A&U October 2021

art & understanding for 30 years

Gina Brown

AIDS Diva Connie Norman Peter Staley

Poetry by Ajay Sawant & Nancy Whitecar

martina

CLARK

In My Unexpected Life, the Former UNAIDS Staffer and Writer Recounts Her Personal and Professional Battle Against HIV/AIDS & COVID-19

OCTOBER 2021 | ISSUE 324

IMPORTANT FACTS FOR BIKTARVY®

This is only a brief summary of important information about BIKTARVY and does not replace talking to your healthcare provider about your condition and your treatment.

(bik-TAR-vee)

MOST IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT BIKTARVY

POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS OF BIKTARVY

BIKTARVY may cause serious side effects, including:

BIKTARVY may cause serious side effects, including:  Those in the “Most Important Information About BIKTARVY” section.  Changes in your immune system. Your immune system may get stronger and begin to fight infections that may have been hidden in your body. Tell your healthcare provider if you have any new symptoms after you start taking BIKTARVY.  Kidney problems, including kidney failure. Your healthcare provider should do blood and urine tests to check your kidneys. If you develop new or worse kidney problems, they may tell you to stop taking BIKTARVY.  Too much lactic acid in your blood (lactic acidosis), which is a serious but rare medical emergency that can lead to death. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get these symptoms: weakness or being more tired than usual, unusual muscle pain, being short of breath or fast breathing, stomach pain with nausea and vomiting, cold or blue hands and feet, feel dizzy or lightheaded, or a fast or abnormal heartbeat.  Severe liver problems, which in rare cases can lead to death. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get these symptoms: skin or the white part of your eyes turns yellow, dark “tea-colored” urine, light-colored stools, loss of appetite for several days or longer, nausea, or stomach-area pain.  The most common side effects of BIKTARVY in clinical studies were diarrhea (6%), nausea (6%), and headache (5%).

 Worsening of hepatitis B (HBV) infection. Your

healthcare provider will test you for HBV. If you have both HIV-1 and HBV, your HBV may suddenly get worse if you stop taking BIKTARVY. Do not stop taking BIKTARVY without first talking to your healthcare provider, as they will need to check your health regularly for several months, and may give you HBV medicine.

ABOUT BIKTARVY BIKTARVY is a complete, 1-pill, once-a-day prescription medicine used to treat HIV-1 in adults and children who weigh at least 55 pounds. It can either be used in people who have never taken HIV-1 medicines before, or people who are replacing their current HIV-1 medicines and whose healthcare provider determines they meet certain requirements.

BIKTARVY does not cure HIV-1 or AIDS. HIV-1 is the virus that causes AIDS. Do NOT take BIKTARVY if you also take a medicine that contains:  dofetilide  rifampin  any other medicines to treat HIV-1

BEFORE TAKING BIKTARVY Tell your healthcare provider if you:  Have or have had any kidney or liver problems,

including hepatitis infection.  Have any other health problems.  Are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. It is not known if BIKTARVY can harm your unborn baby.

Tell your healthcare provider if you become pregnant while taking BIKTARVY.  Are breastfeeding (nursing) or plan to breastfeed.

Do not breastfeed. HIV-1 can be passed to the baby in breast milk.

Tell your healthcare provider about all the medicines you take:  Keep a list that includes all prescription and over-the-

counter medicines, antacids, laxatives, vitamins, and herbal supplements, and show it to your healthcare provider and pharmacist.

 BIKTARVY and other medicines may affect each other.

Ask your healthcare provider and pharmacist about medicines that interact with BIKTARVY, and ask if it is safe to take BIKTARVY with all your other medicines.

These are not all the possible side effects of BIKTARVY. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you have any new symptoms while taking BIKTARVY. You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit www.FDA.gov/medwatch or call 1-800-FDA-1088.

Your healthcare provider will need to do tests to monitor your health before and during treatment with BIKTARVY.

HOW TO TAKE BIKTARVY Take BIKTARVY 1 time each day with or without food.

GET MORE INFORMATION  This is only a brief summary of important information

about BIKTARVY. Talk to your healthcare provider or pharmacist to learn more.

 Go to BIKTARVY.com or call 1-800-GILEAD-5  If you need help paying for your medicine,

visit BIKTARVY.com for program information.

BIKTARVY, the BIKTARVY Logo, GILEAD, the GILEAD Logo, KEEP BEING YOU, and LOVE WHAT’S INSIDE are trademarks of Gilead Sciences, Inc., or its related companies. Version date: February 2021 © 2021 Gilead Sciences, Inc. All rights reserved. BVYC0467 06/21

REAL

BIKTARVY

PAT I E N T S

KEEP BEING YOU. Because HIV doesn’t change who you are.

BIKTARVY® is a complete, 1-pill, once-a-day prescription medicine used to treat HIV-1 in certain adults. BIKTARVY does not cure HIV-1 or AIDS.

Ask your healthcare provider if BIKTARVY is right for you.

Watch their stories at BIKTARVY.com Featured patients compensated by Gilead.

Please see Important Facts about BIKTARVY, including important warnings, on the previous page and visit BIKTARVY.com.

Contents

October

2021

RUBY'S RAP

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COVER STORY

Ruby raps with Activist Gina Brown

GALLERY

28

A&U's Hank Trout Talks to Martina Clark About Navigating HIV, COVID and Fighting for Pandemic Resources Around the Globe

22

Curated by Boré Ivanoff, ArtPositive Celebrates Artists Living with HIV

FEATURES

19 Poetry Punch Line by Nancy Whitecar 34 Never Silent Peter Staley Discusses His Life in Activism in His New Memoir 48 Poetry In Which I Hate My Bones by Ajay Sawant

DEPARTMENTS 4 Frontdesk 6 Digital Footprints 10 NewsBreak

cover photo by Timothy J. Haines

viewfinder 8 16

Bright Lights, Small City Art & Understanding

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FEATURE

A New Doc, AIDS Diva, Creates a Compelling Portrait of Activist Connie Norman

lifeguide

40 Access to Care 42 Under Reported 44 The Culture of AIDS 47 Lifelines

Frontdesk From the Editor

How to Save a Life

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nce, back in the eighties, people would try anything to treat AIDS. We did not have any established regimens, and, with the pace of scientific research too slow, we took matters into our own hands. People organized to disseminate information about AIDS and what might work as an antiviral and/or an immunotherapeutic. We set up guerilla clinics and buyers clubs. We tried various ways to strengthen ourselves and fight for our health: egg lipids, or AL-721; dinitrochlorobenezene, or DNCB; Compound Q, derived from Chinese cucumber extracts; dextran sulfate, an anticoagulant; and even New Age mental cleanses, among others. We taught ourselves, if experts couldn’t.

So it is bizarre, to say the least, that, when experts can tell us a lot about COVID-19, when science has offered a panoply of practices, like mask-wearing and isolating ourselves, and a handful of vaccines, some individuals are not listening. Instead, some have chosen to experiment with injections of disinfectant and ingesting horse dewormer to prevent or treat COVID. I understand the desperation that individuals may feel. People with AIDS were once desperate too, but our desperation was forged from the absence of established, well-studied medications and a deep fund of knowledge. We would have considered taking a vaccine, not rejected it outright in the name of “medical freedom.” The vaccine naysayers should at least listen to what the experts are saying. They should at least listen to people living with HIV/AIDS, and particularly long-term survivors, who know a thing or two about managing a virus and about how to become their own and our communities’ self-sponsored health advocates.

