotype clothing preferences are other men with the same proclivities & who also have fake breasts etc.
It’s a subset all of its own…
Reminiscent of the famous stat whereby Iran has the largest number of gender transition operations in the world because it’s safer to change sex than to be gay.
This is also said to be a driving force for gender interventions in multicultural society where it’s better to have an ‘opposite-gendered’ than a gay child.
I cannot get away from the instinct that an eschatological cult is involved in propagating the gender cult here. Yes, it is obviously transhumanism but is ever-widening revolutionary scope suggests a sect is driving the push to infiltrate public health policy: Freemasons, Manicheans, Gnostics or Hermetics, or a new spin on the Satanism of the San Francisco churches?
I do not understand. Sodomites want sex with males, yes? They reject females, yes? So how is it that they are attracted to males pretending to be females? Someone please explain this to me. If I don’t like icecream, but I do like custard, why would I want my custard served to me in a cone so that it mimics icecream? I don’t like icecream! I honestly want to understand this.
Its just their thing.
We’re not attracted, is the answer.
Get someone to show you the Grindr hookup app, which now is open to the whole ‘LGBTQ’ spectrum.
On the grid displayed, of nearby potential hookups, for just about any gay man, you will not see any trans, anyone ‘queer’, anyone wearing women’s clothes, make-up, or any hint of femaleness at all.
Lesbians, for their part, don’t use it at all.
But why don’t you see any of these other minorities ?
Well, Grindr, despite preaching acceptance and diversity, lets its users block profiles they don’t want to see. As you only get 100 free profiles to view, you eliminate those you’re not interested in or compatible with.
What’s happening here is that the official narrative is that the LGBTQ is one big happy family. Which can act as a dating society – principally for new arrivals into the acronym, the ‘TQ’ people, who erroneously believe gay men and lesbians want to date them.
This ‘official’ narrative of course, is nothing to do with the way sexual attraction works.
Most of the T on Grindr are sex workers, and there’s a demographic of straight-identifying men who have joined Grindr, since they’re interested in that group.
The few Q are just ultra-woke people. I am not sure any group is interested in them.
Its just their thing.
We’re not attracted, is the answer.
Get someone to show you the Grindr hookup app, which now is open to the whole ‘LGBTQ’ spectrum.
On the grid displayed, of nearby potential hookups, for just about any gay man, you will not see any trans, anyone ‘queer’, anyone wearing women’s clothes, make-up, or any hint of femaleness at all.
Lesbians, for their part, don’t use it at all.
But why don’t you see any of these other minorities ?
Well, Grindr, despite preaching acceptance and diversity, lets its users block profiles they don’t want to see. As you only get 100 free profiles to view, you eliminate those you’re not interested in or compatible with.
What’s happening here is that the official narrative is that the LGBTQ is one big happy family. Which can act as a dating society – principally for new arrivals into the acronym, the ‘TQ’ people, who erroneously believe gay men and lesbians want to date them.
This ‘official’ narrative of course, is nothing to do with the way sexual attraction works.
Most of the T on Grindr are sex workers, and there’s a demographic of straight-identifying men who have joined Grindr, since they’re interested in that group.
The few Q are just ultra-woke people. I am not sure any group is interested in them.
I do not understand. Sodomites want sex with males, yes? They reject females, yes? So how is it that they are attracted to males pretending to be females? Someone please explain this to me. If I don’t like icecream, but I do like custard, why would I want my custard served to me in a cone so that it mimics icecream? I don’t like icecream! I honestly want to understand this.
A related argument to this is that transgenders are more likely to engage in prostitution because of stigma and discrimination, but, from personal observation in Baltimore, which for years was a mecca for transgender surgery because it had the only sex change clinic in the country,
I never heard once of such discrimination. There are jobs where transgenders can find work, such as cosmetology and geriatric aide. They were walking the streets because that’s what their image of women was: whores, reinforcing for me at least, that much of this trans fad is, a form of fetish.
It may reduce aids but it won’t be eliminated until a real cure or highly effective vaccine is found.
I wish people who worry about serious public debate would define what they mean by it. It seems every agency fighting aids talking about it and articles in publications like this one aren’t enough.
If an adult wants to transition and does not want to wait that is his/her right. If they regret it later that is their responsibility. I will never understand why so many want the state to protect people from themselves.
We should be fighting the fights that matter, ending gender affirming care for children and the violation of women only spaces, not worrying about what consenting adults do to their own bodies. And if this cohort is more vulnerable to HIV than we should do whatever it takes to prevent infections.
Looking elsewhere on todays’ press, we see a story about a known sex offender, substance abuser and mental health case who has donned a pink t shirt and announced they have “changed gender” immediately prior to a court appearance.
We might start by a general purge from the Statute Rolls, of whatever mental contortions allow this sort of blatant disruption of due process, the simple recognition that these people are mentally ill and cannot be taken seriously.
Looking elsewhere on todays’ press, we see a story about a known sex offender, substance abuser and mental health case who has donned a pink t shirt and announced they have “changed gender” immediately prior to a court appearance.
We might start by a general purge from the Statute Rolls, of whatever mental contortions allow this sort of blatant disruption of due process, the simple recognition that these people are mentally ill and cannot be taken seriously.
I wish people who worry about serious public debate would define what they mean by it. It seems every agency fighting aids talking about it and articles in publications like this one aren’t enough.
If an adult wants to transition and does not want to wait that is his/her right. If they regret it later that is their responsibility. I will never understand why so many want the state to protect people from themselves.
We should be fighting the fights that matter, ending gender affirming care for children and the violation of women only spaces, not worrying about what consenting adults do to their own bodies. And if this cohort is more vulnerable to HIV than we should do whatever it takes to prevent infections.
AIDS/HIV is a good old-fashioned STD transmitted by promiscuity and lack of precautions. It became particularly associated with homosexuality because those characteristics were particularly associated with certain aspects of homosexual practice in the West.
In sub-Saharan Africa it is a general epidemic resulting from general sexual incontinence, primarily driven by male behaviour there.
It is much less so in the Islamic world because of the closed, puritanical character of societies there (although it is difficult to tell, given the minimal data actually published)
It’s difficult to understand why there will be less transmission if the intercourse is ‘vaginal’ than if it is a**l, that is assuming that the client doesn’t continue to prefer a**l sex. Perhaps the solution is for men to have less intercourse with prostitutes and when they do use a condom.