News
HIV/AIDS returning to the spotlight?
Following victories on marriage, advocates say decades-old issue will get renewed look
(Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)
After years of being overshadowed by other issues like marriage equality and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” an issue that decades ago was at the center of the gay rights movement is once again moving to the forefront.
Following hard-fought victories for marriage rights at the Supreme Court, in states throughout the country and across the globe, the persistence of HIV/AIDS is grabbing new attention as recent news stories have documented progress toward a cure and the disease’s continuing impact on gay youth and people of color.
Sean Strub, founder of POZ magazine, said LGBT leadership is taking a renewed look at the issue in response to community pressure and stubbornly high infection rates among young gay men — particularly men of color — which he said are “skyrocketing and simply impossible to ignore.”
In the past week, two separate articles in the mainstream media were published following World AIDS Day that documented the persistence of the HIV/AIDS epidemic among gay and bisexual men.
One article, which appeared on the front page of the New York Times, reported the disease is “rapidly becoming concentrated” among poor, black and Latino men who have sex with men.
Jonathan Mermin, director of HIV prevention at the Centers for Disease Control, is quoted as saying reaching these men is “the Holy Grail” in confronting HIV/AIDS.
Although his agency has granted millions of dollars to local health departments, Mermin reportedly couldn’t identify any city or state that has succeeded in lowering infection rates among young men of color.
An op-ed published on CNN.com written by Perry Halkitis, associate dean of New York University’s Global Institute of Public Health, raised the question of whether there’s a “gay generation gap” with regard to the perception of HIV. Halkitis points to the growing rate with which young gay men have unprotected sex now that the disease is perceived as chronic, but not fatal.
“The disease may not be front and center — it may not be the primary presenting problem faced by young gay men, as it was for me at age 18 in 1981 — but it is a concern,” Halkitis writes. “However, it’s a concern that must be spoken about and dealt with differently for this ‘new’ AIDS generation.”
According to data from the Centers for Disease Control, gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men remain the most profoundly affected by HIV.
In 2010, an estimated 29,800 men were infected with HIV after having sex with another man — a 12 percent increase from the 26,700 new infections among this group in 2008. In 2010, men who have sex with men accounted for 63 percent of all new HIV infections nationwide.
At the same time as the disease gets renewed attention from the gay community, Strub said young gay men infected with HIV face new challenges — even though the disease is no longer a death sentence — because of the lack of solidarity with other gay men.
“People with HIV no longer inspire a sympathetic response from the public, especially not the gay public, but are more often seen and defined — particularly by the public health and criminal justice systems — as potential threats,” Strub said. “We’re living longer so we’re around to infect longer, viral vectors, potential infectors, an inherent risk to society.”
Meanwhile, advocates working on HIV/AIDS contend the issue has always belonged to the gay community, but is rising again in prominence for various reasons.
Richard Socarides, a gay New York Democratic activist, was among those predicting HIV/AIDS will “emerge as a major issue for the gay community.”
“Especially now, as a whole new generation of young gay men face issues relating to safe sex head on for the first time,” Socarides said. “But now in a context where ‘silence’ may not equal death but instead, a long-term chronic but treatable disease.”
Mark Mazzone, a spokesperson for the LGBT military group SPART*A, said he thinks HIV will come to forefront for advocates working on LGBT military issues in the wake of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” repeal and the Supreme Court ruling against the Defense of Marriage Act.
“I think this will return as an LGBT military issue simply because of the lack of education given to our service members and the high risk behaviors mostly younger LGB men engage in, which need to be mitigated through a comprehensive training and prevention program,” Mazzone said.
Mazzone said service members become non-deployable once they’re discovered to have HIV; can’t commission as an officer or warrant officer; can’t fly aircraft or work in any jobs requiring a flight physical; are restricted to stateside duty assignments (with the exception of the Navy); and are not eligible for special schools such as Ranger, Special Forces or other special ops jobs.
And the nation’s largest LGBT group says that it continues to make a priority efforts to bring the HIV/AIDS epidemic to an end.
Fred Sainz, vice president of communications for the Human Rights Campaign, said HIV/AIDS has been and continues to be at the forefront for LGBT groups like HRC.
“Until the scourge is gone, fighting HIV/AIDS has, is and will remain a top priority for the LGBT civil rights movement,” Sainz said.
Strub said in recent months he’s seen HRC devote more attention to HIV/AIDS.