I wish the wider public would learn from us (and experts like Dr. Fauci, someone who has responded to both HIV/ AIDS and COVID). We have a lot to teach.

For example, interviewed by Senior Editor Hank Trout and photographed by our Art Director, Timothy J. Haines, cover story subject (and college instructor) Martina Clark shared with us her experiences at UNAIDS and other health-focused agencies, as well as navigating living with HIV and COVID: “Like so many of us, when I first heard about COVID-19, I did not grasp what was about to unfold. In January 2020, I began reading articles, then watching a few news clips. I bought a box of surgical masks and tried to get everyone I knew to take a few. Some laughed. Some indulged me. By February,

the story was everywhere. My masks were now not so silly...As the sounds of sirens and helicopters replaced the sounds of cars and pedestrians and loud-ass New Yorkers, I immediately thought back to the mid-1980s when I lived on Castro Street in San Francisco. I began to remember some of my earliest memories of the AIDS crisis, as if it were happening all over again, but on a much larger scale. When I contracted COVID-19, I convinced myself I had a mild case because I never had to go to the hospital. But a year and change out, I’m still dealing with it.”

She writes at length about her experiences in her newly published memoir, My Unexpected Life: An International Memoir of Two Pandemics, HIV and COVID-19.

Other “teachers” in this issue include Connie Norman, who is long-deceased but her life and activism have been resurrected in a new documentary, AIDS Diva. Peter Staley, who has just published a new memoir, Never Silent, also offers a wealth of insights about activism in his discussion with Hank Trout. From ACT UP to Treatment Action Group and PrEP4All, Staley has a solid track record as a dedicated and caring activist.

Ruby Comer interviews Gina Brown, one of our most committed advocates, who finds teachable moments wherever she goes.

Other activists are new to the scene, like Boré Ivanoff, Philipp Spiegel, Adrienne Seed, and Nacho Hernandez——all artists featured in this month’s Gallery and all destigmatizing HIV through painting and photography and being out and vocal.

All of these teachers have taught us the most important lesson——how to learn. How to evaluate information with a critical eye. How to find credible authorities on particular subjects. How to be in charge of our own health——not in some flim-flam, grab-at-anything way, but responsibly. How to survive a plague.

And how to save a life.

DAVID WAGGONER

AMERICA’S AIDS MAGAZINE issue 324 vol. 30 no. 10 October 2021 editorial offices: (518) 992-2232 fax: (518) 436-5354 Editor in Chief & Publisher David Waggoner Managing Editor: Chael Needle Senior Editors: Dann Dulin, Hank Trout Editor at Large: Chip Alfred Special Projects Editor: Lester Strong Arts Editor: Alina Oswald Fiction Editor: Raymond Luczak; Nonfiction Editor: Jay Vithalani; Drama Editor: Bruce Ward; Poetry Editor: Philip F. Clark; Copy Editor: Maureen Hunter Contributing Editors: Reed Massengill, Kelly McQuain, Lesléa Newman, Robert E. Penn, Nick Steele Contributing Writers: Ruby Comer, Alacias Enger, Claire Gasamagera, John Francis Leonard, Corey Saucier, Jeannie Wraight Art Director: Timothy J. Haines Contributing Photographers: Davidd Batalon, Tom Bianchi, Holly Clark, Stephen Churchill Downes, Greg Gorman, Francis Hills, Tom McGovern, Annie Tritt, Tommy Wu National Advertising Director: Harold Burdick, Jr. Sales & Marketing: David L. Bonitatibus Advertising Sales Office: (518) 992-2232 National Advertising Representative: Rivendell Media (212) 242-6863 Subscription Info: (518) 992-2232 Circulation Manager: Robert Schelepanow Bookkeeper: Richard Garcia Board of Directors President: David Waggoner Vice President: Harold Burdick, Jr. Secretary: Richard Garcia Founding Board Members: Mark S. Labrecque, 1961–1992, Christopher Hewitt, 1946–2004, Mark Galbraith, 1962–2011

In Memoriam: Bill Jacobson, 1939–2005 Rhomylly B. Forbes, 1963–2011 • Chris Companik, 1957–2012 Nancy Ellegate, 1959–2015 • Patricia Nell Warren 1936–2019 A&U (ISSN 1074-0872) is published by Art & Understanding, Inc., 25 Monroe St., Suite 205, Albany, NY 12210-2743, USA. For A&U advertising information please call 518-992-2232; for subscriptions and address changes please call 518-992-2232; for letters to the editor and unsolicited manuscripts write A&U Magazine, 25 Monroe Street, Albany, New York 12210; fax 518-436-5354; or e-mail: mailbox@aumag.org. All unsolicited manuscripts that do not have a S.A.S.E. cannot be returned and will not be acknowledged. ©2021 Art & Understanding, Inc. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. A&U may not be reproduced in any manner, either in whole or in part, without written permission of the publisher. A&U and the graphic representations thereof are the registered trademarks of Art & Understanding, Inc., a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit organization. Individual Subscription rates: $24.95 (12 issues). Institutional rates: $80.00 (12 issues). For subscriptions outside the USA and possessions, $30.95/Canada, $49.95/international, payable in advance in U.S. currency. First North American serial rights revert to contributors upon publication. A&U retains the right to anthologize work in further issues, as well as in microform or reprinting on the Internet within the context of each issue.

Statements of writers, artists and advertisers are not necessarily those of the publisher. Readers note: subjects and contributors to A&U are both HIV-positive and HIV-negative. In the absence of a specific statement herein concerning the serostatus of any individual mentioned in, or contributing material to, this publication, no inference is made with respect thereto and none should be implied.

Letters written to A&U or its contributors are assumed intended for publication. Art & Understanding, Inc. assumes no responsibility or liability for unsolicited submissions and does not guarantee the return thereof.

PostMaster: Please send address corrections to A&U Magazine, 25 Monroe Street, Suite 205, Albany NY 12210-2743, USA

Printed in USA • Visit our Web site at www.aumag.org

Digital Digital D ig igi git ita taal Footprints Fo Footprints ootpprint in nts ts mosttweeted Managing Editor Chael Needle’s cover story interview with Steven Reigns about his new book created a buzz.

Photo by Tommy Wu

mostloved

Readers found the imagery of magnolia petals in Shari Caplan’s poem, “Zoe Leonard at the Whitney", absolutely stunning.

mostshared

@AmericasAIDSMagazine

6

@au_magazine

Photo by HBO Documentary Films

Readers shared Senior Editor Hank Trout’s interview with Nigerian activist Micheal Ighodaro and his lessons for fighting injustice in droves.

@au_americas_aids_magazine • OCTOBER 2021

BRIGHT LIGHTS, SMALL CITY

by John Francis Leonard

ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO STEPS BACK

Learning How to Address Our Health Challenges & Improve Our Quality of Life

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et’s face it, I know those of us who are engaged in care are all likely to see our dotage, and I’m grateful for that every day. What isn’t talked about as much are the challenging symptoms and increased likelihood of serious disease——whether it be a side effect of antivirals or HIV itself. For many of us, there are secondary conditions that can seriously erode our quality of life, most of them associated with the elderly. We simply age more quickly.

