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Comment by unnouinceput | Hacker News Reader

It's important to remember that any community can spread it. Needle sharing among intravenous drug users comes to mind. However, you can't deny that HIV has struck a generational blow upon the LGBTQ+ community.

If this works it will be the end to an era of fear. Many will remember those that where lost and wish this only happened sooner. A new reason to celebrate is underselling the impact this will have.

It seems to me like lumping lesbians and the queer into this calculus is a little insensitive because it was almost exclusively gay men and trans women who bore the brunt. I'm sure this press release ran by a publicist who said, "we have to use all the letters or else we'll get torn to shreds on Twitter."

I get what your saying.

But on the other hand we are just talking about celebrating this. I feel like those sub-communities are probably more aware of the impact HIV than the average cis straight person and are probably going to celebrate this as well.

I don't get what's insensitive about it at all so maybe I am missing your point.

If we get down to brass tacks, this is a situation where sex takes precedence over gender. The HIV epidemic in the West was borne by XY people, and the history of HIV in America is by and large an XY history. What are we obfuscating by painting this history with a broadly "queer" brush?

Obviously cis het people can spread HIV. But the AIDS pandemic was absolutely brutal—devastating—for a generation of LGBT people, especially gay men.

It seems like HIV is mainly contracted by gay men in the First World, drug users in the Second World, and straight people in the Third World. It does seem a strange shoutout, but I imagine they are already prepping the ad campaigns for the West where they'll make the most money selling this vaccine.

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