“I am heartened by HRC’s outreach to HIV advocates in the last several months and am cautiously optimistic we will see a greater commitment from them in 2014, on HIV issues, than we have seen in recent years,” Strub said.
One HIV/AIDS issue that has particularly risen in prominence is the HIV criminalization laws in some states. Under such laws, an HIV-positive person can face criminal charges for failing to disclose their HIV status before engaging in sex.
LGBT and HIV/AIDS advocates have railed against the laws, saying they send an inaccurate message regarding prevention responsibility, create a disincentive to receiving testing and may discourage disclosure of HIV status. According to Lambda Legal, 39 states have HIV-specific criminal statutes or have brought HIV-related criminal charges, which have resulted in more than 160 prosecutions in the United States in the last four years.
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) introduced on Tuesday legislation in the Senate known as the Repeal Existing Policies that Encourage and Allow Legal (“REPEAL”) HIV Discrimination Act, which would require an interagency review of federal and state laws that criminalize certain actions by people living with HIV.
“A disturbing number of state and local criminal laws pertaining to individuals with HIV/AIDS are rooted not in science, but in outdated fear,” Coons said in a statement. “They run counter to effective public health strategies, discourage HIV testing, and perpetuate unfair stigma and discrimination against people living with HIV/AIDS – people who are our friends, family, and neighbors.”
In May, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) introduced the House version of the legislation along with Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.). According to the Library of Congress, the bill has 37 sponsors, although Ros-Lehtinen is the only Republican co-sponsor.
In Iowa, the punishment for being found guilty of violating Code 709C can be imprisonment for up to 25 years and registration as a sex offender.
Donna Red Wing, executive director of the LGBT group One Iowa, said in the wake of securing marriage equality in her state, working with local HIV groups to repeal her state’s HIV criminalization law has become the No. 1 legislative priority for the organization.
“Over the years, I’ve been troubled that as the face of AIDS changes, fewer and fewer LGBT organizations are engaging in this struggle,” Red Wing said. “It seems like the right thing to do, you know? Because in the early days, if it wasn’t for our people, if it wasn’t for the LGBT communities, we would not be where we are today.”
Although the Iowa Legislature is no longer in session, Red Wing said efforts are underway to move forward legislation with lawmaker reconvene in January.
“We already have laws that deal with communicable diseases, and the fact that HIV/AIDS gets this special treatment and these enhanced sentences is so draconian,” Red Wing said. “A communicable disease is a communicable disease is a communicable disease, and there should be nothing special and no enhanced sentences for people living with AIDS/HIV.”
The potential for discovering a cure for the disease has also received significant attention amid new developments from the Obama administration as part of the goal of achieving an “AIDS-free generation.”
Last week, President Obama announced he’s redirecting $100 million over the course of three years at the National Institutes for Health to an initiative with the goal of developing a cure for the disease.
“The United States should be at the forefront of new discoveries in how to put HIV into long-term remission without requiting live-long therapies, or better yet, eliminate it completely,” Obama said.
A NIH official later clarified for the Blade the $100 million will be on top of another $60 million previously directed toward the effort and comes from grants for other initiatives that have expired at the agency.
But the prospects for a cure were dealt a blow last week, following media reports that two men who had hoped they were cured of HIV after bone marrow transplants found they still had the virus.
After the two men underwent life-threatening procedures intended for cancer, they initially were virus-free as of July in four months in one case and two months in another and stopped taking their HIV medication. But doctors announced last week that virus has reemerged in their systems.
Despite the reemergence of the virus in the systems of the two men, doctors said they learned from the procedure that even if you make HIV seemingly disappear, it can hide in the body — possibly held up in the organs and inside the intestines — and reactivate.
Strub said while efforts to eliminate the disease are important, changing the way society looks at HIV/AIDS should also be a priority.
“The advocacy needs are immense, but one of the most important — to which we in the LGBT community can contribute to greatly — is in reducing stigma by supporting and empowering people with HIV and refocusing on the human rights approach, rather than just a biomedical approach, to HIV prevention.”
Federal Government
Trump budget targets ‘gender extremism’
Proposed spending package would target ‘leftist’ political ideologies
The White House submitted its 2027 budget request to Congress last month, outlining a push for the Federal Bureau of Investigation to “proactively” target what it describes as “extremism” related to gender — raising concerns about the potential for law enforcement to target LGBTQ people.
