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  July 18, 2008

Douche Rinehart for Oklahoma City Council
Filed Under "Fucked Up Bullshit"

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Apparently a Republican candidate for Oklahoma City Council has resorted to distributing an almost farcically homophobic comic book that depicts his opponents as homosexuals and pedophiles (or, as Rinehart spells it in the book, "pediphiles"). You can see the entire comic book here. It's pretty outrageous.

The cartoon features several exchanges with one local telling his neighbor about how great Rhinehart is. But it's absolutely (unintentionally) hilarious. It features such exchanges as: "The last big gun the good ol' boy politicians could fire at [Douche] was to get Democrat and homosexual advocate Attorney General Drew Edmondson to file campaign charges against [Douche] at a time that prevents [Douche] from clearing his good name," at which point another neighbor chimes in to say that "[Douche] is innocent and will be proven so in September, unfortunately after the primary. But that's part of their plan to defeat [Douche]." Amazing.

P.S. WTF is up with Peter Pan?!?


Tags: homophobia, Republican party
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Queer Health Social Marketing Forum Fun!
Filed Under "Trevor's Work"

Last night I had the pleasure of participating in a public forum on social marketing tactics used for queer health promotion -- particularly HIV prevention. I've long been an advocate for reform in the way social marketing is done. It tends to be overly stigmatizing and poorly researched and designed. The audience seemed to agree with the panelists, who came to a consensus that change is needed --- though we disagreed over how radical that change should be. One the panel: Michael Petrelis, Michael Seiver (who runs Tweaker.org), me, and Jason Riggs (deputy director of the STOP AIDS Project).

Hopefully I'll have a copy of the night's full video in my hands soon -- but until then, above you'll see a short clip of me talking about unintended audiences with HIV prevention. The compression is a bit funky since my friend shot it vertically instead of landscape, so I had to rotate it 90 degrees. So I look a little wide :) But it's good stuff nonetheless.

Here are some photos for your enjoyment!


Chatty forum fun!


Petrelis, Seiver, Hoppe, and Riggs!


Petrelis Holds up Nasty Syphilis Campaign



Ethan, me, Jackson, and Kara for drinks after!


Fred and Josh!


Jackson and Kara. Cuteness.


Yes I got drunk and took photos of myself in the bathroom. What?!?


We had on our "I'm an important gay" shoes!



Tags: Eric Rofes, Ethan Suniewick, HIV Prevention, Jackson Bowman, Michael Petrelis, Michael Scarce, social marketing
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  July 17, 2008

Senate Repeals HIV Travel Ban!!!
Filed Under "HIV/AIDS"

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Over the past few months, there has been an explosion of activity around the possibility of repealing the travel ban that blocks HIV-positive folks from traveling or immigrating to the United States. Britain-born Andrew Sullivan -- whose been openly Poz for many years now -- was one of the more vocal critics of the ban, which blocked him from getting a green card. He posted this celebratory message on his blog:

I'm not usually speechless but I'm ecstatic to report that the Senate just passed PEPFAR without the Sessions amendment, and Senator Biden, who managed the bill, just said they will probably avoid a conference with the House and send the bill forthwith to the president's desk. Barring some unforeseen event, the HIV Travel Ban - a relic of the days when HIV was a source of fear and stigma and terror - is finally over.

Obviously, the bigger achievement in PEPFAR is the funding for continued help for those with HIV and AIDS in the developing world - people whose plight is unimaginably worse than mine or so many others trapped by this HIV law. Bush's legacy in this is one for which he is rightly proud. But for those of us who have long dreamed of becoming Americans, and have been prevented by 1993 law from even being able to enter or leave the US without waivers or fear or humiliation, this is a massive burden lifted.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that it's one of the happiest days of my whole life. For two and a half decades, I have longed to be a citizen of the country I love and have made my home. I now can. There is no greater feeling.

So the Senate passed it. Let's get it signed into law! Pronto!


