National
Grenell says both parties play politics with gay equality
Former Romney staffer ‘humbled’ by support after stepping down
Richard Grenell (Photo courtesy of Grenell)
Richard Grenell, the gay man who resigned from Mitt Romney’s campaign after intense criticism of his hiring from the left and right, said his stepping down should not be seen as a sign that a Romney administration would be hostile to gays.
“I would caution you not to jump to any conclusions about what this means for hiring gays in a Romney administration,” Grenell said in an interview with the Washington Blade. “You can’t compare campaigns to governing.”
Noting that he did not want to speak for the campaign, Grenell said he was overwhelmed and humbled by messages of support he received from Republicans during the flap. He sees the reaction to his resignation as a sign that the Republican Party is gradually moving in the right direction on gay rights.
“I received an overwhelming number of private emails, texts and calls from Republicans sending their support,” Grenell said. “The private support was overwhelming and humbling; the public support wasn’t. … It’s frustrating but also encouraging at the same time because I’ve been involved in the party long enough to remember when the private support wasn’t there.”
He noted that no elected Republican in Washington spoke out against his joining the Romney campaign.
Grenell was hired by the Romney campaign in April as foreign policy spokesperson after informally advising the foreign policy team for about six months. He said his sexual orientation was never an issue during the interview process.
“Everyone I’ve been working with knows I’m gay and knew my partner,” he said. “I’m very out; it’s not something I ever hide. I don’t have the ability to not be myself and talk about my life with my partner.”
Former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton is among the Romney advisers who Grenell said were supportive. Grenell worked in the George W. Bush administration as United States spokesman at the U.N.
“There’s not a Republican who doesn’t know I’m gay,” he added. “The [Romney] campaign was unequivocally supportive and said that doesn’t matter to us or to the governor and that we hire according to experience and qualifications.”
But that support didn’t extend to the right wing of the Republican Party. Shortly after Grenell’s appointment, Christian conservatives pounced, criticizing Romney and suggesting that his hiring an openly gay man constituted an attack on families.
Bryan Fischer, of the American Family Association, Tweeted, “If personnel is policy, his message to the pro-family community: drop dead.” Later, Matthew Franck wrote in the National Journal, “Whatever fine record he compiled in the Bush administration, Grenell is more passionate about same-sex marriage than anything else.”
Further, Franck suggested that Grenell — who supports marriage equality — would jump ship and support President Obama if Obama endorsed same-sex marriage during his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. Obama, of course, has since endorsed marriage equality.
“I’m not endorsing Obama,” Grenell said. “Both Democrats and Republicans are guilty of playing politics with gay equality.”
Grenell echoed the sentiment expressed by many gay conservatives that they sometimes feel unwelcome by elements in the Republican Party and equally unwelcome in the LGBT community.
“The claim that gays should be barred from conservative activism is a bipartisan bigoted view,” he said. “The far left doesn’t want a gay to be conservative; the far right doesn’t want a conservative to be gay. I don’t have the luxury of being a one-issue voter. I’m more thoughtful and complex than that. I am comfortably gay and conservative.”
The criticism of Grenell’s hiring didn’t come exclusively from conservatives. Bloggers and commentators on the left denounced Grenell, too, mostly over Tweets he sent that were deemed misogynistic and even homophobic.
One Tweet, in particular, sparked outrage among LGBT critics. Grenell wrote, “rachel maddow needs to take a breath and put on a necklace.”
Richard Grenell (Photo courtesy of Grenell)
Michelangelo Signorile, who hosts an LGBT-themed talk show on SiriusXM radio, wrote, “It was the kind of crack many people would expect from a homophobic straight guy.”
“I’m not a mean-spirited person,” Grenell said of the Twitter controversy. “I attempted to be funny and I wasn’t and I see how very hurtful that could be. I apologized immediately for that.”
Grenell said he regrets some of the Tweets and acknowledged that he deleted hundreds of Tweets after the criticism.
