The rapid development of several COVID-19 vaccines has compelled numerous web commenters to accusingly ask why the same hasn’t been done for HIV, a pandemic that has lasted nearly 40 years longer than the coronavirus.

However, a closer look at the different virology of coronavirus and HIV helps explain why the former has a soon-to-be widely available vaccine and the latter doesn’t.

The aforementioned critics often claim that the lack of an HIV vaccine is due to the fact that HIV has most affected men and trans women who have sex with men, Black people, people of color, and intravenous drug users — marginalized people who tend to have less money and political power. Thus, the lack of an HIV vaccine can seem like a conspiratorial way to let these communities die off.

“They literally ripped them out of the ground, and wiped their asses with them, and carefully laid them at the base of our Pride Flag... I thought things might get stolen, but never in a million years did I think this would happen. I'm completely in shock,” he said.

There seems to be unnecessary confusion surrounding the use of the N-word, especially when it comes to crafting lyrics. This moved Jhené Aiko to give a deep explanation as to why she removed the word from her music.

Although her ability to look like multiple races has undoubtedly been beneficial to her public persona, Aiko doesn't want to abuse a privilege that she didn't ask for. So out of respect for herself, friends, and fans, she decided to stop using the N-word in her music because it could make people uncomfortable. Aiko explains that she eradicated the word from her writing process years ago, but this discussion made the news relevant.

Despite its collection development policy clearly stating that the library does not serve the role as parents, a number of parental complaints to the Lincoln Parish Library in Ruston, Louisiana, has led to LGBTQ+ books being pulled from the children’s section of the library.

The books are now only available via parental request.

In November, the library director Vivian McCain, as well as the library’s Board of Directors, began receiving a number of complaints about “LGBTQ items” in their children’s section. The letters had nearly-identical language, and they sought to have the books removed from the children’s shelves and displays.

Due to his 11-year relationship with Spanish actress Ariadna Gil, Viggo – who makes his directorial debut with the film – has received criticism for playing an LGBTQ+ character.

In a recent interview with The Times, the star called the long-running debate over heterosexual actors playing LGBTQ+ roles a “healthy” one to have, but said he “didn’t think it was a problem” during the casting process.

“People then ask me, “Well what about Terry Chen, who plays my husband in the film, is he a homosexual?” And the answer is I don’t know,” he explained.

“I would never have the temerity to ask someone if they were. And how do you know what my life is? You’re assuming that I’m completely straight.”

Viggo went on to say: “Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. And it’s frankly none of your business. I want my movie to work, and I want the character of John to be effective.

There’s a pretty standard set of stereotypes when it comes to lesbian fashion. Plaid, snapbacks, Blundstones, and keys hanging off carabiners all make the cut. But looking at the way Hollywood has gone about depicting sapphic women, you might as well throw petticoats and corsets in there, too.

The film industry has developed a fascination bordering on obsession with moody-yet-sexy lesbian period dramas. On Friday, Ammonite, which features Kate Winslet as a dour paleontologist and Saoirse Ronan as a young woman who woos Winslet out of her hard shell, will become the latest addition to this obsession. It’s set in 1840, because of course it is.

Perhaps the most telling sign that these films are trying to soften their portrayal of lesbianism that no one ever has to say the word “lesbian.” Or even “sapphic.” Nevermind the nuance of a nice “bisexual.” The women desire and pine and exchange longing glances by a windswept beach with moody gray skies, but they don’t speak plainly of what’s going on. This makes sense to some extent, since historically these desires weren’t allowed in public life, leading to a lot of coded behavior and clandestine relationships. These are women overcoming societal expectations to follow their passions — they don’t need labels, right?

In Monsoon, Henry Golding (Crazy Rich Asians) portrays Kit, a character that strongly resonates with his own experiences. Like Kit, Golding was born in an Asian nation and raised in the United Kingdom. He returned to his motherland as an adult feeling, oddly, like a stranger in "the place that you're meant to feel the closest to," Golding told The Advocate.

