Today I (somehow) dragged myself out of bed at 7:30am to go to “Models of Pride,” which is an annual LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) youth conference held at Occidental College. A lot of the workshops were media-related, so I thought I’d just blog about my experience at the conference and some of the things I noticed.

Part One, or omg I’m old:
First of all, the description of the event says it’s a youth conference geared towards queer youth between the ages of 14 and 23. However, when I got there, I definitely felt that it was geared more towards high school students. When we were in small groups for an “icebreaker,” my group of 12 had about 3 people over 18. But everyone was really nice. But I still felt really old basically the whole time I was there.

So I was reading this article today online about the LA Gay and Lesbian Center's new ad campaign to fight the spread of HIV. Basically, the ads say "HIV is a gay disease. Own it. End it." The goal is to target apathetic gay men, which I think is valid, but the way they're going about seems seriously flawed to me. "HIV/AIDS is a gay disease" is a stereotype that the queer community has been fighting against since the disease was discovered. It has been used as a justification for homophobia. I don't think that using language that comes out of a tradition of homophobic rhetoric is the wrong way to go. It also glosses over the ever increasing numbers of black women with AIDS today. There has to be a better way to raise awareness about HIV, for gay men and for everyone.