“The fact is when I was confronted by some on the left that I had inappropriate Tweets, I reviewed those Tweets and in reviewing the roughly seven Tweets that people pointed out, there were some I couldn’t find so I deleted everything before January 2012.”
He added that the impression he deleted hundreds of misogynistic Tweets was “ridiculous, I love strong women.” In addition to Maddow, Grenell targeted Hillary Clinton and Callista Gingrich in some Tweets. The angry reaction to his Twitter feed amounted to an attack from the Obama campaign, Grenell said.
“It’s the classic Obama playbook,” he said. “Republicans are either racist, homophobic or misogynistic. I’m not a hurtful person.”
The Tweets, he said, were never discussed internally at the Romney campaign.
Perhaps the last straw for Grenell came in late April, when he helped organize a conference call with reporters to discuss national security issues. As the New York Times reported last month, Grenell was told by a senior Romney aide not to speak on the call because the campaign wanted him to “lay low for now.”
The Times story depicted Grenell as “seething” over the slight. When asked about the Times story, Grenell did not dispute the account but declined to comment further.
Days later, Grenell announced his resignation from the Romney campaign. Senior campaign staffers tried to talk him out of leaving. Aides to Romney were convinced the controversy would blow over, the Times reported. But Grenell quit anyway. He said he was frustrated that the media and his critics were focused on his “personal life” and not on the important foreign policy issues he wanted to discuss.
“I care very deeply about national security issues and it became increasingly clear that I wasn’t going to be talking about national security,” Grenell told the Blade. “The far left and far right wanted to talk about my personal life and my stance on gay marriage.
“For someone who’s hired to talk about the president’s failed policies on Iran and North Korea, that’s frustrating,” he continued in explaining his decision to resign. “These are my issues — foreign policy and that’s what I spend my time with. It’s ironic, too, because I served eight years in a high-profile position in the Bush administration, comfortably out, but national campaigns are hyper-partisan operations.”
The Romney campaign has declined Blade requests for comment and interview requests throughout the primary season. The campaign issued a statement to reporters in response to Grenell’s resignation.
“We are disappointed that Ric decided to resign from the campaign for his own personal reasons,” said Matt Rhoades, Romney’s campaign manager, in a statement. “We wanted him to stay because he had superior qualifications for the position he was hired to fill.”
Grenell declined to say what the campaign could have done differently that might have encouraged him to stay on.
“Campaigns are not the real world,” he noted. “They have hyper-partisan activists on both sides shooting to kill. It’s not governing. The evidence shows Obama was an amazing campaigner and a terrible governor.”
Asked about Romney’s record on LGBT issues, which includes signing a pledge from the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage that says he would support a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, Grenell urged both Democrats and Republicans to view gay rights as a civil rights issue.
“I wish that Gov. Romney would not view gay equality as a partisan issue,” he said, “it’s a civil rights issue.”
He continued, “The Democratic strategy is to point out extremists in my party and play politics with the issue. I recognize the historic nature of Obama’s personal stance on gay marriage. What I don’t hear from Democratic partisans is a critique on the fact that he hasn’t changed his policies.”
Asked to elaborate, he said that Obama supports the right of states to decide marriage for themselves, something Grenell opposes.
“We gay conservatives are fighting within our party on a daily basis and critique our own party,” he said. “I don’t see that critique on the Democratic side. The extreme lefties are just as intolerant as the far right.”
He went on to criticize Obama for the timing of his marriage announcement — just after a vote to add a ban on marriage and civil unions to the North Carolina Constitution.
“The president waited until after the North Carolina vote to talk about his personal stance and his policy stance is that North Carolina gets to be hateful — that’s his policy stance. Obama, [Nancy] Pelosi, Romney, [Speaker John] Boehner should recognize that this is a civil rights issue and asking other citizens to vote on someone else’s equality is wrong.”