The Trump-Vance administration’s 2027 budget request, submitted to Congress on April 4, proposes a dramatic increase in national security and law enforcement spending, while reducing foreign aid and restructuring multiple domestic security programs. In total, the administration is requesting $2.16 trillion in discretionary budget authority (including mandatory resources), a 15.3 percent increase over the 2026 proposal.
Central to the proposal is the creation of a new “NSPM-7 Joint Mission Center,” a direct follow-up to the September 2025 National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7). The directive instructs the Justice Department, the FBI, and other national security agencies to combat what the administration defines as “political violence in America,” effectively reshaping the Joint Terrorism Task Force network to focus on “leftist” political ideologies, according to reporting by independent journalist Ken Klippenstein.
The American Civil Liberties Union has characterized NSPM-7 as a way for President Donald Trump to intimidate his political enemies.
In a press release following the memorandum, Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, said, “President Trump has launched yet another effort to investigate and intimidate his critics,” and had described the move as an “intimidation tactic against those standing up for human rights and civil liberties.”
The proposed mission center would include personnel from 10 federal agencies tasked with targeting “domestic terrorists” associated with a wide range of ideologies. Among them is what the administration labels “extremism” related to gender, alongside categories such as “anti-Americanism,” “anti-capitalism,” “anti-Christianity,” and “support for the overthrow of the U.S. government.” The document also cites “hostility toward those who hold traditional American views” on family, religion, and morality — language LGBTQ advocates have increasingly warned could be used to frame queer and transgender rights movements as ideological threats.
The mission center is one component of a proposed $166 million increase in the FBI’s counterterrorism budget.
In total, the FBI would receive $12.5 billion for salaries and expenses under the proposal, a $1.9 billion increase. Planned investments include unmanned aerial systems operations and counter-drone capabilities, counterterrorism efforts, and security preparations for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The budget also cites 67,000 FBI arrests since Jan. 20, 2026, which it describes as a 197 percent increase from the prior year.
When Congress passed the USA PATRIOT Act in 2001, it also enacted 18 U.S.C. § 2331(5), which defines domestic terrorism as activities involving acts dangerous to human life that violate criminal laws and are intended to intimidate or coerce civilians or influence government policy through violence. That statutory definition has not changed.
However, federal agencies have historically categorized domestic terrorism threats into groups such as racially or ethnically motivated violent extremism, anti-government or anti-authority violent extremism, and other threats, including those tied to bias based on religion, gender, or sexual orientation.
The language in the budget suggests a shift in how those categories are interpreted and applied — particularly by explicitly linking “extremism” to gender and to perceived opposition to “traditional” views — without any corresponding change to federal law. Only Congress has the power to change the definition of domestic terrorism by passing legislation.
The budget document states:
“DT lone offenders will continue to pose significant detection and disruption challenges because of their capacity for independent radicalization to violence, ability to mobilize discretely, and access to firearms. Additionally, in recent years, heinous assassinations and other acts of political violence in the United States have dramatically increased. Commonly, this violent conduct relates to views associated with anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the U.S. government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility toward those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”
This language echoes earlier actions by the Trump-Vance administration targeting trans people.
On the first day of his second term, President Trump signed Executive Order 14168, titled “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.”
The order establishes a strict binary definition of sex and withdraws federal recognition of trans people.
“It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female,” the order states. “‘Sex’ shall refer to an individual’s immutable biological classification as either male or female. ‘Sex’ is not a synonym for and does not include the concept of ‘gender identity.’”
Appropriations committees in both chambers are expected to begin hearings in the coming weeks.
Hungary
Viktor Orbán ousted in Hungarian elections
Anti-LGBTQ prime minister conceded defeat after polls closed
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Sunday conceded defeat in the country’s elections.
The Associated Press notes Péter Magyar’s center-right Tisza party defeated Orbán’s Fidesz-KDNP coalition in 94 of Hungary’s 106 voting districts. It remains unclear whether Tisza will have a two-thirds majority in Parliament.
“Tonight, truth prevailed over lies,” Magyar told supporters on Sunday who had gathered along the Danube River in Budapest, the Hungarian capital. “Today, we won because Hungarians didn’t ask what their homeland could do for them — they asked what they could do for their homeland. You found the answer. And you followed through.”
Orbán had been in office since 2010. He and his government have faced widespread criticism over its anti-LGBTQ crackdown.
A Hungarian activist with whom the Washington Blade previously spoke said it is “impossible to change your gender legally in Hungary” because of a 2020 law that “banned legal gender recognition of transgender and intersex people.” Hungarian MPs the same year effectively prohibited same-sex couples from adopting children and defined marriage in the country’s constitution as between a man and a woman.