Tags: Andrew Sullivan, HIV, HIV-positive, immigration
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  July 16, 2008

Africa: Genetic Variation Protects Against Malaria, Increases Risk for HIV
Filed Under "HIV/AIDS"

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From The New York Times:

A genetic variation that once protected people in sub-Saharan Africa from a now extinct form of malaria may have left them somewhat more vulnerable to infection by H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. The gene could account for 11 percent of the caseload in Africa, explaining why the disease is more common there than expected, researchers based in Texas and London say.

The eleven percent figure is interesting -- not quite sure how they came up with that. But it would make sense that a vulnerability of this kind would account for some of the radical disparity in HIV infections in Africa versus other continents.

The variation historically protected against a previous strain of malaria -- not the strain most common today:

The genetic variation, called a SNP (“snip”), involves a change in a single unit of DNA. This particular snip has a far-reaching consequence, that of preventing red blood cells from inserting a certain protein on their surface. The protein is called a receptor because it receives signals from a hormone known as CCL5, which is part of the immune system’s regulatory system.

The receptor is also used by a malarial parasite called Plasmodium vivax to gain entry to the red blood cells it feeds on. Some 10,000 years ago, people in Africa who possessed the SNP gained a powerful survival advantage from not being vulnerable to the ancestor of Plasmodium vivax. The SNP eventually swept through the population and the vivax parasite died out in Africa, to be replaced by its current successor, Plasmodium falciparum.

More than 90 percent of people in Africa now lack the receptor on their red blood cells, as do some 60 percent of African-Americans.

What are the implications here for the disparities in new infections among African-Americans in the United States -- particularly given the data that shows that Af-Am's do not engage in more "risky" sex than their white counterparts? More research is needed here!


Tags: Africa, AIDS, Black gay men, HIV Prevention
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Liddy Dole: Rename HIV Aid Bill After... Jesse Helms?!?
Filed Under "Fucked Up Bullshit"

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Oh yes. That's right. Senator Dole has asked that a bill funding HIV prevention efforts globally be renamed after the one, the only Jesse Helms. That dirtbag bigot who finally kicked the bucket a few weeks ago.

Joe @ Joe. My. God. says it best:

Jesse Helms, the man who in 1987 described AIDS prevention literature as "so obscene, so revolting, I may throw up."

Jesse Helms, the man who in 1988 vigorously opposed the Kennedy-Hatch AIDS research bill, saying, "There is not one single case of AIDS in this country that cannot be traced in origin to sodomy."

Jesse Helms, the man who in 1995 said (in opposition to refunding the Ryan White Act) that the government should spend less on people with AIDS because they got sick due to their "deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct."

Jesse Helms, the man who in 2002 announced that he'd changed his mind about AIDS funding for Africa, but not for American gays, because homosexuality "is the primary cause of the doubling and redoubling of AIDS cases in the United States."

Many people hold Ronald Reagan responsible for adding to the early AIDS death toll by his inaction on the pandemic, but it was Helms' actions in thwarting early research that inarguably hastened the demise of many thousands of Americans. How many of my friends, of your friends, would be alive today if the life-saving medications had arrived just one fucking year earlier?

Fuck YOU, Senator Dole. Fuck you with something hard and sandpapery.

Amen.


Tags: AIDS, HIV Prevention, North Carolina, the South
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  July 15, 2008

Mass. Senate Votes to Repeal Anti-Gay-Out-of-State-Marriage Law
Filed Under "LGBTQ Politics"

As I mentioned a few days ago, repealing the federal DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) will require that someone get married in Massachusetts or California, and then return to their homestate and ask that it be recognized. That new state will of course deny the legality of the marriage, at which point the couple could sue under the Full Faith and Credit Clause.

What I failed to mention (I just plum forgot) was that since same-sex marriage became legal there, Massachusetts has been enforcing a 1913 statute that prohibits the state from granting marriage licenses to folks who couldn't legally wed in their home state. Here's the NY Times:

Out-of-state gay couples got one step closer to a Massachusetts wedding Tuesday when the state Senate voted to repeal a 1913 law that has been used to bar them from marrying here.