Obama criticized the North Carolina amendment effort prior to the vote and has said he opposes similar efforts to “take away rights” in other states. His administration has also declared that the Defense of Marriage Act is unconstitutional and the Justice Department is no longer defending the statute in court.
But Grenell said Democrats have failed to confront anti-gay voices in the party. “Prop 8 proves that Democrats have work to do too,” he said.
In a wide-ranging, nearly two-hour interview, Grenell spoke passionately about his hope that both parties would stop viewing gay rights as a partisan issue and instead as a civil rights issue. He also spoke about the need to confront religion-based objections to equality.
“We can learn a lot from North Carolina and California in that gay equality issues should not be a political issue,” he said. “It’s clear the Democrats have a lot of work to do and I would suggest that all gay leaders in Washington concentrate on religious leaders and other groups that have the ability to support civil rights issues.”
Grenell was raised an evangelical Christian and his brother is a minster. He attended an evangelical undergraduate school. Despite the attacks from Christian conservatives, he said he received private support from religious activists and asserted there’s “clearly an opening” to engage with conservative Christians.
Asked about a recent Washington Post story that Romney participated in an assault on a gay student while in high school and forcibly cut the boy’s long hair, Grenell assailed the mainstream media.
“That report was more hyper-partisan campaign mudslinging,” he said. “It shouldn’t be an issue — it was a Washington Post partisan hit job. … The credibility of Washington journalism has imploded. When you get out of Washington, the majority of people don’t buy what you’re selling. That’s why mainstream media print journalism has imploded; they created this problem by pretending to be unbiased reporters and being partisan activists.”
His critique of the mainstream media extends to gay writers. In March, Grenell wrote an op-ed published in the Washington Blade criticizing gay Washington Post writer Jonathan Capehart for failing to challenge Obama on marriage while attending a White House state dinner. Capehart responded, suggesting that Grenell was hypocritical for taking the Romney job because Romney opposes marriage equality.
“I have nothing against Jonathan,” Grenell said this week. “He’s a reporter who’s in the tank for Obama. We all have a role to play and if you’re going to take a reporter’s role then you should act like a reporter.”
“What Ric repeatedly fails to understand is that I am a reporter with the privilege of being required to have an opinion and to express it,” Capehart told the Blade this week. “And in my opinion, Ric cannot accept that President Obama has something that Gov. Romney does not: a strong record on LGBT equality.”
Grenell urged the Log Cabin Republicans to endorse Romney, though he noted that he is not active in the organization. Log Cabin hasn’t yet said whether it will issue an endorsement in the race. In 2004, the group declined to endorse Bush’s re-election over his support for the Federal Marriage Amendment, something that Romney has also endorsed.
On foreign policy, Grenell’s favored topic, he sees a role for the United States to play in advancing LGBT rights abroad and offered praise for Hillary Clinton’s recent speech on LGBT rights in Geneva.
“Absolutely the United States should use its influence to advance rights and freedoms,” he said. Among those rights, he cited access to the Internet, the ability to freely assemble and the ability to be openly gay. “These issues cannot be separated. I think the U.S. should always stand as a beacon of hope for those who are seeking greater democracy and freedom.”
Grenell described Clinton’s Geneva speech — in which she famously said “gay rights are human rights” — as “a great speech for human rights. As much as I can critique Condi Rice’s foreign policy limitations, I have to recognize that she, too, pushed the State Department to accept gays and lesbians more. She was very forward leaning. Hillary built on some of what Condi was doing and has raised the bar even further.”
But that’s where the praise ends for the Obama administration. Grenell fears that Obama doesn’t understand foreign policy and cites as evidence the U.S. policy in Syria and Iran. Grenell faults the administration for not taking a more aggressive approach to Iran at the United Nations and for sending an ambassador to Syria, something Bush resisted.
“There’s no strategy, it’s trial and error diplomacy,” he said. “The Syria policy is to look the other way; the Russians are controlling the policy.”
