I first went on PrEP in 2015 after I’d just moved to Austin for a job. PrEP, the once-daily medication that reduces the risk of contracting HIV, had only been released a few years earlier and was targeted towards high-risk populations. As a 27-year-old gay Latino from South Texas, I fit the bill. Affirming sexual […]
Author Archives: Mario Leal Jr
Mario Leal Jr is a San Antonio-based journalist. He has worked across newsrooms and creative media in Texas.
Posted inBig & Bright
At Least 15 LGBTQ+ Businesses Have Quietly Disappeared in Texas
EXCLUSIVE San Antonio’s Turner Hall was constructed more than a century ago as a gathering space to improve its community. Now home to a gay bar called the Bonham Exchange, the storied building survived the Civil War, both World Wars, the 1921 flood, and the HIV/AIDS epidemic. Today, like many queer spaces, it’s facing an […]
Posted inCulture
Come Inside Texas’ Gayest Campground
While ghosts and goblins haunted courtrooms — casting their wicked spells on queer Texans — a small haven in the woods of Stockdale leisurely gathered around a campfire on Halloween weekend, naked and unafraid. Camp Nackte, one of four currently functioning LGBTQ+ campgrounds in Texas, sits nestled between farmland and in a thicket of mesquite […]