In late May, Conde Nast’s LGBT site them.us went out of its way to distance the nascent viral scourge known as monkeypox from its main demographic, gay men.
The piece, titled “Monkeypox virus affects queer men, but has nothing to do with being queer,” states that “while a large proportion of those infected in [the] the current global epidemic of identifying as gay or bisexual men… there is no connection between identity and disease.
“Blaming the gay community or gay behavior,” it concludes, “is not good public health.”
Last week, the World Health Organization declared monkeypox a major global emergency as the disease spread rapidly in just three months. At the end of May, 100 people had the virus; there are now more than 18,000 cases worldwide, with nearly 4,000 in the U.S. alone, according to the CDC. New York State also now calls monkeypox an “imminent threat.”
It is true that gay men are not “responsible” for the monkeypox epidemic. Like HIV or COVID-19, viruses cannot target specific communities. But these early cases of monkeypox were almost all contracted at large “round parties” across Europe, attended almost exclusively by gay men. It’s not a stigma – it’s just a fact.
Also fact: Sex is not the main mode of transmission, but close physical contact. Monkeypox is spread through skin-to-skin contact – the type of close physical contact that occurs at parties where groups of men, often half-clothed, dance in close proximity. (Unsurprisingly, circle parties were also early-onset super-spreading events for COVID).
The reluctance of the “woke” media and nervous health authorities to clarify this connection is a disgrace. Their political correctness probably helped spread the disease.
Headlines like this one from Conde Nast’s LGBT site them.us have worked overtime to distance monkeypox from gay men — even though they’ve been the main risk group since the outbreak began.
Although the majority of cases in May were already related to social venues for gay men, most media outlets not only refused to acknowledge it, but said it would encourage discrimination.
“Charities warn against stigmatizing gay and bisexual groups amid epidemic,” announced The Independent. “Could monkeypox lead to a new wave of homophobia,” Slate mused. “Blaming gay men for monkeypox will hurt everyone,” Scientific America predicted.
Even the UN weighed in on the potential monkeypox blame game, saying in a May 22 announcement that the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) was concerned “that some media reporting and commentary reinforce homophobic and racist stereotypes.”
A close-up of the monkeypox virus, which has already infected nearly 20,000 people worldwide – including 4,700 cases in the US. Although rarely fatal, the disease causes fever and painful lesions. Shutterstock
Few things are more predictable than progressives blaming racism and homophobia for a societal ill, but the monkeypox epidemic takes that to baffling new levels. Just as with other “woke” obsessions like gun violence or the transgender debate, the insistence on putting politics above data and science has led to muddled messages—and very few solutions.
Now, ironically, LGBT leaders are singing a different tune. As hundreds of cases sweep through New York and other metropolitan areas, nearly all of them found in gay men, suddenly monkeypox is not just a “strange” disease, community leaders are criticizing local health departments for failing to adequately treat the LGBT community. A “public health failure” is how California state Sen. Scott Wiener and Assemblyman Matt Haney described the federal government’s response this month.
Even the lack of sufficient monkeypox vaccines—along with the failure to implement vaccination in the U.S.—was down to, you guessed it, “homophobia,” according to a Los Angeles Times headline last week, along with “a collective indifference that stems from a disease that until greatly affects LGBT communities.”
Unlike many sexually transmitted infections, monkeypox is spread through skin-to-skin contact — which helped accelerate its spread initially. Chaotic messaging and poorly managed vaccination programs only made matters worse. Shutterstock
As a gay man of a certain age, this sounds all too familiar. Almost four decades ago, during the earliest days of the AIDS epidemic, doctors and LGBT community leaders like Larry Kramer urged gay men to adopt safer sex practices after it became clear that HIV was transmitted through sexual contact. Some did, but many others refused, citing the shame and stigma that could result from being isolated as a minority population. While the US government waited too long to raise the alarm even though thousands died, the reluctance of some gay men to accept the facts of the spread of the virus also allowed the plague to grow faster.
Although monkeypox is not usually fatal (resulting in an unsightly rash and fever), it has a lot in common with AIDS: political correctness may have accelerated its status as a global health emergency. When an infectious disease occurs, people deserve to know the facts: how is it spread and who is most likely to suffer from it? Running from the truth helps no one.
dkaufman@nypost.com
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