Asked whether Obama deserves credit for combating terrorism and authorizing the operation that killed Osama bin Laden, Grenell said Obama’s performance on these issues reflects a dramatic change from his posture during the campaign.
“There are three or four terror issues where candidate Obama didn’t know what he was talking about and when he got in the White House, he realized how wrong he was.”
The Obama campaign declined to comment on Grenell’s criticisms.
Grenell, 45, works with an L.A.-based public affairs firm, Capitol Media Partners, on international public affairs consulting projects. He lives in Los Angeles with his partner of nearly 10 years, Matthew Lashey, an executive in the media and entertainment industry.
“We’d like the right to marry but don’t live in a state where that’s an option,” he said. “I think it’s important to have the option be a legitimate federal option where you get all the rights and responsibilities that come with marriage.”
The White House
As house Democrats release Epstein photos, Garcia continues to demand DOJ transparency
Blade this week sat down with gay House Oversight Committee ranking member
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have released new photos from Jeffrey Epstein’s email and computer records, including images highlighting the relationship between President Donald Trump and the convicted sex offender.
Epstein, a wealthy financier, was found guilty of procuring a child for prostitution and sex trafficking, serving a 13-month prison sentence in 2008. At the time of his death in prison under mysterious circumstances, he was facing charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy to traffic minors.
Among those pictured in Epstein’s digital files are Trump, former President Bill Clinton, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, actor and director Woody Allen, economist Larry Summers, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, entrepreneurs Richard Branson and Bill Gates, and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
One photo shows Trump alongside Epstein and a woman at a Victoria’s Secret party in New York in 1997. American media outlets have published the image, while Getty Images identified the woman as model Ingrid Seynhaeve.
Oversight Committee Democrats are reviewing the full set of photos and plan to release additional images to the public in the coming days and weeks, emphasizing their commitment to protecting survivors’ identities.
With just a week left for the Justice Department to publish all files related to Epstein following the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which requires the Justice Department to release most records connected to Epstein investigations, the Washington Blade sat down with U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the ranking member on the Oversight Committee to discuss the current push the release of more documents.
Garcia highlighted the committee’s commitment to transparency and accountability.
“We’ve said anything that we get we’re going to put out. We don’t care who is in the files … if you’ve harmed women and girls, then we’ve got to hold you accountable.”
He noted ongoing questions surrounding Trump’s relationship with Epstein, given their long history and the apparent break in friendship once Trump assumed public office.
“There’s been a lot of questions about … Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. They were best friends for 10 years … met women there and girls.”
Prior to Trump’s presidency, it was widely reported that the two were friends who visited each other’s properties regularly. Additional reporting shows they socialized frequently throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, attending parties at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and Epstein’s residences. Flight logs from an associate’s trial indicate Trump flew on Epstein’s private jet multiple times, and Epstein claimed Trump first had sex with his future wife, Melania Knauss, aboard the jet.
“We’ve provided evidence … [that leads to] questions about what the relationship was like between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein.”
Garcia stressed the need for answers regarding the White House’s role in withholding information, questioning the sudden change in attitude toward releasing the files given Trump’s campaign promises.
“Why is the White House trying to cover this up? So if he’s not covering for himself … he’s covering up for his rich friends,” Garcia said. “Why the cover up? Who are you hiding for? I think that’s the question.”
He confirmed that Trump is definitively in the Epstein files, though the extent remains unknown, but will be uncovered soon.
“We know that Trump’s in them. Yeah, he’s been told. We know that Trump’s in them in some way. As far as the extent of it … we don’t know.”
Garcia emphasized accountability for all powerful figures implicated, regardless of financial status, political party, or personal connections.
“All these powerful men that are walking around right now … after abusing, in some cases, 14‑ and 15‑year‑old girls, they have to be held accountable,” he said. “There has to be justice for those survivors and the American public deserves the truth about who was involved in that.”
He added that while he is the ranking member, he will ensure the oversight committee will use all available political tools, including subpoenas — potentially even for the president.
