LGBTQ news and entertainment
The Defense Department is asking a panel of judges at the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to reinstate its policy banning prospective service members who are HIV+ even though they are asymptomatic and have undetectable viral loads. Continue reading “Defense Dept Asks Appeals Court To Reinstate Ban On HIV+ Recruits”
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema has struck down the Pentagon’s ban on asymptomatic HIV+ people enlisting in the U.S. military calling the policy discriminatory. Continue reading “Judge Overturns Military Ban On HIV+ Enlistees”
Some news items you might have missed: • Billboard Magazine: Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter gallops in at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 albums, the superstar’s eighth No. 1 on the all-genre chart. She also scored the top spot on the Top Country Albums chart becoming the first Black woman to do so. Continue reading “Beyoncé Makes Billboard Chart History Again + More News”
Some news items you might have missed: • Military Times: A decade after U.S. military branches discarded the hideous “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” policy and allowed gay and lesbian troops to serve openly, a report from the Joint Staff found that concerns about combat effectiveness and unit cohesion were basically unfounded. Continue reading “Study: Fears Of Openly Gay Troops Were Overblown + More News”
Some news items you might have missed: • GQ Magazine UK: Billy Porter on the Actors Fund of America when he found out he was HIV positive: “They showed up for me and saved my life. I’m so grateful that there was some place for me to go where I was not shamed but instead lifted up and supported so I could get back on my feet. And now look at what has happened, all because someone cared enough to help.” Continue reading “News Round-Up: October 8, 2021”
A new study shows a majority of Americans say they wouldn’t feel comfortable interacting with a doctor living with HIV while almost half would feel discomfort with an HIV+ barber. Continue reading “Survey: A Large Portion Of Americans ‘Uncomfortable’ Around HIV+ Folks”
Grammy/Emmy/Tony Award winner Billy Porter (screen capture – THR)
I was the generation that was supposed to know better, and it happened anyway. It was 2007, the worst year of my life. I was on the precipice of obscurity for about a decade or so, but 2007 was the worst of it. By February, I had been diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. By March, I signed bankruptcy papers.
And by June, I was diagnosed HIV-positive. The shame of that time compounded with the shame that had already [accumulated] in my life silenced me, and I have lived with that shame in silence for 14 years. HIV-positive, where I come from, growing up in the Pentecostal church with a very religious family, is God’s punishment.
The 51-year-old actor also shares how Pose changed the equation for him:
Then came Pose. An opportunity to work through the shame [of HIV] and where I have gotten to in this moment. And the brilliance of Pray Tell and this opportunity was that I was able to say everything that I wanted to say through a surrogate. My compartmentalizing and disassociation muscles are very, very strong, so I had no idea I was being traumatized or triggered. I was just happy that somebody was finally taking me seriously as an actor.
Porter had made a pact that he wouldn’t tell his mother because he felt she’d already gone through so much due to his ‘queerness.’ But on the last day of shooting his scenes for Pose, he had an epiphany.
Then I woke up on the last day of [shooting] Pose; I was writing in my gratitude journal and my mama popped into my head. I was like, “Let me just call her.” Not two minutes into the conversation, she’s like, “What’s wrong?” I said, “Nothing.” She’s like, “Son, please tell me what’s wrong.”
So I ripped the Band-Aid off and I told her. She said, “You’ve been carrying this around for 14 years? Don’t ever do this again. I’m your mother, I love you no matter what. And I know I didn’t understand how to do that early on, but it’s been decades now.” And it’s all true. It’s my own shame. Years of trauma makes a human being skittish. But the truth shall set you free. I feel my heart releasing. It had felt like a hand was holding my heart clenched for years — for years — and it’s all gone.
While Pose may be coming to an end, the future is full of new adventures for Billy.
Every single solitary dream that I ever had is coming true in this moment, all at the same time. I’m getting ready to play the fairy godmother in Cinderella. I have new music coming out. I have a memoir coming out. Pose is out. I’m directing my first film. And I’m trying to be present. I’m trying to be joyful, and one of the effects of trauma is not being able to feel joy.
I celebrate Billy’s inspiring and uplifting journey to his truth, and his sharing it with us. Please read the full article (and watch the video interview) at The Hollywood Reporter.
