In my experiences, and, yes, I have had some, the most convenient way to avoid dealing with the substance of GLBT equality, health, and welfare was to connect GLBT rights and treatment with something irrelevant and discuss that.
In the 1980s, instead of exploring what was causing AIDS and then looking for a way to cure it, or at least curb it, because it first showed up in the Gay Community it was considered a Gay problem, ruled a punishment from God, politicized by those who did not accept Gay people for who they are as opposed created fiction, and allowed to run its course.
It was considered a natural result of unacceptable behavior and that if only people stopped that behavior God would let up.
It was only after it was realized that something that affected everyone was easier to identify in a small group of people with similar characteristics while it had been lurking silently within the majority population which was more spread out it was finally addressed. Even then, when Heterosexuals contracted it they were referred to as “innocent Victims” while no one explained what constituted that innocence with them and not also Gay people.
But it was assigned a political basis, and political speech could be limited or avoided.
While school districts addressed the needs of student in the Hispanic, Black, and Asian student groups with teacher professional development meetings, and any insensitive treatment of students was dealt with by having teachers trained in recognizing such insensitivity and how to act and react appropriately, and as bullying based on a student’s characteristics was addressed in policies and procedures, when it came to GLBT students, these very things were called political and based on a school district’s avoiding politics, went unaddressed.
The former was a student need, the latter was a political issue.
Where bullying was wrong with all other groups and dealt with, when it came to GLBT students it was a political thing.
The fight for GLBT rights was stymied by the convenient excuse that it was all politics and discussing politics was simply getting caught up in one group’s agenda.
People were dying from disease, or at the hands of others even their own because of the “politics” label.
When faux politics was taken out of the equation and humanity put in its place, AIDS got addressed and GLBT students got equal treatment with their peers.
It was hoped that the past was the past, and that now, and in the future, politics would not be the convenient excuse applied to dismiss GLBT people their needs and their rights.
Wrong.
PrEP is a medication regimen that has been shown to be 99% effective in preventing the transmission of HIV if taken as directed.
A New York City health care provider, Apicha Community Health Center, that focuses on serving people of color, GLBT people, and people living with HIV, attempted to place an ad campaign on Instagram to raise awareness of Prep.
Since the campaign was directed at Gay and Bi men, the ads were rejected because Instagram decided they were too political. The site is owned by Facebook.
While reducing a health campaign to “social issues, elections, or politics”, Instagram did not and still has not told Apicha what part of the ad copy was too political.
The ads show the stylized nose and mouth of two men facing each other separated by a pill, a man with a pill on his tongue, and two nude men, in profile, riding on a giant pill with the words “Take charge with PrEP” as part of a logo in each ad.
None exhibits sexual contact or content.
Social media, like twitter, have rejected Aipicha’s ads in the past because they had “adult content”, but after appeal and review were allowed.
Mark Zuckerberg told the House Financial Services Committee,
“In most cases, in a democracy, I believe that people should be able to see for themselves what politicians that they may or may not vote for are saying and judge their character for themselves.”
Facebook has established that it is a matter of principle to accept political ads even if they’re untrue.
Obviously, lying on its platforms is preferable to saving lives, specifically those of Gay and Bisexual men.
What happened in the past has been resurrected on a new platform, so, the old approach of labeling important information for the GLBT community as political to censor it has returned.