AIDS: The Issue Is The Pope

Those of you who shell out interest to the journal Science most likely already know that they put an picture — just a body shot — of transgender ladies on the cover, to highlight a special part on AIDS.

Here’s the offending image:

There is a good summary of the controversy right here. Separately from the problems of the male gaze and transgender rights, I want to level out one thing else: most of the difficulties in combating AIDS have been due to guys in power: Ronald Reagan, the last 3 Popes, and different other people. If you want to highlight the true challenges in defeating AIDS, they are your cover image they are the ones who made policies that made it tougher for vulnerable populations to get the one particular issue we know protects against AIDS: condoms. A cover shot of headless transgender women is titillation that doesn’t strike at the actual dilemma: policy.

With out creating condoms available, with out educating people about their protective choices, we exacerbate a dilemma in which we previously have a remedy in hand. In that sense, the most significant obstacle to AIDS is none other than the Catholic Church.

In Could 2005, one particular of the first items that Pope Benedict XVI deigned to inform us was that the traditional teaching of the Church is the only way to shield against HIV. This is madness we know condoms safeguard men and women. It is not anti-science — it is anti-fact. And before you level out that we have a new Pope now, let me just display you that we’ve acquired far more of the same coming from celibate guys who really do not truly fret about feasible sexual assaults, dumb teenage sexuality, or kid marriages. Kissing the feet of AIDS individuals is not the very same as protecting the vulnerable, anything Francis has abjectly failed at.

It’s also well worth reminding the globe about Ronald Reagan’s toxic legacy: I wouldn’t mind generating him the poster-boy for the epidemic, offered how small he did to end it. Thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of deaths can be laid immediately at his feet.

If you want to modify AIDS policy, make the face of AIDS issues the policy-makers. Transgender prostitutes are usually not in the same positions of power to make decisions that will impact hundreds of thousands of people. Target the real sinners: the ones who make the decisions that harm the vulnerable.

*Full disclosure: I am Catholic. Even though if the Pope decides to excommunicate me, I do not consider I’ll mind it also significantly often that’s the price you shell out for morality and compassion.

AIDS: The Issue Is The Pope