“We want to subpoena anyone that we can … everyone’s kind of on the table.”
He also emphasized accountability for all powerful figures implicated, regardless of financial status, political party, or relationship with the president.
“For me, they’re about justice and doing the right thing,” Garcia said. “This is about women who … were girls and children when they were being abused, trafficked, in some cases, raped. And these women deserve justice.”
“The survivors are strong.”
Deputy White House Press Secretary Abigail Jackson issued a statement regarding the release the photos, echoing previous comments from Republicans on the timing and framing of the photos by the Oversight Committee.
“Once again, House Democrats are selectively releasing cherry-picked photos with random redactions to try and create a false narrative,” Jackson said.
“The Democrat hoax against President Trump has been repeatedly debunked and the Trump administration has done more for Epstein’s victims than Democrats ever have by repeatedly calling for transparency, releasing thousands of pages of documents, and calling for further investigations into Epstein’s Democrat friends,”
In a press release on Friday, Garcia called for immediate DOJ action:
“It is time to end this White House cover-up and bring justice to the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and his powerful friends. These disturbing photos raise even more questions about Epstein and his relationships with some of the most powerful men in the world. We will not rest until the American people get the truth. The Department of Justice must release all the files, NOW.”
(Photo courtesy of the U.S. House Oversight Committee)
The White House
White House deadnames highest-ranking transgender official
Rachel Levine’s portrait altered at HHS
Admiral Rachel Levine — the first transgender person ever confirmed by the U.S. Senate and the highest-ranking trans official in American history — had her official portrait in the Humphrey Building altered, with staff replacing her correct name with her deadname, the name she has not used since 2011.
NPR first reported the change, and an HHS spokesperson confirmed to the outlet that Levine’s portrait had recently been altered. A digital photograph obtained by NPR shows Levine’s former (male) name typed on a placard beneath the portrait, placed under the glass of the frame.
Levine served as a four-star admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps under the Biden-Harris administration and was appointed the 17th assistant secretary for health.
During her tenure, Levine oversaw the Commissioned Corps and helped lead national public-health initiatives, including the federal COVID-19 response and vaccination strategy; efforts to address rising syphilis infection rates; HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programs; and strategies to combat the opioid epidemic, particularly through expanded harm-reduction approaches for the communities most affected.
The Trump-Vance administration’s decision to publicly deadname Levine is widely viewed within the trans community as demeaning and disrespectful. The move comes amid a series of federal policy reversals targeting LGBTQ Americans, particularly trans youth seeking gender-affirming care.
Those actions include: weakening workplace protections for LGBTQ employees; limiting restroom access; downgrading gender-identity discrimination cases; pressuring hospitals to end gender-affirming care; cutting HIV research and prevention funding; removing LGBTQ crisis resources; restricting access to trans-inclusive medical policies for veterans and young people; supporting trans sports bans and threatening funding for teams that include trans athletes; and forcing schools and universities to eliminate DEI and LGBTQ offices, inclusive curricula, gender-neutral bathrooms, and books or training materials addressing LGBTQ issues.
The Trump–Vance administration has also expanded federal censorship by removing LGBTQ language from surveys, agency websites, Smithsonian materials, and human-rights reports; blocking Pride recognitions; creating federal communications that misgender trans women; imposing passport and travel barriers for trans Americans; lifting protections for trans service members; limiting benefits and care for LGBTQ veterans; and pressuring states, universities, and hospitals to end trans-inclusive policies under threat of losing federal research, education, or Medicaid funds. The administration has additionally deported LGBTQ asylum seekers to unsafe conditions, removed LGBTQ issues from global human-rights reporting, and escalated anti-trans rhetoric at public events.
These actions stand in stark contrast to Levine’s public-health record. As assistant secretary for health, she worked to expand LGBTQ+ health data collection, promote equitable vaccine distribution, strengthen national health-equity initiatives, and reduce care disparities experienced by historically underserved communities, including LGBTQ populations. Within HHS, she led councils and task forces dedicated to reducing structural barriers to care and improving community outcomes.