Recently, I realized that I should have been feeling better than I have in years. At fifty-one, I’ve lost eighty ponds and work out regularly. I haven’t been this fit in over a decade. It pains me to admit how many pounds; with being built like a linebacker, I can carry a lot of extra weight. It’s been a real journey——I had the help of a gastric sleeve procedure——but I really had to meet that surgery halfway, not only eating less, but changing exactly what I am putting in my body. I really hadn’t given getting in shape a lot of thought initially, but, encouraged by my gastric surgeon, I started out slowly with daily walks and soon was working out with a trainer.

Soon though, I knew something was wrong.

I looked great, but I felt awful much of the time. I knew what it was, but had been ignoring the signs and barreling through. But friends at work as well as family members and neighbors had something to say, and it was, “You just haven’t been yourself lately, is everything okay?” It was time, time to face some home truths, as my nan used to say. The funny thing is, I was well aware of the symptoms I’ve been experiencing, but the human mind is very clever: it

8

can ignore the blatantly obvious when it’s difficult to bear.

For years, I had a slight tremble in my hands.

It was noticeable, but easy to ignore unless I was suddenly upset ,in which case it grew more pronounced. In the last few months, it has done just that, at times, making it difficult, or even impossible to do something like send a text, or type a column.

My legs are prone to jerky motions as well; it’s very obvious holding a stretch before I do my cardio.

I once thought that the consistent pain in my left leg was simply a product of my lower back issues.

I lost the weight, my back was fine, but the pain in my leg continued. I drop things constantly, at home and at work. I’ve made certain that I’ve stuck to my workouts, but it’s taken caution and some modification. Worse at some times, especially mornings, it seemed to be progressing. I’d often read that neuralgia could be a long time side-effect of HIV and it’s life-saving medications, but at eighteen years poz, these were the first side effects I had experienced since my initial adjustment to the medications.

But not so fast, turns out that several other meds I have to take——those to treat my bipolar disorder——have these side effects when taken long term. These medications are just as vital to my health and wellness as the antivirals. They keep me calm and happy, able to deal with life’s challenges successfully. In this case however, not so successfully. I wasn’t myself at all. I was in pain consistently and simple tasks were proving more difficult. I was also missing a lot of days at work, but I was honest with them and they’ve been supportive

viewfinder and understanding to a fault, my editor at this magazine as well. I was cranky, and not a little bitter. I needed a mental adjustment and to talk to my physician sooner rather than later. He knew the what and why, but referred me to a neurologist for confirmation and treatment.

Initially, it was beyond frustrating. Everyone they called was booked until the fall. I needed help now, not this fall. But I soon got a call, someone would see me the following week. My PMD had warned me that some of the side effects of the drugs could be permanent, but I was very eager for more answers and had to make the decision to deal with whatever was to come, good or bad.

I saw him for my initial assessment last week.

The news was better than I could have hoped. One great relief was the fact that it wasn’t Parkinson’s disease or something equally debilitating. That had been in the back of my mind for some time, and it was quite a relief. On the other hand, it is my medications and there’s no question of not taking those; they keep me alive and sane enough to enjoy that life. Now my doctor was wrong about one thing, thank God; there was medication that could help my symptoms. My neurologist prescribed a medication to help with my tremors. It’s worked wonders! It’s better than it has been in ages. I don’t have to beg my friends to speak on the phone; I can easily text. My writing takes much less time and I once again can type what I’m thinking at the pace I am thinking it. The jury on my issues with my left leg is still out, but I’m going through extensive testing and should have more answers soon.

Like everything that happens in our lives, there’s been a lesson in all of this. I’m getting older, I’m getting older as an HIV-positive man. There might be more health challenges ahead. I can’t say that I’ll meet them all with a smile, but what I can do, is deal with them immediately with the help of those who know what they’re doing. Suffering in silence never works; the people close to you, as well as others, will hear your cries.

John Francis Leonard is an advocate and writer, as well as a voracious reader of literature, which helps to feed his love of the English language. He has been living with HIV for fifteen years.

His fiction has been published in the ImageOutWrite literary journal and he is a literary critic for Lambda Literary. Follow him on Twitter @JohnFrancisleo2.

• OCTOBER 2021

Without health justice, we cannot end the HIV epidemic.

Show your support at sfaf.org/shop

NewsBreak

conference on stigma issues call for artwork

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he 12th Annual International Conference on Stigma will be held from Monday, November 15 to Friday, November 19, 2021 as a hybrid in-person/virtual event. On Monday and Friday the conference will be held in person at Howard University, and webcast live. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday events will be virtual. The theme for this year’s conference is “Trauma…Recovery…

Healing.”

In conjunction with the conference, the Howard

NIH makes $53M investment in hiv cure research

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n August, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), announced that it has awarded $53 million in annual funding over the next five years to ten research organizations that are working to find a cure for HIV. In 2016, the Martin Delaney Collaboratories for HIV Cure Research program funded six such organizations; this new funding increases the number of recipient organizations from six to ten and increases the funding by 75%. One of the new grantees focuses specifically on research for an HIV cure in infants and children.

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University Stigma Project has issued a call for submissions of artwork to be featured. Submissions may be paintings, drawings, photography, essays, poetry, videos, songs, or any other art medium.

The International Conference on Stigma will bring together researchers, community members, academics, policy makers, faith leaders, and young people to discuss the impact of HIV-related stigma and ongoing research on interventions to eliminate stigma. The conference will include plenary sessions, advocacy leadership training sessions, scientific poster presentations, networking opportunities, and artwork.

The stigma associated with HIV and other health conditions impedes treatment and prevention efforts.

In response, the Howard University Stigma Project began as a group of professionals, community leaders, concerned Artwork by Doudgy Charmant individuals, and AKA “Dew the Artist” (top) organizations who and Mireim Alibrahim came together in 2009 to focus efforts to eliminate the stigma associated with HIV. Through the conference and related efforts, the Project plans to measure the burden of stigma, test the effectiveness of intervention mechanisms, implement appropriate strategies and determine their effect over time. Their goal is to create a Center for Social Justice in Healthcare for research, education and advocacy to fight stigma.

For more information and/or to submit your artwork, please write to phouston@howard.edu; you may also submit artwork at www. whocanyoutell.org/stigma-art-project-2. For conference information, log on to: http://www. whocanyoutell.org/2021-conference.

The Martin Delaney Collaboratories program was established in 2010 to honor late HIV/ AIDS activist Martin Delaney, who had served on NIAIDS’s AIDS Research Advisory Committee.

The program was designed to expedite HIV cure research by uniting academic researchers, the private sector, government partners, and community stakeholders to share resources, data, and methodologies. The collaborative program is funded by the NIAIDS; the National Institute of Mental Health; the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases; the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; the National Institute on Drug Abuse; and the National Institute of Neu-rological Disorders and Stroke.

The new funding awards will focus on three key areas: basic research on HIV reservoirs and/ or post-treatment control; strategies for durable control of viral rebound; and approaches to

reducing, eradicating, or inactivating the latent virus. The pediatric award includes an additional focus on developing assays, tools, and imaging modalities specifically for studies in infants and children.

