Description
The 2022/23 mpox outbreak disproportionately affected queer people, and in particular gay men (upwards of 90 percent of cases in some contexts). When this became apparent very early in the epidemic, queer communities in the Global North were quick to mobilise, disseminating information in queer networks, altering sexual behaviours, and, when vaccines were made available, getting vaccinated. This mobilisation echoed – and undoubtedly was influenced by – past experiences with HIV/AIDS and in many ways emblematised forms of queer solidarity, advocacy, and community empowerment. Yet, simultaneously, the privilege of access to vaccines cannot be divorced from the wider global political economy of pharmaceutical products that leads to the neglect of diseases like mpox and other so-called neglected tropical diseases. In this paper, based on interviews with key informants working in queer advocacy spaces, I explore the forms of queer solidarity that arose during the outbreak (and place this in historical context), while interrogating the limits of this solidarity in the global context of medicine and vaccine haves and have-nots.