Before joining the federal government, Levine oversaw health and safety for nearly 13 million residents as Pennsylvania’s physician general from 2015–2017 and as Pennsylvania secretary of health from 2018–2021.
Asked by NPR about the alteration of her official portrait, Levine responded that it had been an honor to serve as assistant secretary for health, adding: “I’m not going to comment on this type of petty action.”
Health
The harsh truth about HIV phobia in gay dating
HIV and stigma remain baked into queer dating culture
Uncloseted Media published this article on Dec. 9.
This story was produced with the support of MISTR, a telehealth platform offering free online access to PrEP, DoxyPEP, STI testing, Hepatitis C testing and treatment and long-term HIV care across the U.S. MISTR did not have any editorial input into the content of this story.
By SAM DONNDELINGER | In his room, 19-year-old Cody Nester toggles between Grindr profiles on his phone.
As he senses chemistry with a match, he knows he has to flag something that could be a deal breaker.
“Did you see on my profile that I’m HIV positive?” he writes.
The reply arrives instantly.
“You’re disgusting. I don’t know why you’re on here.” Seconds later, the profile disappears, suggesting Nester is blocked.
“He went out of his way to say that. People could at least be more aware, ask questions, and understand the reality [of living with HIV] instead of attacking us,” Nester told Uncloseted Media.
“I would say 95 percent of people respond that way,” says Nester, who lives in Hollywood, Fla., and works at a Mexican restaurant. “The entire conversation is going fine. They’re down to meet up and then right when I mention [HIV], it’s always, ‘Oh no, never mind.’”
Some other messages he’s received include:
“You’ll never get anything in your life.”
“Why don’t you die?”
“Why are you on here?”
More often, it’s silence, a cold “No” or a sudden block.
“It’s like you’re a white fish in a school of black fish,” he says. “You’re immediately the odd one out.”
Even though Nester’s undetectable status makes it impossible for him to transmit HIV to partners during sex, he experiences stigma around HIV, something which nearly 90 percent of Americans agree still exists, according to a 2022 GLAAD report. And a survey shared in 2019 found that 64 percent of respondents would feel uncomfortable having sex with someone living with HIV, even on effective treatment. The emotional cost of this stigma is a significant barrier to intimacy and can result in a loss of self-esteem, fear of disclosure and suicidal thoughts.
What the science says — and why it doesn’t seem to matter
“The fear comes from antiquated ideas around HIV,” says Xavier A. Erguera, senior clinical research coordinator at University of California, San Francisco,’s Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases & Global Medicine. “A lot of people who are newly diagnosed still fear it’s a death sentence. Even though we have medications now to treat it effectively, and it’s basically a chronic condition, people haven’t caught up.”
Since 1996, antiretroviral therapies have developed to where they can suppress the virus to levels so low that it is undetectable in the blood, and thus not able to be transmitted to sexual partners. This is known as Undetectable = Untransmittable, or U=U. According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report from 2024, 65 percent of HIV-positive cases are virally suppressed.
Another line of defense is pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), which reduces the risk of acquiring HIV from sexual intercourse by roughly 99 percent when taken as prescribed. Approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2012, the medication launched as a once-a-day pill and was hailed as a breakthrough as it transformed the sex lives of gay men, which had been shaped by decades of fear about HIV complications and about where AIDS came from.
“Internal logic doesn’t reflect what we know scientifically,” says Kim Koester, associate professor in the Department of Medicine at UCSF. “I was very optimistic when PrEP came out. The drug works, so why wouldn’t everyone use it?”
Even with PrEP use on the rise, less than 600,000 Americans used it in 2024, and Koester says skepticism and judgments about taking the drug persist.
