Ted Kerr's blog

Born and raised in Fort McMurray, Alberta in northwest Canada, the last thing Tinna Ezekiel ever wanted to do was to live in the same isolated city all her life. She tells me this while we sit at the Wood Buffalo HIV & AIDS Society booth in the global village. Wood Buffalo is the name of Fort Mac's health region and the name of the ASO. Their art-based booth is a place where anybody can come to paint on canvas to express how they feel about HIV/AIDS. It is an innovate example of how, in the conservative city of Ft. Mac, the Wood Buffalo agency has been able to get into the schools to talk about HIV/AIDS.

Sitting cross-legged on the floor early in the day as people start setting up their booths in the global village, Ezekiel tells me how, by the age of 8, she was already a ferocious reader. It was at this time that she came across an article about AIDS in Africa. The article, she recalls, was full of drama and no explanation. It left her feeling a sense of hopelessness and confusion. By the time the moment came in her Grade 10 social studies class when AIDS in Africa was being discussed, she had had enough of not knowing what was going on. She had an idea but needed to confirm it. In a verbal head to head with her teacher in front of the whole class she heard him say what she needed to hear from an adult; the AIDS pandemic in Africa was exasperated by racism.  read more »

In the Frontier Province of Pakistan there is a tradition of marriage between prepubescent boys and older men, says Shivananda Khan who works in the region as the Executive Director of the Naz Foundation International. According to him, a boy marriage is arranged between the two families and lasts only until the boy reaches puberty. After the marriage is over, it is then the older man's responsibility to find the younger man a wife.

In 2005, one such boy marriage was wrongly reported by western media outlets, including the BBC, as "Pakistan first Gay Marriage." Khan, also a steering committee member for the Global Forum on MSM and HIV, says the construct of boy marriage is very different than gay marriage, something that members of the western media would not understand without proper investigating. As a result of the media attention, both the boy and the families were victims of family and shamed in their region.

It is assumptions and confusion like what happened in Pakistan that makes MSM and LGBT rights work in the global south difficult."Language and incorrect terminology", says Khan "can wreak havoc in local communities. Certain words are like red flags to a bull for many local governments and leaders around the world." Terms like gay and LGBT are western centric says Khan and tend only to resonate with middle and upper middle class people in low and middle income countries.  read more »

Follow the white light: Spectacle and Celebrities Bring Attention to Themselves and HIV / AIDS 

Annie Lennox, Housing Demo, Post Clinton, Bill Clinton, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Boobies for Empowerment

While I love that Barak Obama mentioned homophobia in his statement about the CDC’s misreporting of HIV infections in the US I do question why he did not mention how HIV/ AIDS disproportionately affects America’s black community and other racial, class and cultural communities. Let us not forget unacceptable facts like HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death among African American women. I wish his statement could have been further reaching, creating a greater discourse on human rights in general. 

"I want to Survive in the Millions"-Jamie Cortez Editors Note for Corpus 1

Let’s face it -- I am in love with Patrick ‘Pato’ Herbert. But before you think that I am about to move to California where Pato works with AIDS Project Los Angles and get gay married to him (where gays can now get married…for now), I should say that I don’t really know him beyond having heard him speak at the ART/AIDS.WORK conference in NY and at the MSM Global Forum here in Mexico city. It is his cultural work that makes me swoon.

 read more »

As one of the speakers on the first day of the MSM Global Forum,  David Wilson spoke passionately about the need to focus funding, research and programming on MSM. He cited as an example the strides the AIDS community has made in lowering new infection rates among sex workers and intravenous drug users.

Over lunch, a global south AIDS hero could be heard saying to his colleagues, ´Oh great´ he began sarcastically ¨Now we are back where we started with them (global south governments). To this, they will  say LET THEM DIE, THEY SHOULD CONTROL THEMSELVES.¨

At the heart of his statement is the concern that, by isolating a group such as MSM that is considered by some as immoral or at the least on the fringe of society, we will be taking a step back in our collective response to normalize and personalize HIV/AIDS.

For me this is an interesting point. I entered into the AIDS world as a way of dealing with my homosexuality, connecting with those that came before me that I would never meet. As much as Jack Tripper (from TV´s THREEs COMPANY) was a quasi role model, it was the faces of ACT UP on Wall Street that began to awaken my sexual and political queer beings. I was disheartened that by the time I got involved with HIV/AIDS it was still in the throws of being de-gayed.

In gay culture, we are seeing a return to the early days of HIV as a point of conversation and inspiration.  read more »