The new funding will go to: Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston; Emory University, Atlanta; Gladstone Institutes, San Francisco; Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore; Sanford Burnham Prebys, La Jolla, California; Temple University, Philadelphia; University of California, San Francisco; The University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Weill Cornell Medicine, New York City; and The Wistar Institute, Philadelphia.

Anthony S. Fauci, MD, director of NIAID, said in a press release, “June marked the 40th anniversary of the first reported U.S. cases of what would later be recognized as HIV/AIDS. Remarkable progress has been made in the areas of HIV treatment and prevention since that time.

However, we must continue to press for a cure.”

• OCTOBER 2021

2021 USCHA goes virtual due to covid resurgence

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n May of this year, organizers at NMAC announced plans for a live, in-person gathering for the U.S. Conference on HIV/AIDS (USCHA) during October 2021, in Washington, D.C., after morphing into a virtual event in 2020. At the time, Paul Kawata, Executive Director of NMAC, said, “Some of you may think we are overly optimistic to think USCHA can happen in person this October.”

Unfortunately, the continuing spread of new variants of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 has led organizers to scrap plans for an in-person event and to move the 2021 iteration of USCHA to a virtual meeting again.

The virtual USCHA will take place December 2–3, 2021.

“This is not the announcement we wanted to make,” Paul Kawata, Executive Director of NMAC, said in a press release. “We were very hopeful that we could hold an in-person USCHA this year. However, the health and safety of our constituents must be our primary concern. The continued spread of the Delta variant and the data from both the Provincetown

getting to zero illinois launches hiv dashboard

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n August 18, 2021, Getting to Zero Illinois (GTZ-IL) held a virtual panel discussion to launch the state’s first-ever data dashboard to measure progress toward the goal of zero new HIV cases in Illinois by 2030.

Getting to Zero Illinois is a plan that outlines the goals and strategies which promote HIV prevention and access to care. This new data dashboard helps users track progress towards the goals and strategies found in the GTZ plan. Led by AIDS Foundation Chicago (AFC), in partnership with the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH), Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH), and Northwestern University data scientists, the dashboard synthesizes publicly available data from CPDH and IDPH for partners, advocates, media and more to find specific datasets on HIV prevalence throughout the state. The dashboard serves as a resource to eradicate stigma within the HIV community; support proposed legislation with specific data; aid community grant applications; support storytelling

OCTOBER 2021 •

outbreak and the Berlin study about the impact of Covid on people living with HIV led us to this decision. We are as disappointed as everyone else by the need to make this decision, but we could not, in good conscience, potentially put attendees at risk of exposure.”

Attendees can still register for the virtual event for a fee of $295. Between the 10th and the 13th of August, NMAC emailedall current registrants with instructions on either transferring or cancelling their registration. (If you have registered but did not receive the email, please contact NMAC at conferences@nmac.org.) Registrants who decide not to attend the virtual event have four options: Option 1: Keep their registration to attend the virtual USCHA Conference. NMAC will refund the

difference. Refunds will be processed in three-to-four weeks.

Option 2: Transfer registration to the 2022 USCHA in Puerto Rico.

Option 3: Cancel registration and get a full refund.

Option 4: Donate registration payment to NMAC. NMAC fights for health equity and racial justice to end the HIV epidemic in America through a variety of programs and services.

For more information please log on to www. nmac.org. For more information and/or to register for USCHA, please log on to https:// uscha.life/ or write to the organizers at conferences@nmac.org.

with data points; advance policy and advocacy for increased funding for HIV screening; and connect people with HIV to necessary health resources.

The data are organized into three different sections: progress measures, health measures, and social determinants of health measures. These downloadable datasets can be used by community members to achieve the goals of GTZ-IL. For example, the dashboard can find HIV prevalence for cisgender Black women living on the west side of Chicago who are between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four. That dataset can then be used for advocacy, grant applications, reports, presentations, journalism and more.

The Dashboard is very easy to navigate (it even includes a section on how to use the Dashboard) and contains downloadable data sets of information regarding PrEP coverage and other prevention methods, new HIV diagnoses, linkage to care, viral suppression,

priority populations, and HIV/AIDS-related deaths. The “Social Determinants” section addresses such issues as access to support services, education, healthcare equity, economic and housing stability, and the social and community contexts of HIV/AIDS. The dashboard was designed by Northwestern University with funding in part by a grant from the Pritzker Community Health Initiative, and the Chicago Department of Public Health.

To access the GTZ-IL Dashboard, log on to https://dashboard.gtzillinois.hiv/.

—Reporting by Hank Trout

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by Ruby Comer

Gina Brown

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Ruby illustration by Davidd Batalon; photo by David Muller Photographyi

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he Well Project. Boom! Okay, c’mon now. That is a fabulous title for an organization. Right?! …and my dear friend Gina Brown, who works with the group, is even more fabulous!

We met years ago when I was conducting a seminar on “Age & HIV” in the Big Easy (New Orleans) where she was raised and still lives today. I mean, who in their sane mind would move from this luscious vibrant city? I…love… N’awlins. Oh my god, think rich Creole, smooth jazz (originally, Dixieland), eating those to-die-for beignets on Bourbon Street, Brennan’s for breakfast, and, naturally, Mardi Gras. I was a college student when I first loitered in those sardine-packed streets and like everyone else eagerly grabbing those iconic plastic beadeds they toss off the beyond-festive floats. I was with my new beau from Ohio State University, who turned out to be an alcoholic. That’s another story for another time.

Ms. Brown has been luminously living with HIV since 1994——twenty-seven years. Gina has two grandchildren, who call her “GeeGee,” and two adult children.

The woman enjoys having fun and has certainly turned struggle into success.

Ms. Brown’s life in a succinct capsule: molested from the age of five through seven by an older relative; addicted to crack for three years; lived on the streets for two years; the father of her kids was murdered; her brother was also murdered; and Gina acquired the virus through heterosexual sex, while she was pregnant with her daughter. Thankfully her daughter is not living with HIV. Fortunately she’s turned tragedy into a life of service, benefiting others. Gina is the Community Engagement Manager with Southern AIDS Coalition, serves on the Black AIDS Institute Board of Directors and is Ambassador for the Greater Than AIDS Initiative, is a member of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA), and, of course, sits on The Well Project Community Advisory Board. Whoa!

I can’t say enough about this brilliant woman, and I mean brilliant in many ways. She graduated cum laude from New Orleans Southern University with a bachelor in social work, minoring in history. Several years later she received a master’s in social work.

The public speaker and community advocate has lost many friends and a few relatives to the virus. With concerted and mindful effort, Gina has never been sick or been hospitalized. This spirited advocate’s mission is to keep an on-going discussion about the virus, tackling stigma head-on, and be transparent about her diagnosis.

Gina’s mantra is “I’m gonna ride this thing till the wheels fall off!,” and “Loving” is a word she uses to describe herself. This friend can vouch for that. In 2018, Gina came out as bisexual and had a girlfriend for a couple of years. Currently she’s a single and dotes on her grandsons. Gina’s son, Juan, is thirty-eight, seeking a job in social work, and Jamanii, her daughter, twenty-six, is working as a Community Health Worker.

Seems her kids had a role model while growing up!