"It was putting myself back in those shoes of discovery," Golding recounted of his acting experience. He spent about three months in Vietnam for production wandering the streets of Saigon and Hanoi and, like Kit, learning the complicated history of the Vietnam-American war's legacy on a nation and its people.

However, there are several differences between Golding and Kit. The former was born in Malaysia, the latter in Vietnam, which the character's family fled as refugees after the war. Additionally, the former is straight, and the latter is gay. Kit's sexuality is not the centerpiece of the film by Hong Khaou (Lilting). But there are several sex scenes and, more importantly, a relationship that grows with Lewis (Parker Sawyers, Southside With You), an African-American man whose father fought in the war. He becomes an anchor for Kit in a place where he initially feels unmoored.

LGBTQ acceptance is eroding even among young people. What are we going to do about it?

By Adam Zivo

There is some very bad news that not nearly enough people are talking about. Acceptance of the LGBTQ community is significantly declining in the United States and has been for several years now. Almost two years ago, a national annual survey by GLAAD found that, since 2016, Americans have become much more uncomfortable with LGBTQ folks. Though the report has since become slightly dated, little research has been done on the issue since. Other statistics, such as consistent increases in anti-LGBTQ hate crimes, suggest that the problem has not abated and may even be getting worse.

Despite the seriousness of this issue, there appears to be little awareness within the LGBTQ community that its public support is eroding. This ignorance within the wider community is mirrored by a lack of serious analysis by queer leaders and researchers. That needs to change.

And let’s not fool ourselves that this is a US-only problem. While it’s unclear how much this backlash is mirrored in Canada and Western Europe (which share similar historical trajectories on LGBTQ rights), both of these regions have also seen notable increases in anti-LGBTQ hate crimes – so there is good reason to be pessimistic. However, only real research focused on social attitudes will give us clarity. For whatever reason, this research isn’t being done in earnest.

Ever since I emigrated to the U.S. from El Salvador, I’ve used the term Hispanic to describe my heritage. But lately, I’ve been corrected on multiple occasions about the term I use to describe myself — told that I should use the more accepted term, Latinx.

Okay, so I understand where Latinx comes from — the desire for a gender-inclusive term for people of Latin American heritage, avoiding the gendered ending of Latino or Latina. But it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. And besides, why Latinx and not Latin American?

At the heart of this debate lies the issue of labeling, where an outside group (or a small percentage from an inside group) decides on a term, or label, and then dictates which people fit under the larger umbrella of this label. This happens all the time, and the shadow this umbrella casts is hardly constant: its edges waver, growing and shrinking as categories shift.

I have friends who have lived in this country for decades but still refer to themselves as Mexican. I have other friends who call themselves Hispanic, or Chicana/o or just American. Should I correct all of these friends and tell them their descriptors are dated, that they are now Latinx and need to start referring to themselves as Latinx?

LOL, Kelly Ripa is done handing out free (eye) candy.

Anyway, today, Kelly decided to share more Halloween photos, but this time she cropped Mark's — ahem — package from the post.

For the past two years, rainbow banners had flown from lampposts on Main Street in the city of Heber, Utah, in celebration of Pride month. But when some residents complained that Pride and LGBTQ+ rights were political and did not represent the values or beliefs of the community, Yahoo News reports the city passed a new ordinance in August raising the costs and generally making it more difficult to continue the practice.

“It has pretty much eliminated the option of private citizens funding banners and requesting them to be hung on Main Street, unless they are able to get sponsorship from the city, the county or the chamber, and that sponsorship means some financial sponsorship,” Kelleen Potter, the mayor of Heber City and mother of two LGBTQ+ teens, explained.

The new ordinance requires any event or message promoted on the banners must be nonpolitical and not for profit. Additionally, banner applicants must first obtain sponsorship from the city of Heber, Wasatch County, or the Heber Valley Chamber of Commerce before their application will be considered by the city. In the past, residents could apply to hang banners from the city’s lampposts for a few hundred dollars as long as they were noncommercial in nature.

“As a Christian, our family believes that marriage is between a man and a woman,” one woman is quoted as saying, while others claimed the flag and, by extension, LGBTQ+ rights, were political. Potter claimed she began receiving inquiries wondering if the previous banner policy allowed banners with other allegedly similarly political messages protesting abortion or pornography or featuring symbols associated with the Ku Klux Klan or Nazis.