The law prohibits couples from obtaining marriage licenses if they can't legally wed in their home states.

The House is expected to vote on the repeal measure later this week. The Senate action came on a voice vote.

After Massachusetts became the first state to allow gay marriages in 2004 under a court order, then-Gov. Mitt Romney ordered town clerks to enforce the then-little-known 1913 law and deny licenses to out-of-state couples.

Onward, to the house!


Tags: gay marriage, Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, New York Times
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Roche Suspends HIV Drug Research
Filed Under "HIV/AIDS"

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Fuzeon maker Roche has pulled out of HIV drug research:

Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche Holding AG will suspend its HIV research because none of its pending medicines represent significant improvement over existing drugs, a company spokeswoman said on Friday.

"Research scientists currently working in HIV will be reassigned to other activities," Linda Dyson, a spokeswoman in Roche's U.S. office in New Jersey, said in an e-mail.

Dyson confirmed an e-mail sent on Wednesday to some activists informing them of the decision. In that e-mail, the company said it "decided to refocus our resources within virology on diseases in which we can deliver substantial improvements over existing medications."

Dyson declined to specify how much Roche has been investing in HIV research.

Apparently, Joe @ Joe. My. God. believes that activists are not upset about this, because "the company has been unwilling to discount their products in the manner of other big pharma companies." I work on HIV prevention, so the treatment side of things is not my specialty. But it seems to me that you want as many eyes and brains on this thing as possible...


Tags: HIV, Medicine
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  July 14, 2008

Family Beach Fun!
Filed Under "Trevor's Life"

Every year since I can remember, my family -- including my aunts, uncles, and grandparents on my mom's side -- have taken a family trip to Ocean Isle Beach, NC. It's beautiful. You can see photos from the trip me and my friends took back in May for my birthday here. Here are some photos from this year's family trip -- always a blast! There's a great photo of me and my aunts and cousins about to board the casino boat, which I road for the first time this year (and lost $100 very quickly!). I'll scan it and upload it soon. Until then, enjoy these!


My aunt, not liking her hand!


Skip-Bo!


Cousin Lori and her almost-one-year-old daughter, Gabby


New Grandpa / my uncle and Gabby


Gabby is SO CUTE!


Me and Linds!


My Mom + Gabby


My cat was stalking Gabby the whole time! Too cute!


Tags: Charlotte, North Carolina
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Dubious Claim of the Week
Filed Under "HIV/AIDS"

From a New York Times article on hands-washing campaigns:

For years, many public health campaigns that aimed at changing habits have been failures. Earlier this decade, two researchers affiliated with Vanderbilt University examined more than 100 studies on the effectiveness of antidrug campaigns and found that, in some cases, viewers’ levels of drug abuse actually increased when commercials were shown, perhaps in part because the ads reminded them about that bag of weed in the sock drawer.

A few years later, another group examined the effectiveness of advertising condom use to prevent AIDS. In some cases, rates of unprotected sex actually went up — which some researchers suspected was because the commercials made people more frisky than cautious.

Bullshit. Show me the study. And show me how it linked condom ads to unprotected sex rates. It's hogwash.


Tags: condoms, HIV Prevention, New York Times
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Trevor Hoppe



Trevor is a gay men's health activist and thinker, currently freezing in Michigan while getting his PhD in Sociology and Women's Studies.



LIFELUBE    
Gay, Sexy, Healthy - Just Like You!
PREVENTION JUSTICE MOBILIZATION  
Stopping AIDS Through Unity and Action!
KNUCKLECRACK  
Lewd. Loud. Irreverent. Gay. Woof.
JOE. MY. GOD.  
Gay Culture, Short Stories, & More!
THE D-LISTER  
Canadian Gay Blogger
LIKE A CONCEIT  
Only Not as Clever
CONFESSIONS OF A GAY MALE FEMINIST  
Self-proclaimed gay, sex-positive feminist.



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