On a humid day in NO and a pretty sizzling day in L.A., Gina and I hobnob on the mobile. With our sizzling conversation, I think the telephone line was also on fire!

• OCTOBER 2021

Ruby Comer: You look mah-ve-lous! Gee, looking a bit like Erica Alexander from Living Single [a wide grin]. Right off the bat, sister, since we haven’t really discussed, I wanna know: your favorite sitcom, favorite film, and favorite diva.

Gina Brown: Well, whew, Ruby…Let’s see, Sanford and Son and Good Times [I give a highfive]. Okay, now film. Hmmm. The Hangover 1-3, Juice, Alice in Wonderland, and Malcolm X.

Ruby illustration by Davidd Batalon; portrait by Jourdan Barnes with Demiur Photography for The Bach Group; other photos courtesy G. Brown

And diva?

[Gina shouts strongly with vibrato] Whitney Houston!

Oh Whitney. Beautiful soul. One of the grandest voices, well, ever! With all due respect, speaking of the deceased, what happens after we die, Gina?

We get to do it all over again!

Oh no! Tell me it ain’t so. I don’t want to go through this mess again. Say, when did you first hear about AIDS? I first heard about it before they named it. It was called “gay plague” or GRID. I heard about it on the evening news. I had a friend who was same gender loving and I’d call him every day talking about this new disease that was killing “them.”

Take me back to when you learned of your diagnosis.

At my OB clinic they were doing “opt-out” testing, so they basically rolled it into the blood work they were already doing. I only agreed because it wasn’t a standalone test. Ruby…I received the call on April 1, 1994 and was told I needed to come back in because one of my blood tests came back with results, and they needed to discuss it with me. I went in on April 4, 1994 and a nurse at our Charity Hospital told me my diagnosis and said, “You have AIDS and you’re going to die.”

photo courtesy Guest House Films

Dreadful.

Of course, I was devastated. The first person I told was my mom and then my two sisters. [She breaks.]

I was depressed for about five years, just waiting to die. I never blamed anyone else for my diagnosis and was not angry.

Then your daughter was born.

My daughter was born November 29, 1994. I was on the 076-research study that showed if a mom took AZT and gave it to the baby for six weeks it could keep the baby from contracting HIV. Fortunately. How did you broach the topic of the HIV pandemic with your kids?

I told my son when OCTOBER 2021 •

he was fourteen and it didn’t go well [Ms. Brown trails off in a low timbre then ends]…at first. Today, he’s my biggest champion. I told my daughter when she was seven. [I sneeze and instantly she utters, “Bless you.”] My children are amazing, Ruby, and they love me unconditionally. My two grandsons both know. I am very open with my status.

You are one upfront authentic gal.

How do you keep yourself healthy?

I’m a spiritual person and rely on meditation and healing crystals a lot.

I also take multivitamins, walk, drink lots of water, and try not to stress.

How in the world do you deal with stigma in the conservative Bible Belt?!

I…stand… in…my…truth. I think it’s important for people to see me accepting me, which gives them permission to accept me too.

Top: with daughter, Jamanii

I love that. You make it simple. What has living with HIV taught you over these nearly three decades?

Living with HIV has taught me that I have so much love to give and that community that I’m a member of accepts that love and gives it right back to me.

Bottom: 2012 international AIDS Conference Cool. What do you You are an amazing do when depreswoman! Who do you consider a hero in the sion crops up?

AIDS War? Cry and then call my sisters.

Dr. Gina Brown, who works at Gilead Sciences.

She’s my “Shero,” Ruby. [She chuckles.]…and not just Good! Release followed by support. Say, living because we share a name, but because of the work on the streets…how on god’s green earth did she’s done on behalf of women living with HIV. you survive?

This was the late eighties. I was on crack, and it was a horrible experience I’m sure. I was high Kudos to both Ginas! Tell me, what’s the best most of the time. I remember walking the streets thing about living in the Birthplace of Jazz? with The Autobiography of Malcolm X in my purse.

The food and the people. Everyone’s so friendly, I’d sit up at night and read by candlelight. After a too, Ruby. man tried to kill me, I went to treatment. That was August 10, 1992.

One time you said to me, “When you get rid of stigma, you have great health outcomes.”

Dates like that you don’t forget! Etched in your I’m proof of that, Ruby! memory. Tell me specifically what you do at Southern AIDS Coalition.

Ruby Comer is an independent journalist from the Midwest who is I provide training opportunities for People Living happy to call Hollywood her home away from home. Reach her by with HIV in the South. I am the boots on the ground girl. [She titters then clears her throat.] e-mail at MsRubyComer@aol.com.

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ART & UNDERSTANDING

by Chael Needle

SELF-REFLECT & CONNECT

I

What AIDS Activists Have Taught Me About Anti-Vaxxers n these COVID times, phrases like “medical freedom” and “my body, my choice” have been appropriated by anti-maskers and anti-vaxxers.

They have claimed to take their cue from people who have historically sought health justice and the right to bodily autonomy. And yet a striking difference exists between vaccine naysayers and, say, women seeking to establish reproductive justice for themselves and secure safe abortions or people living with HIV who cannot access treatment for fear of being shamed within and sometimes cast out of their communities——the vaccine naysayers have not been oppressed. They have not been persecuted.

They have not suffered discrimination. They are not victims in any meaningful sense of the word.

Now, I am not talking about those who have chosen not to take the vaccine after critically thinking about it nor those who have a long-established mistrust of the medical community. I am not even talking about those who have been misled by disinformation.

I am talking about those who equate not taking the vaccine with some political stance. It’s a position that just doesn’t hold water. They have been given a jab at improved health outcomes and they have misguidedly answered, “Give me freedom or give me death.” The problem is that their freedom is not at stake——everyone’s freedom is. That is, our freedom to live.

“Freedom” is a rather malleable concept in the mouths of anti-COVID-vaxxers. Look at what the newly signed New Hampshire “medical freedom” law states: “Every person has the natural, essential, and inherent right to bodily integrity, free from any threat or compulsion by government to accept an

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immunization. Accordingly, no person may be compelled to receive an immunization for COVID-19 in order to secure, receive, or access any public facility, any public benefit, or any public service from the state of New Hampshire, or any political subdivision thereof, including but not limited to counties, cities, towns, precincts, water districts, school districts, school administrative units, or quasi-public entities.” Yet the law does not supplant that state’s law that students are required to have seven (non-COVID) vaccinations to attend school and does not apply to mandates at nursing homes, government-run psychiatric hospitals nor other medical sites, nor prisons....

So, “bodily integrity” is restricted as a rallying cry. And the law is reacting to a mandate that does not exist——it is pre-emptive. Protecting rights that are already protected is hardly the impetus for a liberation movement. Anti-COVID-vaxxers exist in a silo and that silo is an echo chamber.

Beyond the utter lack of communal responsibility, what renders their claim to oppression particularly hollow are at least two telling signs. One, they are not self-reflective about their position. Two, they do not connect their cause with other causes.