“The phobia is pervasive,” Koester told Uncloseted Media. “People believe that others get the disease because of their lifestyle. … PrEP was supposed to be the antidote to the threat of HIV, reduce the anxiety, and make you more open to who you are and the sex you want. It’s supposed to be liberating. It is part of the answer. But it’s not enough. We don’t have enough people using PrEP for it to make the dent in the stigma we need.”
According to a 2023 study of seven informants living with HIV, public stigma stems from problematic views from society that those living with HIV are “a dangerous transmission source,” “disgraceful” and “violators of social and religious norms who have committed deviant behavior.”
Laramie Smith, assistant professor of Global Public Health at the University of California, San Diego, says this stigma is unwarranted and fueled by misunderstanding:
“With today’s treatments, it shouldn’t be a life-altering identity shift. It should be no different than, ‘I have diabetes.’ If you’re virally suppressed, it shouldn’t matter whether you’re friends with someone, whether you’re sleeping with someone — the science shows us that.”
How HIV phobia shows up online
Nester, who contracted HIV last year from a Grindr hook-up who insisted he was negative, says he is just starting to accept his diagnosis. “I didn’t go back on the apps for a long time after that. It messed with my mental health … realizing I’d have to take medication for the rest of my life.”
Since he started dating again this year, returning to apps like Grindr and Sniffies, he has faced a new normal. He tries to do everything “right” and disclose his status early. Even on his Grindr profile, he identifies as “poz,” slang for HIV-positive.
Still, he says most people ghost him once they find out. “The second I bring it up, it’s ‘No,’” says Nester. “The amount of discrimination you get … it’s always the same pattern. … People don’t know, and they don’t want to know. It messes with you.”
This discrimination may be fueled by a deprioritization of HIV awareness programs across the country. Earlier this month, the U.S. State Department did not commemorate World AIDS Day for the first time in 37 years. HIV prevention programs have been slashed, especially in conservative districts, and only 25 states and D.C. require both HIV and sex education. In many states, health curricula often lag behind current science and omit teaching about PrEP, gay sex and concepts like U=U. Research shows that Gen Z is currently the least educated generation about HIV.
“I could go all day explaining HIV, but people don’t want to listen,” says Nester, who is part of Gen Z. “People don’t want to learn about it; they just want to avoid it.”
HIV anxiety and public stigma shaped by history
Even in more progressive areas, stigma still exists. Damian Jack, a 45-year-old from Brooklyn, remembers sitting in an exam room in 2009 as a doctor explained how low his T-cell count was, which is a hallmark of HIV infection.
“I started hysterically crying,” he told Uncloseted Media. “HIV meant death. That’s what I thought.”
In 1981, when Jack was 1 year old, the first reports of a mysterious and deadly immune deficiency syndrome, which would later be named AIDS, appeared in the U.S. Growing up, Jack saw countless terrifying images of men on their deathbeds with Kaposi sarcoma, the purple lesions the media once called “gay cancer.” Public misinformation and fearmongering spread ideas that AIDS was a disease that “only gay men and drug users get.” And politicians often equated it with homosexuality and moral failure, calling it a “gay plague.” It wasn’t until September 1985, four years after the crisis began and thousands had died, that President Ronald Reagan first publicly mentioned AIDS.
Decades later, the emotional residue of that era and the shame associated with the virus lingers.
Hours after learning of his diagnosis, Jack faced his first encounter with rejection. He already had a date planned that night, and his doctor and friends encouraged him to go.
They had a great time until the date asked him: “Are you negative or positive?”
He told the truth.
“It was just understood there wouldn’t be a second date,” says Jack. “I remember thinking, ‘This is how dating is going to be now.’ I felt so anxious telling guys. It followed me everywhere. I don’t think that anxiety ever truly goes away.”
The emotional impact of HIV stigma
For those who are HIV-negative, experts say that “stigma’s whole design is to ‘other.’”
“The ‘us versus them’ creates that false sense of safety when it comes to HIV,” says Smith. “If I can believe that someone did something to deserve their diagnosis, and I’m not that [kind of person], then I’m safe.”
