The Seasons May Change But Our Health Conversations Shouldn’t: What Detroit’s Mpox Story Reveals

Between the Lines | October 30, 2025 | By Scott Bertani

The colors of Motor City Pride don’t disappear as summer festivals fade. In the neighborhoods, clinics and connections that keep Michigan’s LGBTQ+ communities strong, our colors shine bright through October’s National Coming Out Day on Oct. 11, National Latinx AIDS Awareness Day on Oct. 15, and into Halloween’s shift from self-expression to masking. As the clocks turn back and our gatherings move indoors, conversations about prevention and care may quiet down with the season’s change, but mpox hasn’t left the stage.

As of late September, Michigan had 12 confirmed mpox cases, including those reported in Wayne County. Most were young adults aged 19 to 36, including 11 men and one woman. Three were living with HIV, and about half of all cases were among Black or Latino individuals — but none of the 12 had been vaccinated. Three were hospitalized.
Even low numbers show that the virus still circulates in the city and that each hospitalization underscores how severe its impact can be. That’s why vaccination remains one of the strongest tools we have. Given in two doses, ideally spaced 28 days apart, the vaccine can lower the chance of infection and can make symptoms milder if someone does get sick.

But the reality isn’t just medical; it’s also deeply structural. Detroit knows better than most cities where health systems, stigma and inequities all meet. While Detroit’s public health network and resources like the Detroit Health Department’s immunization clinic and community organizations like Community Health Awareness Group, continue to connect those at-risk to mpox vaccines and education, public attention has shifted. Uptake has slowed, and only about half of those who started mpox vaccination returned for their second dose. What’s needed now is the routinization of mpox services, not because there’s an active outbreak, but because prevention only works when it’s consistently applied. Viruses don’t take breaks when headlines do.

The Case for Routine

Routine is where prevention lives. Getting vaccinated for mpox shouldn’t feel like an event; it should feel like getting your flu shot or picking up your prescription refill. The same mindset applies to mental and behavioral health, where steady access matters as much as urgency. Building care that lasts beyond crisis response means doing simple things well, like training affirming clinicians, funding local peer navigators and creating spaces where people can ask questions without fear or judgment. That’s the heart of community-based healthcare.

Coming out, again — for health

For many LGBTQ+ Detroiters, coming out isn’t just about sexuality or gender; it’s about the courage to be visible in our health, too. Talking about mpox or about HIV, mental health or substance use carries its own masks of stigma, especially in Black, brown and working-class communities already hindered by the LGBTQ+ politics of today. Yet open conversations around these realities, coupled with support from providers who want to meet us where we are, make all the difference.

Every appointment kept, every first and second dose received, every conversation started with a provider or friend are small acts of coming out again. They say: I’m here, I’m informed and I’m invested in my community’s health.

There’s a lesson in the rituals of Halloween — in what we hide and what we choose to reveal and in the relief that comes when the mask finally comes off. Health works in the same way. We can’t ignore that vulnerability is real and that being honest about risk takes strength.

Detroit’s LGBTQ+ colors have always thrived through connection — on the dance floor, in church basements, across bar counters and inside clinics where trust is (forever) built one conversation at a time. That rhythm, steady and familiar, is how Detroit stays healthy and together.

Scott Bertani is the director of advocacy for The National Coalition for LGBTQ Health, which works to improve LGBTQ health and well-being through advocacy, education, research and capacity-building. The Coalition hosts a national Mpox Resource Center and leads The HealthLGBTQ National LGBTQ Health Training Center, which provides cultural competency training and clinical resources to help providers deliver patient-affirming care.