The first one was on 1st December 1988, so this year's is the twenty third one. How many do you think have had a theme mentioning gay and bisexual men?
None. (I don't count various wishy-washy 'all in it together' themes as being inclusive, any more than only saying 'gay' as bi-inclusive.)
Aids was first recognised in gay and bisexual men. Homo- and biphobia are a big reason why the majority of HIV infections in the UK are still of gay and bisexual men. (When you read that now more people in the UK were infected heterosexually, that's down to the people who were infected in sub-Saharan Africa and later migrated here.) To have that explicitly acknowledged just once would be nice.
In truth, although the first recognition of HIV was as a phenomena that was killing gay men, people had been dying for longer than that. When the disease was identified gay/bi men were in the kill zone in America and Europe.
This led to reactionaries going on about the Gay Plague- and some still do today. But after several mistakes by governments that felt uncomfortable with the subject-matter,aka those strange young men and their disgusting habits, huge technological strides were made.
A sadness is when I read of young people, gay or straight, who think the disease is all over. In part it seems to be youthful belief in immortality. A lot is based on bad education services, formal or informal. Many young gay people are too disconnected to elders in their community who if asked would be able to set the story straight and give some very sensible advice. Finally, the news has usually been bad on education.
It would be a false competition to joust about whether straight Sub-Saharan men or Gay men are most at risk. What about the often brutalised Gay Sub-Saharan men. for one thing? The real prize would be to acknowledge that well informed adults often have a lot in common. Safe sex counselling.
Finally, from reading the Indy I see that in Sub Saharan Africa we have mutant strains of the virus pushing the envelope, and Western companies keeping just a little bit ahead, at prices that few can afford. As humans, we need to recognise that the virus really doesn't care;The more messed up our sexual manners and hygiene, the happier the virus.
I miss Alex and Steve and Daniel.