The European Commission in 2022 sued Hungary, which is a member of the EU, over the country’s anti-LGBTQ propaganda law. The EU since Orbán took office has withheld upwards of €35 billion ($40.94) in funds to Hungary in response to concerns over corruption, rule of law, and other issues.
Hungarian lawmakers in March 2025 passed a bill that banned Pride events and allowed authorities to use facial recognition technology to identify those who participate in them. MPs later amended the Hungarian constitution to ban public LGBTQ events.
Upwards of 100,000 people last June defied the ban and marched in Budapest’s annual Pride parade.
A spokesperson for the Háttér Society told the Blade last week that neither Magyar, nor his party have reached out to the organization. The Hungarian advocacy group encouraged LGBTQ people to vote, but did not endorse a specific political party.
‘Today, Europe is Hungarian’
Sunday’s elections took place less than a week after Vice President JD Vance traveled to Budapest and urged Hungarians to support Orbán. Russian President Vladimir Putin and groups that include the Heritage Foundation, which led the Project 2025 initiative that has influenced the Trump-Vance administration’s policies against LGBTQ rights and other issues, also backed Orbán.
Orbán last month blocked a €90 billion ($105.30 billion) EU loan to Ukraine.
“[Hungarian history] is not written in Moscow. It is not written in Brussels. It is not written in Washington,” Magyar told reporters on Monday during a press conference in Budapest. “It is written in Hungary’s streets.”
Magyar also said he will work with Brussels to unfreeze EU funds.
“Today, Europe is Hungarian,” said European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Monday. “The people of Hungary have spoken. It is a victory for fundamental freedoms.”
Former U.S. Ambassador to Hungary David Pressman, a gay man who frequently clashed with Orbán during his ambassadorship, also praised the election results.
“Brave Hungarians show what it takes to stand up to authoritarianism and stand for dignity and democracy,” said Pressman on X. “Congratulations to Hungary and its extraordinary people.”
Brave Hungarians show what it takes to stand up to authoritarianism and stand for dignity and democracy. Congratulations to Hungary and its extraordinary people. pic.twitter.com/PhppUwiVvb
— David Pressman (@AmbPressman) April 12, 2026
The Comings & Goings column is about sharing the professional successes of our community. We want to recognize those landing new jobs, new clients for their business, joining boards of organizations and other achievements. Please share your successes with us at [email protected].
The Comings & Goings column also invites LGBTQ college students to share their successes with us. If you have been elected to a student government position, gotten an exciting internship, or are graduating and beginning your career with a great job, let us know so we can share your success.
Congratulations to Yadiel Meléndez, on their new role as Community Associate, with the Wanda Alston Foundation. Meléndez is piloting a new role as a Community Associate at the Wanda Alston Foundation, where they support queer and trans young people in finding their footing, building independence, and experiencing a housing community where they are seen, valued, and affirmed. They are coming into this role with more than a decade of experience as a community organizer and operations specialist, supporting diverse communities through service, advocacy, and program coordination.
Previously they worked for Right Proper Brewing Shaw as a server and bartender and at Sephora, Washington, DC, and at FreshFarm, DC, in bilingual food access. They also worked freelance to build foundational structures for local queer BIPOC performance art coalitions, producing variety shows to curate space for marginalized performance artists in the community. They were a production manager for Haus of Hart Productions, a BIPOC centric performance art production. They also worked as field staff with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in Stafford, Va.
Meléndez is bilingual, Spanish and English. Their work is guided by a commitment to dignity, safety, and trauma-informed engagement, particularly within LGBTQ and BIPOC communities.
Congratulations also to Ben Rosen LICSW, on his new role as program director, with the Wanda Alston Foundation. Rosen previously worked with Fountain House’s OnRamps program, helping to build a new, innovative outreach program for individuals considered chronically homeless, and living with serious mental illness, in the Times Square area of New York. Rosen is a Psychotherapist, having worked with SG Psychotherapy, and as the psychotherapist with the Nest Community Health Center (URAM).
Rosen has a B.F.A. in Theatre Arts: Musical Theatre, Minor in Psychology (Cum Laude) from Malloy University Conservatory; and his M.S.W. in Clinical Practice with Individuals, Families, and Groups, from The Silberman School of Social Work, Hunter College, N.Y. He is independently licensed in New York and Washington, D.C.
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