Can you believe?
Nico LangElizabeth Warren has landed the coveted Queer Eye vote.
After coming out as living with HIV earlier this week, hair guru Jonathan Van Ness pledged his support for the Massachusetts Senator’s presidential campaign in a series of tweets. The Netflix reality star — who identifies as nonbinary but uses he/him pronouns — claimed that he knew that he would be endorsing Warren’s candidacy after misplacing his HIV medication last month.
“It cost $3500 to replace them out of pocket with ‘amazing’ platinum level insurance,” Van Ness wrote. “Healthcare shouldn’t be for profit ever, it’s a human right.”
“To be clear I’m on literally one daily pill to manage my HIV infection,” he added.
The 32-year-old opened up about his status during a Saturday interview with the New York Times in which he called himself a “member of the beautiful HIV-positive community.” But while Van Ness says he’s healthy and in a good place, it wasn’t always that way. Before he was diagnosed at the age of 25, he went to a local Planned Parenthood facility after frequently fainting at the hair salon where he worked.
In his forthcoming book,Over the Top, Van Ness recalls that the news was “just as devastating as you’d think it would be.”
But seven years after learning about his status, the reality star is trying to use his platform to educate others about living with HIV, stopping by the Today show earlier this week to explain that those who are undetectable (meaning that their viral load is so low blood tests can’t detect it) cannot transmit the virus to others.
“You take a pill every day, and it basically kills all the copies of the virus in your blood, and that means you can achieve and maintain an undetectable viral load,” he told Today host Hoda Kotb.
Given Van Ness’ recent advocacy, it makes sense that he would align himself with Warren (who responded to his endorsement with a thank-you call). The 2020 candidate supports Medicare-for-All and has called for lowering the cost of drug prices, expanding access to Pre-exposure prophylaxis (or PrEP) to prevent the virus’ spread, and increasing HIV funding and research.
In addition, Warren is one of 26 cosponsors of the REPEAL HIV Discrimination Act, a proposal to strike down HIV exposure laws across the United States.
“At present, 33 States and two United States territories have criminal statutes based on perceived exposure to HIV, rather than actual transmission of HIV to another,” the legislation claims. “Eleven states have HIV-specific laws that make spitting or biting a felony, even though it is not possible to transmit HIV via saliva.”
Warren is currently polling in second place in the Democratic primaries behind former Vice President Joe Biden.
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