What a contrast with other movements! Consider these examples of self-reflection and connection culled from the pages of A&U. Leslie L. Smith’s December 2017 Second Acts column titled “From Walls to Spectrums” goes to great lengths to be self-reflective about his own relationship to his political stance: “When AIDS was taking people from us, we hit the bars in mass to spread the word. We clogged the streets as often as we could. This is not different than Black

viewfinder Lives Matter. Such groups are our neighbors and our natural allies. Yet I struggle to find ways to help causes like Black Lives Matter beyond posts on my Facebook wall. In spite of the fact that both meth and politics are undermining the strength of our communities, we remain unable to see each other as allies.”

Here is a great example of linking causes together from Corey Saucier’s August 2016 Brave New World: “Black Lives Matter just as much as queer bodies matter——just as much as gay white male lives matter, because all lives matter!! And if All Lives Matter then Black Lives Matter too! Thirty years after ACT UP I now have pills of all shapes and sizes to control my HIV. I will not die of a complication from AIDS (knock on wood), but as a Black man living in this country, every time I leave my apartment there is a very real risk that I will not return home. Racism is the deadliest disease that I struggle with today.

The power systems of oppression, and white supremacy and rampant ambivalence to the plight of black bodies is the plague now killing my brothers and sisters. And it is all I can think about: Black Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter! Black Lives Matter!!”

In an interview published in December 2012, Ntare Mwine, actor and playwright, told Arts Editor Alina Oswald why he wrote A Missionary Position and highlighted the issue of LGBTers as a straight man: “When you are in crisis, you feel you are the only one in the world. And part of human condition is to connect with others and to find that there are others who are or have been through the same crisis or are sympathetic and provide some sort of support. That’s what humanity is, [helping people] pull from one crisis to another.

“That’s why some are saying that if you are not part of [the] solution, you are part of the problem.

And that’s what made me create this piece, A Missionary Position, because I was known as an artist from Uganda and…I felt like if I wasn’t doing something or saying something then I was somehow part of the problem, endorsing the hatred put out there. So I really felt compelled to be part of the solution and share these stories of human condition from the LGBT community.”

Smith, Saucier and Mwine model self-reflection and connection. These traits are hallmarks of fighting oppression, so please don’t be confused by the crocodile tears of anti-COVID-vaxxers. They are crying, but not for freedom..

Chael Needle is Managing Editor of A&U. Follow him on Twitter @ChaelNeedle.

• OCTOBER 2021

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Stock photo with model.

Punch Line

POETRY

Two interns stood outside my brother’s hospital room and thrust words at us in ill-practiced affectation.

“He——is——dead.”

Laughter, as they turned down the hall.

Just before, visitors crowded around pizza delivered for strong appetites.

Hours passed.

To manage an uncontrollable nose-bleed, we stuck half-tampons up his nostrils——the strings cut off so it didn’t look like we were facing some gal, ass heavenward.

We wished his ass heavenward, anxious for relief.

A final gasp, then someone suctioned his airway; someone else told him to stop.

There was peace.

We wept bedside, touching the body (courage equals love), described his entrance in Heaven as the arrival of someone in charge.

Sniffles eased; it was time to tell an authority.

The interns on-call excused us from the room, then appeared in the hall to deliver news we’d given them:

“He is dead.”

I returned to another brother’s house; met my mother at the door with hugs.

Ten minutes later, I’m at the all-night 7-Eleven, buying tampons:

the unexpected had happened.

Still alive.

—Nancy Whitecar Editor’s note: The poem is about Nancy’s brother, Robert (Bob) Adams, whose life was shortened by AIDS. He worked tirelessly for the city of Chicago, Illinois, to assure the LGBTQ community had a voice and was cared for. A biography of Bob is available here: http://chicagolgbthalloffame.org/adams-robert/.

Nancy Whitecar is a professional pianist and music teacher living in the Bay Area, California, who is making publication of her writing her third act. Her short stories have appeared in The MacGuffin and Ember: A Journal of Luminous Things. Her poem “Mighty Asian Woman” recently appeared in Stick Figure online poetry. She’s listening to jazz or Beethoven at home when she’s not hiking and camping with her husband.

OCTOBER 2021 •

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ArtPositive

A Paris Exhibit of Works by Artists Living with HIV Seeks to Dismantle Stigma

P

by Chael Needle

Phillip Spiegel, Sense, 2021, framed photograph in the series “The privilege of intimacy,” 50 by 50 centimeters Opposite page: Adrienne Seed, Angels of Fortune, 2020, oil on Gessobord, 51 by 76 centimeters

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aris, one of the world’s art capitals, needs a wake-up call.

At least when it comes to embracing artists living with HIV/ AIDS and rooting out stigma. That’s the idea behind an international exhibit, organized by Bulgarian-born Parisian artist Boré Ivanoff.

ArtPositive includes work by Adrienne Seed (Manchester, U.K.), Nacho Hernandez Alvarez (Barcelona, Spain), Philipp Spiegel (Wein, Austria) and Ivanoff. The exhibit ran from September 7-25, 2021 at the gallery that represents Ivanoff, Galerie Marie de Holmsky. The exhibit has been made possible through partnerships with Élus Locaux Contre le SIDA; European AIDS Clinical Society (EACS), Brussels; Visual AIDS, New York City; and Forum Culturel Autrichien, Paris; Ivanoff discusssed the idea for the exhibit: “Especially in my native Bulgaria, stigma and discrimination has traditionally been quite strong and cruel. Which, unfortunately, has not changed yet, even today. Through initiatives like ArtPositive, I hope to raise awareness in society and give courage and a personal example to all other people living with HIV who suffer from unjust and cruel family and public treatment. It is not at all easy, even here in Paris in the twenty-first century, to find artists living with the virus who agree to openly reveal their HIV status and participate in such an exhibition. I personally know such artists here in Paris who are still afraid and self-stigmatizing, and I hope that through this exhibition we will help them to feel freer, less ashamed and even proud to be the one of us, people living with HIV.” Adrienne Seed, artist, writer, sculptor and HIV activist, has been living with HIV since 2002. “Back then, there were very few women speaking openly about living with HIV. I began to speak out via my website (hivine.com), via the media and of course via my art.”

She described how HIV related to her works and series: “The Last Supper depicts an Alice in Wonderland-like scene caused by the hallucinogenic effects of the early medication. In the Venice series’ The Great Divide, the woman balances on a tightrope——isolated by HIV-related stigma with no visible means of support. The Fortune series is about when another virus——COVID——changed all of our lives. Like a deadly gong resonating throughout the world, the painting here reflects the hazards of these invisible viruses; HIV always symbolized in my work by the color red.”

About ArtPositive, she told A&U: “It was wonderful to come together as a collective of positive artists in Paris at the Art Positive exhibition, where we all hope to raise awareness and combat stigma through our art.”

• OCTOBER 2021

Nacho Hernandez, who challenges viewers with re-formed images of Hitler and Samuel Beckett, presenting startling images of the body, said in a prepared release: “The purpose of my art work is to undress the character through a combination of images in order to find a relationship that tie me up with him.

“That is how I conceived ‘Sexuality as punishment’ triptych, like an artistic expression of the suffering HIV-positive persons go through in their lives; something I experienced in my own flesh. HIV is a disease that gets transmitted in a free sexual context, a loving mood with no intention of doing any harm.

“As far as I am concerned, there is nothing wrong with promiscuity in a free sexual context. You can find love in the most anonymous sexual intercourse; even

would not want to miss out on.”

