The Impact of Anti-Gay Politics on the LGBTQ Movement

Since the late 1970s, the Religious Right has mobilized to oppose the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) movement in the United States. Sociologists have studied the relationship between these two movements as a classic movement-countermovement dynamic, in which the strategies, actions, and framing of one movement impact the other. I analyze the way Religious Right reactive and proactive opposition to gay rights has affected the LGBTQ movement. First, I provide an overview of the literature on the negative impacts of the Religious Right, including the diversion of movement goals, transformation of frames, and marginalization of queer politics. Second, I examine the way Religious Right activism may increase mobilization

Wearing Pink in Fairy Town: The Heterosexualization of the Spanish Town Neighborhood and Carnival Parade in Baton Rouge

The Spanish Town parade is currently the largest Carnival parade in Baton Rouge, Louisiana with hundreds of thousands of attendees dressed in pink costuming, cross-dressing, and wearing pink flamingo paraphernalia. This chapter traces the queer origins of the Spanish Town parade to the racially integrated bohemian gayborhood of Spanish Town in the 1980s. Using interviews, archival research, and participant observation, I argue that current LGBTQ residents of Baton Rouge, even those who have never lived in Spanish Town, claim a vicarious citizenship to the neighborhood and parade through an understanding of the queer origins of the parade in the 1980s and the parade’s beginning in a gayborhood. This vicarious citizenship is tempered by the heterosexualization of the contemporary Spanish Town parade. Although LGBTQ residents still attend the parade in large numbers, there is more ambivalence about the homophobic imagery in the parade and the consumption of gay culture by heterosexual parade participants

RIG-I-like Receptors Direct Inflammatory Macrophage Polarization against West Nile Virus Infection.

RIG-I-Like Receptors (RLRs) RIG-I, MDA5, and LGP2, are vital pathogen recognition receptors in the defense against RNA viruses. West Nile Virus (WNV) infections continue to grow in the US. Here, we use a systems biology approach to define the contributions of each RLR in the innate immune response to WNV. Genome-wide RNAseq and bioinformatics analyses of macrophages from mice lacking either RLR reveal that the RLRs drive distinct immune gene activation and response polarization to mediate an M1/inflammatory signature while suppressing the M2/wound healing phenotype. While LGP2 functions to modulate inflammatory signaling, RIG-I and MDA5 together are essential for M1 macrophage polarization in vivo and the control of WNV infection through potential downstream control of ATF4 and SMAD4 to regulate target gene expression for cell polarization. These analyses reveal the RLR-driven signature of macrophage polarization, innate immune protection, and immune programming against WNV infection

Socio-demographic and ecological factors associated with anti-HCV prevalence in people who inject drugs:a systematic review

Background: The World Health Organization (WHO) aim to eliminate hepatitis C virus (HCV) as a public health threat by 2030. People who inject drugs (PWID) are a key risk group for HCV transmission globally. We explored socio-demographic and ecological variables associated with HCV antibody (anti-HCV) prevalence among samples of PWID. Methods: We systematically searched for and screened journal articles and online reports published between January 2011 and June 2017. Serologically confirmed anti-HCV prevalence among PWID and other study-level socio-demographic variables were extracted. Country-level ecological indicators were sourced from online databases. We used generalized linear models to investigate associations between anti-HCV prevalence estimates and other study-level and country-level variables. Results: There were 223 studies from 84 countries contributing 569 estimates of anti-HCV prevalence among PWID. Among study-level indicators, higher levels of anti-HCV prevalence were associated with higher HIV prevalence (B = 0.20; 95 % Confidence Interval [95 %CI] = 0.12, 0.29, p < 0.001) and year of data collection (B=−0.08; 95 %CI=−0.15, −0.02; p = 0.011). At a national level, higher Human Development Index scores (B=4.37; 95 %CI=0.12, 8.63, p = 0.044) were associated with higher levels of anti-HCV in samples. Implications: Serological surveillance data are increasingly available globally; however, there are still geographical gaps in quantification of HCV prevalence among PWID that must be addressed to inform efforts to achieve HCV elimination. Anti-HCV prevalence was lower in samples of PWID from countries with lower Human Development Index scores, which points to an opportunity to provide targeted intervention and potentially control transmission rates of infection in countries characterized by poor population health, education, and income