is monkeypox is a “gay disease?”
no. “this is not a gay disease, as some people in social media have attempted to label it,” dr. andy seale, who’s strategies advisor for global hiv, hepatitis & sti programmes,
said in a healthing q&a
on may 23. “anybody can contract monkeypox through close contact.”
the virus can be transmitted during sex, but it’s not an sti. and while transmission within the general population seems relatively low,
poxviruses can survive on clothing and surfaces
, especially in places that are dark, cool and dry — so it’s possible someone could catch the virus via an infected surface, for example.
that being said, a high proportion of known cases so far have been identified in men who have sex with men, so it makes sense that existing resources — like vaccines — are being distributed in those communities first.
one potential downside of identifying the lgbtq community as vulnerable to the virus, though, is the potential for stigma. that was one of the reasons who was hesitant to make the designation of global health emergency: they worried about “the stigma, marginalization, and discrimination that a determination of a [public health emergency of international concern] may generate against the currently affected communities, especially in countries where homosexuality is criminalized, lgbti+ communities are not well established and engaged in a dialogue with governments.”
aaron purdie, executive director of the health initiative for men in b.c.,
told the canadian press
that stigmatizing an already marginalized community could be as harmful as the disease itself. some rhetoric around gay men and monkeypox
carries ugly echoes
of the way gay men were treated during the aids epidemic of the 1980s and ’90s.