Spiegel’s work is part of a long-term project called “The privilege of intimacy.”

Explains Spiegel: “My HIV diagnosis stripped me of my feeling of intimacy for a long time; something that was once so natural to me had been taken away after which I had to embark on a journey to rediscover what intimacy means to me, and to learn to appreciate it even more.

“Reflecting upon this, I realized the absence of intimacy is more widespread than I had thought. Not only people living with HIV, but all people who live in fear of being ostracized or stigmatized by a wide range of reasons. Single mothers, LGBTQ+ people in certain environments——or anyone who feels they need to hide out of societal reasons.”

While Spiegel zooms in to bodies, Ivanoff frames buildings in cityscapes, mixing abstraction with realism with reflective surfaces often creating collages. All of the artists in the exhibit have distinct styles and media and this embrace of difference gestures toward the diversity of life with HIV. The exhibit’s approach rises to the challenge of destigmatizing HIV by not painting everyone with the same brush.

A&U had the opportunity to correspond with Boré Ivanoff on the eve of the exhibit.

Chael Needle: Where did the idea for ArtPositive come from? Why did you decide to create the exhibit now?

Boré Ivanoff: In October 2019 I had participated in a group exhibition called ArtLab in Munich. There I met another participant in this exhibition, who was also living with HIV. So I thought, why not one day have a group exhibition with only artists living with HIV? Shortly after my return to Paris, I discovered on the Internet that the EACS (European AIDS Clinical Society), a Brussels-based organization, was organizing an exhibition for artists living with HIV, which was scheduled for November 2019 during their international AIDS conference in Basel, Switzerland. I immediately contacted the EACS organizers, and luckily my application was accepted. I sent some of my artwork and traveled to Basel to personally experience the whole event, the conference and the exhibition itself. It gave me the opportunity to learn the names of several other European visual artists living with HIV. Then, after my return to Paris, I suggested to my gallerist, Mr. Remy-Pierre de Holmsky, that we could organize in his gallery in Paris an international exhibition for artists living with HIV. Which in fact turns out to be happening for the first time in the history of Paris. He enthusiastically accepted and we even set dates for the exhibition, for June 2020. But unfortunately we had to postpone everything due to complications resulting from the global COVID-19 health crisis. In the meantime, I contacted several other artists living with HIV and EACS in Brussels to request support for the organization and promotion of the exhibition. It was around this time that I decided to do my public coming out and tell the world that Boré Ivanhoff, Paris Realism, 2021, oil on linen, 80 by 60 centimeters I have been living with HIV for over twenty years.

I believe that these events, the Munich exhibitions and if it lasts just for a few seconds. However, people with HIV live with a stigma; we especially the Basel one, motivated me to take this important step and to start an are judged by society and we seem to deserve some kind of punishment.” active involvement in the fight against discrimination and stigma based on HIV. When asked why he decided to participate in the exhibit, Philipp Spiegel told A&U: “HIV in the arts is often associated with the eighties and nineties———and is How do you address stigma in your own life? often overlooked in a contemporary context. Of course the generational themes As I [mentioned], I was born in Eastern Europe, in the Balkans, in a country differ, but seeing there are still so many misconceptions and false information traditionally known for intolerance, hatred, discrimination and stigma towards about HIV, I find it important to participate in an exhibition that shows life with HIV different people, especially those infected with HIV. Unfortunately, that has not in the year 2021. The COVID pandemic also sidelined issues concerning HIV. Of changed to this day. And the society itself, the media, the politicians, the religious course having the chance to exhibit an important cause in Paris is also an honor I institutions in this country are not doing anything significant to change things for

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• OCTOBER 2021

a&ugallery the better. Even though Bulgaria impulse, a fruit of the sensitivity that is has been a member of the Europeformed in people living with HIV. an Union since 2007, the mindset of the majority of the population Is part of the project reminding is still there on an older frequency. the public that AIDS is not over, This is why over twenty years ago as Philipp mentioned in his I chose Paris as my home, which response? At least here in the is also essential and vital for my U.S., AIDS is arguably seen by the development and achievement as mainstream as something histora visual artist. ical, something more related to But now, over a year and a the 1980s than 2021. Is this your half after my coming out, openly sense of AIDS awareness in Paris? declaring to the world that I am Yes, that is absolutely right! One of living with HIV, I can tell since I have the main goals of the ArtPositive project lost a lot of friends and contacts. is to tell the public that AIDS is not yet Mainly among my compatriots from history, it is not over, and we, the people Bulgaria, but unfortunately also living with HIV, still suffer severely from among the people with whom I was social prejudice, stigma and isolation. close here in Paris and in France.

In France, and I guess in the rest of Life is not easy, but at the same Western Europe, right now the mass time I feel more free. In general, it’s media and the official public opinion are common knowledge that artists are doing their best to ignore AIDS and all lonely souls on their own, and this these problems that people living with fact helps me not to feel somewhat HIV still face every day. different from before. HIV is also a My personal sense of AIDS kind of stimulus and inspiration for awareness in Paris is that we need to my creativity, my personal develremind society that AIDS is still here, and opment and achievements in life. even if we live longer now, we still suffer There is stigma even here in Paris in psychologically and unfairly due to prejthe twenty-first century, but this also udice, ignorance, isolation and stigma, naturally makes me want to fight it and try to help people overcome which are still strongly represented, Nacho Hernandez, Wombtomb (triptych detail), 2018, oil on and oppose it. In my opinion, art is a even here in Paris. canvas, 3 pieces: 147 by 116 centimeters each piec very effective and noble way to fight It is also quite painful and insulting against the stigma and discrimination to me that my birth country, Bulgaria, as suffered by different people and people with health problems. well as other countries in Eastern Europe, are still so hostile and ignorant about HIV/ AIDS. There is a lot of educational and eye-opening work that needs to be done there.

You mention that “HIV is also a kind of stimulus and inspiration for my I hope that this project, even if it takes place in Paris, will have its impact in Bulgaria creativity.” Is living with HIV reflected in your art as a subject matter and in Eastern Europe as a whole, despite the complete silence and deliberate or do your experiences manifest in a different way——a sensibility or obscuration of information and neglect by the official Bulgarian media and other themes, for example? public Bulgarian representatives here in Paris or in Sofia.

HIV is a kind of stimulus, a significant inspiration for what I create as an artist. Of course, not the virus itself, but the way of life, the feeling, the thinking, the sensibility What do you hope exhibit attendees understand about artists living with caused by the radical changes in the spiritual and physical life that came as a conseHIV? quence of the virus in the blood. Some of Shakespeare’s greatest plays were written Our desire is to show the pretentious Parisian public that artists living with HIV during the infamous Great Plague in 1606 in London [King Lear, Macbeth, and can also create serious and precious art, which can be exhibited in a high-end art Antony and Cleopatra]. It is a well-known and scientifically proven fact that hardship gallery located in one of the most beautiful and artistic districts of Paris, Germainand suffering are often beneficial for the artist’s work. des-Prés. Let those who come to the exhibition or learn about it from the Internet Living with HIV mainly reflected and shaped my way of thinking, my way of and the media understand that HIV is not a barrier to great art, but even a kind of reacting to the social attitude that people around me had offered me. Art is also a stimulus and inspiration. The real problem is not the virus itself, but the prejudice way of communication, a kind of attack and defense, a reaction, an answer to life and stigma in people’s minds. and society.