This othering is painful and can lead to shame, fear and isolation, and it is linked to a higher risk of depression and anxiety.
“If I’m undesirable, and that’s what those messages are communicating, that threatens your sense of safety, your sense of belonging and the fundamental desire we all have to be loved,” Smith says. “And that starts to reinforce the thinking that ‘I am not worthy. This virus that I have means that I’m not lovable. I am not safe showing up among other men.’”
“I pretend it doesn’t hurt, but some things do sting a little bit,” Nester says. “You start thinking, ‘Am I really that disgusting? Am I really that singled out?’”
When public stigma turns inward
“Internalized stigma is what occurs when applying the stereotypes about who gets HIV, the prejudice, the negative feelings, onto yourself,” says Smith.
In 2024, 38 percent of people living with HIV reported internalized stigma. And studies show that it can predict hopelessness and lower quality of life, even when people are engaged in care or virally suppressed.
Internalized stigma can also affect how people practice safe sex and communicate about the virus. A 2019 survey of men who have sex with men found that individuals who perceived greater community-level stigma were less likely to be aware of — and use — safer-sex functions available on dating apps, such as HIV-status disclosure fields, as well as sexual health information and resources.
“[HIV phobia] is probably the most intense, subvert bigotry I think you could experience,” Joseph Monroe Jr., a 48-year-old living in the Bronx, told Uncloseted Media.
On dating apps, men have messaged him things like, “You look like you’ve got that thing” and “Go ahead and infect someone else.”
Monroe has also dealt with misinformed people who rudely opine about how he contracted the virus: “Who fucked you? That’s how you got it, right?” people will say to him.
“You end up internalizing all these stereotypes about who gets HIV — that you were promiscuous, that you didn’t care about yourself, that you did something wrong,” says Smith. “You carry that in, and then you have to relearn: ‘No, I didn’t. This is just a health condition.’”
What HIV acceptance looks like and raising awareness
For those living with HIV, acceptance feels far away.
“You’re living under this threat of HIV and the threat that others find you threatening. It inhabits you socially and sexually,” Koester says. “People are hunkering down. Not putting themselves out there and having a mediocre quality of life. To have a sense of empowerment, you have to be legitimate and seen in the world and it’s hard to do that with the stigma that exists.”
Researchers say the path forward lies as much in conversation as in medicine.
Koester says she talks about HIV and PrEP anywhere she can, including in salons, cafes and restaurants. “Whenever I get into a cab with someone, I’m going to bring up HIV so the driver gets accustomed to hearing about it. … We have a long way to go in terms of exposure and awareness and every little bit helps.”
Part of this lies in increasing awareness through targeted marketing campaigns. PrEP is still profoundly misunderstood outside major urban centers, with uneven uptake among minority groups and usage gaps in the Bible Belt. And a 2022 U.S. survey found that 54.5 percent of people living with HIV didn’t know what U=U meant, and less than half of Americans agree that people living with HIV who are on proper medications cannot transmit the virus.
While eradicating stigma is slow, there is hope for acceptance.
Years after Jack’s diagnosis, in 2021, he told a man he was on a third date with that he was HIV-positive but undetectable. His date’s reply was almost casual:
“Oh — is that it? I thought you were going to say you had a boyfriend or something. I’m on PrEP. You’re fine.”
“It felt so good to hear him say that and accept me,” says Jack. “I was like, ‘This is my person. You’re my person.’” One year later, they got married.
Back in Florida, 19-year-old Cody Nester isn’t feeling this acceptance. He still scrolls past profiles that read “Only negative guys” and tries to ignore the hateful messages.
“It still hurts, but I know it’s coming from fear,” he says. “I wasn’t too informed about HIV before I got it. … When I got it, I really jumped into the rabbit hole and began to learn. I really do think [HIV and stigma] is because people are not knowledgeable. … When people don’t know details, they tend to get scared.”
Additional reporting by Nandika Chatterjee.
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