gay

(good thing we're all working on that!)

The venerable medical journal the Lancet dedicated its pre-IAC issue to HIV-prevention, what editor Richard Horton called “the neglected issue in the AIDS response.” On Wednesday, contributing authors called for a reinvigorated movement for prevention that demands a comprehensive, multifaceted approach, including structural change. Mirroring the Caucus for Evidence Based Prevention critiques of narrow definitions of evidence, the distinguished panel also called for investment in flexibile, realistic monitoring and evaluation mechanisms.

Jeffery O’Malley, director of the HIV and AIDS group at the UN Development Program, opened with the history of HIV-prevention, urging us to remember when prevention and epidemiology were all the AIDS community had enough information talk about. In the early 80s, he recalled, “gay men and drag queens invented safe sex, and they still haven’t been given the Nobel Prize.”

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Yesterday afternoon I had the pleasure of attending the press conference of the Black AIDS Institute, where they spoke about their most recent publication release entitled "Left Behind".

It is a perfectly ironic title for how I felt sitting in the audience as a gay black man living with HIV. While I am honestly extremely happy about "my people" coming together and issuing a call for; "a national AIDS strategy equivalent of PEPFAR", "An investment of 1.3 Billion in National Prevention programs", "Needle Exchange Programs", "Testing 1 Million people" and "support for traditional Black Institutions". While there are many issues I have with the "Left Behind," and the press conference itself it is the last that I will focus on in this blog.

I deeply agree that federal support for Black Institutions must be increased in order to have an impact on the devastation that is happening in the Black community. An issue that was not covered yesterday, however, is the work that Black Institutions must do.

In both the press conference yesterday, and in many of the institutions I come into contact with, the conversation around GAY Black Men is limited and in some cases none exsitent.  read more »

The last thing I expected to be doing at the World AIDS Conference was standing on a stage at the Zocalo, the central square of Mexico City, making a speech about justice and HIV treatment access for gay men/MSM in the global South, and accepting a large banner from a group of rainbow-suited Mexican gay activists in front of a cheering crowd.

I’m a reporter, not a presenter, for godsake. Let alone a celeb (two reporters wanted to interview me). The way it happened was this.

I’m on the steering committee of the Global Forum for MSM and HIV, the folks who put on the pre-conference satellite meeting (in fact a miniconference of about 450 gay activists from around the world). The conference was a great success and afterwards we went on the march against homophobia and stigma, a rainbow-bedecked celebration of gayness and general non-family-oriented sexuality (the sex workers’ satellite attended too).  read more »

There was a flurry of press activity yesterday due to the release of the long-awaited revision of HIV incidence estimates for the United States...

This morning, CHAMP put out a release calling for a national AIDS strategy that would bridge race and sexuality. Here's some of the key quotes; the full release is available in the AIDS2008.com press room:

Walt Senterfitt, CHAMP board co-chair and an epidemiologist living with HIV who served as a Visiting Scientist at CDC’s Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention:

“The new estimates confirm that a vast majority of new infections in the U.S. occur in gay and bisexual men, and that Blacks are significantly more heavily impacted than other racial/ethnic categories. However, the data fail to clearly link the two, perpetuating a longstanding, damaging polarization. We need CDC to clearly show the HIV incidence numbers in gay men and other MSM of color.

A substantial number of Black people infected every year are gay or bisexual, and a substantial proportion of gay and bisexual men infected are Black. In fact, the heaviest impact is at the nexus of the two – being both black and a man who has sex with men. Yet this population is significantly marginalized, even stigmatized within both larger populations of which it is an integral part. A national AIDS strategy must tackle this fundamental challenge."

Jim Pickett, Director of Advocacy at the AIDS Foundation of Chicago:  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 »