My truth. In my time. Thank you @THR. https://t.co/QWLe8jfdrc
— Billy Porter (@theebillyporter) May 19, 2021
“The tremendous levels of stigma facing people living with HIV today can only be broken by icons like Billy Porter showing the world that HIV is not at all a barrier to a healthy and successful life. People living with HIV today, when on effective treatment, lead long and healthy lives and cannot transmit HIV, plus medications like PrEP protect people who do not have HIV from contracting HIV, but these leaps in HIV prevention and treatment have largely been invisible in the news and entertainment industries.”
“When the groundbreaking show Pose goes off air in a few weeks, there will be zero television characters living with HIV. That is truly unacceptable when 1.2 million Americans and about 38 million people globally are living with HIV. Billy’s powerful interview needs to be a wake-up call for media and the general public that it’s time to end the stigma that people living with HIV face and to educate each other about HIV prevention and treatment.”
GLAAD and Gilead Sciences last year released a survey that measures American attitudes toward HIV/AIDS and people living with HIV. Among those findings were only 55% of LGBTQ Americans and 51% of non-LGBTQ Americans report feeling knowledgeable about HIV.
(image via Depositphotos)
A Navy veteran living in South Carolina has filed a lawsuit against the Veterans Administration claiming he tested positive for HIV over 20 years ago and his doctors never informed him of the diagnosis. The lawsuit, filed in federal court this week, alleges the medical staff at the William Jennings Bryan Dorn VA center in Columbia, South Carolina, failed to tell him an HIV test taken in 1995 came back positive. If true, the failure allowed the virus to progress for 20 years. The veteran is referred to as “John Doe” in the filing to protect his medical privacy. According to the local Columbia newspaper The State, the lawsuit reads, “The VA had actual knowledge beginning in November 1995 that Mr. Doe was HIV positive and the standard of care required he be informed of the positive test and proper treatment begin in 1995.” “In clear contravention of the standard of care, Mr. Doe was not informed of the positive HIV test until decades later,” continues the filing. The patient’s medical records reportedly mention his HIV diagnosis in subsequent visits but there’s no apparent record of the patient being informed he was HIV-positive. ‘Doe’ only learned of his status while seeing a non-VA physician who mentioned the diagnosis in passing during a December 2015 examination. The doctor wrote in his notes, “I looked at the patient and ask (sic) him who was his infectious disease doctor, and patient states (he) did not have one and (I) ask (sic) him if he knew that his HIV test was positive, and he stated (he) never was told it was positive.” According to reports, the veteran didn’t begin receiving antiretroviral treatment until he was admitted to a non-VA hospital in New York in 2018 at which point he had developed full-blown AIDS. The lawsuit, which requests an unspecified amount for punitive damages, claims the man’s health and immune system are permanently affected.
“The treatment he’s getting now is effective, but he’s had essentially 25 years of wear and tear for having no treatment,” said his lawyer, Chad McGowan, told Navy Times.
“He feels extremely guilty about the girlfriends he’s had over the last 25 years because he didn’t know,” McGowan added.
Had ‘Doe’ had been informed of his status in a timely manner, McGowan says his client “would not have suffered the losses he has suffered, and will continue to suffer in the future, and more likely than not, he would not have developed AIDS.” The medical director of the Dorn VA facility declined to comment due to the pending litigation.
Ramzan Kadyrov, head of the Chechen Republic in HBO’s ‘Welcome To Chechnya’
• Politico: More than 40,000 National Guard members currently helping states during the coronavirus health threat will face a “hard stop” on their deployments on June 24 — just one day shy of many members becoming eligible for key federal benefits like education benefits under the Post-9/11 GI bill and/or early retirement. • Bloomberg News: Researchers are finding evidence that patients who test positive for the coronavirus after recovering aren’t capable of transmitting the infection, and could have the antibodies that prevent them from falling sick again. • AZ Central: Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ) dropped four percentage points in a month trailing Democrat Mark Kelly by 13 points, according to the latest tracking poll by OH Predictive Insights. The same poll in April favored Kelly 51% to McSally’s 42%, and now in May, it’s 51%-38%. The poll shows independents breaking more than 2-1 for Kelly. • TikTok: Since the fan on my two-year-old laptop sometimes goes into high gear for no apparent reason, I clicked on this. I had no idea computers could get so filthy inside.