On May 11 – less than a year after the JYNNEOS vaccine was approved for prevention of the virus that causes smallpox (to which mpox is related) – WHO declared the mpox outbreak officially over. 

And we all have queer folks to thank for it.

Monkeypox’s disproportionate effect on  men who have sex with men reminded many people in the community of the AIDS epidemic of the 1980′s which led to the deaths of TK number.

Darian Aaron, News Director for the LGBTQ advocacy nonprofit GLAAD, has conducted interviews and written news stories about how mpox has affected his community, especially Southern, queer men of color.

He spoke with Reckon about his experience as a storyteller for an advocacy organization and as a gay Black man when fears around mpox arose last summer.

“It was a scary time. It was hard to get appointments to get vaccines. A lot of queer men were very scared and very angry,” Aaron said. “It reminded us of old scars.”

The Centers for Disease Control had some concerns about mpox spreading again this summer as health officials are still learning how long protection lasts with the new mpox vaccine.

The outbreak was affecting a different group of people in America compared to Africa, where the virus is endemic. Finding cases outside in Europe or North America was far more unlikely, which triggered panic among Americans, especially men who have sex with men.

So far, there have been no reports of mpox outbreaks associated with Pride Month events or other queer social events, said Darian Aaron, News Director for the media monitoring organization GLAAD.

Many men took to the internet to share their experiences with HIV in the 90s felt uncomfortably similar to the language surrounding the mpox outbreak.

Aaron said he got the two-dose regimen of the JYNNEOS vaccine and has avoided mpox, but even the small scar left behind by the vaccine wound serves as a reminder.

“The scar on my forearm was a reminder of how I was othered. I specifically was given a vaccine that not everyone was given because of who I am–a gay man,” Aaron said.

Meeting the community where they are

When the news of the mpox started to spread , the queer community came together to support each other and get vaccines to those most at risk. That meant taking the shots to places like the gay club.

LGBTQ+ community is no stranger to mobilizing their own communities to meet people where they are. In New York City, thousands of people received the mpox vaccine from vans that were were strategically parked outside gay clubs and sex parties.

ONYX Midwest–an organization for Black queer men in the leather community–set out to vaccinate every attendee at its annual Mr. Leather Convention in Chicago. Workers from Howard Brown Health manned a booth at the entrance to the convention’s market and offered condoms, lube and asked attendees if they had their mpox vaccine.

Surprisingly, it was hard to find an attendee who wasn’t vaxxed, the Washington Post reported in June.

“There is this preconceived notion that most people that belong to this sort of community don’t really take too much caution when it comes to sex,” Ivan Capifali-Cartagena, a bilingual outreach health educator at Howard Brown, told The Washington Post in June 2023. “That camaraderie, looking out for one another, that in and of itself was pretty satisfying to me.”

The Georgia Dept. of Public Health participated in President Biden’s mpox vaccine initiative and was able to vaccinate more than 4,000 people during Atlanta Black Pride, said Nancy Nydam, director of communications for the government organization.

“Some community organizations were also able to organize their own vaccination events so they could provide services directly in non-health department settings,” Nydam said.

Even the name of the decades-old disease–monkeypox–offered reminders of past medical trauma, especially for queer people of color. Historically, access to healthcare and disproportionately high rates of poverty have affected non-white folks’ ability to address their health conditions, Aaron explained.

One way health officials addressed some of the complaints about the messaging around mpox is changing the term they used to refer to the disease from “monkeypox” to “mpox” in November 2022. WHO made the change in response to concerns about racism.

The Journal of Medical Internet Research looked at all mpox related Tweets posted between May 7 and July 23, 2022, found that tweets containing misinformation started early and spread faster than tweets containing trusted public health guidance.

The facts about mpox

Men who have sex with men still comprise the majority of mpox cases in the United States, but Aaron said he thinks it’s important to differentiate between identity and behavior. The behavior most likely most likely to cause viral transmission is close skin-to-skin contact.

“In the most recent outbreak, mpox was spread primarily through skin-to-skin contact during sex, but it can also be transmitted by nonsexual skin-to-skin or close contact and from infected linens,” said Andrew Brouwer, Assistant Research Scientist in the Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan.

The vaccine is still only recommended for people who have been exposed or at a higher risk of exposure to mpox. Men who have sex with men and people who’ve recently had multiple or anonymous sexual partners are specifically recommended to get the vaccine. The general public is not advised to get vaccinated against mpox unless they are at risk of exposure.

In 2022, more than 30,000 people contracted mpox, causing 45 deaths, according to the CDC.

While mpox is not as deadly as AIDS, the outbreak among  gay and bisexual men   felt all-too-familiar for many.

Longtime AIDS activist Eric Sawyer told The Washington Post WHEN the anxiety around gay and bisexual men and Mpox opened up “raw wounds” and a new wave of grief from seeing so many of his friends die from AIDS in the 80s and 90s.

For Aaron, a Black gay man from the South, the disparities that exist when it comes to race and queerness are front and center. In Southern cities like Atlanta, Black queer folks initially struggled to get appointments for the mpox vaccine when it was made available in August 2022.

“Everyone was scared,” Aaron said. “There was also a lot of anger–anger of having yet another disease associated with gay men. We still have not overcome the stigma associated with gay men and HIV.”

HIV is another factor in the mpox equation. CDC data connecting HIV, mpox and homelessness released late last year revealed most severe cases of mpox were documented in homeless men living with untreated HIV.

“Housing equals better health outcomes, period. There are all these great medical interventions available, but if someone is experiencing housing instability, they don’t benefit from that. They usually cannot focus on the medical resources available because they’re focused on where they will lay their head tonight,” Rita Harcrow, Director of the Office of HIV/AIDS Housing for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development told GLAAD. 

What can we learn from the queer community?

Because of the swift rollout of the vaccine and people’s focus on protecting themselves and their community has kept transmission levels low, he said.

The LGBTQ community knew what to do and who to focus on–and the proof is in the metaphorical pudding.

“In building off of lessons of the COVID-19, the deployment of vaccines prioritizing at-risk individuals in the mpox outbreak helped to control the outbreak quickly,” Brouwer said.

He also described the mortality from mpox as “extremely low” with 152 deaths out of more than 88,000 cases globally, according to data from WHO.

Researchers are trying to determine how long protection from mpox will last. Studies have found the two-dose regimen of the vaccine is 86 percent effective at preventing mpox and still the best defense against infection.

The question of whether or not you need a booster is what experts are trying to answer now, but there is currently no recommendation for additional doses after the initial series, Daskalakis said.

Queer-led community organizations are still recommending people get the mpox vaccine and working to ensure those who need it have access.

For more information about mpox, go here.