Back in April as part of SYFY’s special Battlestar Galactica on-air marathon, Tricia Helfer (Number Six) held a virtual panel with Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck), Jamie Bamber (Apollo), James Callis (Gaius Baltar), Grace Park (Boomer), Aaron Douglas (Chief Tyrol), Tahmoh Penikett (Helo), and Alessandro Juliani (Gaeta) to reminisce about their time on the show.

While some one-on-one interviews aired during the marathon, the footage from this virtual reunion hasn’t been shared until now. Read on to learn what the cast talked about — including who got everyone in trouble at real-life bootcamp.

In what’s shaping up to be one of the most counterproductive social media activism campaigns since millions of people posted plain black squares to their Instagram feeds, a legion of largely (though not exclusively) white Twitter gays have attempted to “reclaim” a hashtag most commonly associated with the Proud Boys, a white nationalist hate group.

"white gays “reclaiming” a phrase rooted in white supremacy is very spot on. it was actually on my 2020 bingo card. i’m two away from bingo."

"How many of the white gays "reclaiming" the #proudboys tag you wanna guess have "no Blacks" in their grindr profile"

As many have noted, turning the name of a Southern Poverty Law Center-designated hate group into a photo-op is not just politically empty; it actively obscures the very real presence of white supremacy in the LGBTQ+ community. The trend is a display of vanity masquerading as organizing. It is a manifestation of privilege to believe — and then act on the belief — that one can “reclaim” a potent symbol of white supremacy by reformulating it in the context of Gay Pride. You can claim that “love wins” and that the more powerful way to be a “proud boy” is living out and proud, but the reality is that for millions of Black and brown folks, this is still a terror organization that actively threatens their lives, livelihoods, and right to exist in America.

How can you be sure your child is really your child? Could that innocent-seeming baby be a changeling – a cuckoo in your nest? There is something about the evil elf child, reborn as the alien walking among us, that continues to fascinate and terrify us. So much so, the broadcaster Sky has announced it has commissioned a third version of Village of the Damned from David Farr, the writer of The Night Manager.

The first, filmed in 1960, is a cult classic of understated British horror. The 1995 version, starring Christopher Reeves, translated the nightmare to small-town America.

Both were based on John Wyndham’s The Midwich Cuckoos, in which a whole village briefly loses consciousness. Nine months later, eerily identical alien babies with telepathic powers are born to the women. They are smarter and grow faster than normal – and are soon threatening not just their “parents”, but all humankind.

Teenagers are again euphorically embracing revolution, literally toppling statues in joyful Black Lives Matter protest and skipping school to protest climate change.

Meanwhile, the widespread use of social media in itself can produce a hive mind effect. Although social media was intended to support free speech and allow anyone to share their opinion, the effect of a Twitter pile-on can be to crush nuance, doubt or divergence. Commentators, such as Gavin Haynes, have highlighted the resulting purity spirals in which nobody can stand alone.

Both the single-minded power of the Chinese state and the collective force of an online horde echo the strength of the Midwich aliens versus the fragmented, conflicted arguments of the humans opposing them. The aliens’ power was that they were not individuals – they were parts of a single entity with a single idea – to survive. As in Wyndham’s time, we again face a real contrast between individualism and groupthink.

Latinx has been increasingly used by politicians, mainstream media and universities. But new research suggests the majority of people who Latinx is meant to describe have never even heard of the term.

A new study by the Pew Research Center found that only 23% of people in the U.S. who self identify as Hispanic or Latino have heard of the term Latinx. An even smaller percentage—only 3%—describe themselves as Latinx, a gender-neutral and inclusive alternative to Latino or Hispanic, particularly for people who identify as LGBTQ+.

Pew surveyed 3,030 U.S. Hispanic adults in December 2019. It is the first time the research center has asked about Latinx in particular, and the new research shows that though Latinx by far isn’t as frequently used as a way to identify in the U.S., it has grown in popularity.