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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 29, 2026

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Except we did the homophobia thing remember? And the fat shaming thing. And still here we are. There are some things apparently you cannot propaganda your way out of.

So? Is it written somewhere that we can't return to an old solution? I'm also not sure I buy that it had no effect at all. And if the solutions seems too cruel, we can always just do the original idea of not subsidizing PrEP. Take your pick, but I don't see why you should get everything you want, and I nothing.

Well thats part of the problem. I'm not gay, but i did work in public health. It's not that I want this. If we could make gay men more cautious that would be great! I'd do it in a heartbeat. Just like making obese people eat less. It would be amazing!

But we must tackle the issue with the gays we have not the gays we wish we had. And keeping the gays in the closet and shaming them just meant they wouldn't come forward for treatment and then put wives of closeted men at risk and so on and so forth. We have been down this road. It failed and led us here.

Its not what I want vs what you want, its what seems to work best with the constraints we have.

Whats going to be easier getting cheap Prep or realigning society to put gay people back in the closet? Even allowing that shaming them would work?

You can go ahead and try to organize that. But in the meantime if you want to minimise breaking out into the rest of the populace making Prep cheap and easily available is the best lever we have.

It certainly is not perfect by any means.

Its not what I want vs what you want, its what seems to work best with the constraints we have.

Since when? The Covid response had very little to do with what works. Transgender medicine has very little to do with what works. "Racism is a public health crisis" had very little to do with what works. Why should I believe that another politically charged topic has something to do with what works?

Because you are talking to me, one person, not the whole of the world? Politics is politics so it will influence what happens and why. But neither of us are responsible for every other person just because we happen to share views with them.

But again note my arguments are pragmatic. Trump is not going to outlaw homosexuality. Your side lacks enough control of media to actually shame gay people like they used to be. You currently cannot try the old ways. Maybe in 5 or 10 years it will be. Who knows? Then the calculus might change.