It’s curious, but sometimes I think HIV has taught me how to live a kind of douTo learn more about the exhibit and Boré Ivanoff, log on to: www.galeriemdh.fr. ble life. As a secret undercover agent operating in hostile territory, especially when For more information about Boré Ivanoff, visit: https://boretzart.wordpress.com.

I was in Bulgaria, a country that is still a hostile territory for people living with HIV. I For more information about Philipp Spiegel, visit: www.philipp-spiegel.com. was forced to build something like a camouflage wall between me and the people For more information about Adrienne Seed, visit: www.hivine.com. around me to survive. Life has become a constant theatrical play. Life has become a For more information about Nacho Hernandez, follow him on Instagram @nachohernandedramatic work of art. Which was as sinister as it was great and authentic at the same zalvarez75 and also contact him by e-mail nachohernandezalvarez75@gmail.com. time, as it has to be Art. This, of course, inevitably reflected on the visual works I painted, not so much Chael Needle interviewed artist Jessica Tanzer for the August Gallery. Follow him on Twitter as a deliberate, conscious search and selection of given subject matters and themes, but more as a subconscious, even transcendent submission to an inner artistic @ChaelNeedle.

OCTOBER 2021 •

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AIDS DIVA AIDS DIV A New Documentary by Dante Alencastre Celebrates the Life and Work of Connie Norman, ACT UP Los Angeles Firebrand

he summer of 2021 has brought us a bumper crop of reckonings with the history of AIDS activism. After 82, the brilliant documentary by Steve Keeble and Ben Lord, which traces the history of the AIDS crisis in London, has finally come to America. Sarah Schulman’s monumental Let the Record Show [A&U, August 2021] and Peter Staley’s memoir Never Silent give us an oral history and a personal record of the work and legend of ACT UP New York. HBO’s The Legend of the Underground and FX’s Pride reached wide audiences with our stories. Martina Clark’s My Unexpected Life gives us an inside look at her activism within the United Nations. The documentary Wojnarowicz: F**k You F*ggot F**ker [A&U, May 2021] reminds us of the transgressive art and blistering rage of “artivist” David Wojnarowicz. It’s been quite a year for LGBTQ history.

To that list, we can now add the exuberant, lovingly produced documentary AIDS DIVA: The Legend of Connie Norman. Documentary filmmaker Dante Alencastre has compiled television interviews, other newly discovered videos, and surviving friends’ testimonials to tell the story of Ms. Norman, the muchloved firebrand of ACT UP Los Angeles, trailblazing trans activist, and self-proclaimed “AIDS Diva.” The very informative, moving documentary reminds us that ACT UP activism was not limited to New York City and San Francisco.

“There is still a lot of pain surrounding the past, folks carrying their grief,

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their PTSD, their loss within,” Mr. Alencastre said when I asked him why ACT UP Los Angeles has received less attention than its New York counterpart.

“L.A. is forward-thinking and does not look back often, unless it is forced to by revisited trauma or accident. But when we mentioned Connie’s name to some people, there was a smile and immediate response to share their stories, photos, videos, any vestiges of that time when they were incredibly radical and revolutionary.”

Radical and revolutionary indeed. Connie Norman described herself as “ex-drag queen, ex-hooker, ex-IV drug user, ex-high-risk youth, and current post-operative transsexual woman who is HIV-positive” and simply “a human being seeking my humanity.” Because of her multiple, fluid, and evolving LGBTQ identities, Norman was well equipped to understand and articulate the complex intersectionality of gender, gender identity, sexual politics, homophobia and transphobia, AIDS, misogyny, and public policy. “Step one: We need to get pissed off!” she proclaimed. She told one ACT UP rally, “We’re in a clear and present danger every moment that we do not fight back with everything we’ve got. We must rise from the grief and denial and take our lives back.”

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Norman lived in San Francisco and worked at the legendary Trocadero Transfer, the largest and most popular dance bar in the city. She recalled those nights at the Troc as idyllic, a time when “we began defining ourselves as a community,” a great diverse community dancing and “shaking off the oppression of the genocidal neglect of Reagan.” After she moved to Los Angeles and tested positive for HIV in 1987, Norman immediately joined ACT UP and began her ferocious activism. She became known for her “soulful and salty rantings and humor.” She also became known for being absolutely fearless. She organized and participated in a week-long vigil for a dedicated care facility in 1989; in 1990, she was arrested at an ACT UP demonstration in which she and fifty

photos courtesy Chuck Stallard

T

by Hank Trout

• OCTOBER 2021

VA

other protestors staged a sit-in in the offices of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.

When Governor Pete Wilson vetoed AB101, a bill outlawing discrimination against LGBTQ folx in housing, employment, and healthcare, she led seventeen days of protest that culminated in a rally of 20,000 people at the corner of San Vicente and Santa Monica in L.A. She also participated in marches on Sacramento, California, and Washington, D.C., for queer rights. At the March on Washington, she bemoaned the fact that HIV/AIDS issues had been pushed to the back burner by activists who were putting more attention and effort into the issue of LGBTQ folx in the military.

Like Daniel entering the lion’s den, Ms. Norman agreed to appear on “Hot Seat,” the raucous television show hosted by ultra-conservative, racist, homophobic shit-stirrer Wally George. She fearlessly and forcefully deflected George’s and his audience’s bigoted wrath like a champion boxer deflecting punches. You can’t help cheering her on when you watch the clip of her on the show, her righteous rage knocking the stuffing out of the host’s and audience’s ignorant rambling. Her friend Larry Kramer must have been proud.

Colleagues recall that when necessary, Norman was as brash, brazen, loud, demanding, confrontational, and ferocious in her activism, but they also recalled that “she never let her rage overtake her,” and praised her ability to mute that rage, put on her “good girl” attitude, and deal with “the powers that be.” In 1993 she gave a lecture at the Sociology Department at the University of California Santa Barbara, in which——quite ahead of her time——she defined gender as a fluid spectrum rather than a binary either/or. She also served as Director of Public Policy at the AIDS Service Center in Pasadena, California.

For four years she wrote a bi-weekly column, “Tribal Writes,” for San Diego’s LGBTQ newspaper Update, giving her a wide audience for her musings on HIV/AIDS, intersectional politics, justice, freedom, and her love for her tribe.

Director Alencastre is no stranger to making documentaries with a focus on the social justice and visibility of the transgender community. His previous films include, in Peru, En El Fuego (2008); El Fuego Dentro (2011); and in Los Angeles, Transvisible: Bamby Salcedo’s Story (2013), and Raising Zoey (2016).

“Our collective consciousness needs these stories,” he told A&U, “As a community we need to know our history and whose shoulders we stand on.

Our community lived through the AIDS pandemic, we were demonized, politically used as pawns, neglected, and rejected by our families. One bright spot was that it brought our community together; we tended for our sick and took to the streets like Connie did. We build upon the resistance and resilience of our brothers, sisters and non-binary folks that came before us. Connie’s

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activist life story teaches us compassion, empathy, and most of all the inextricable humanity that unite us.”

When Connie Norman died in 1996, she left us a blueprint for intersectional activism. Notes Alencastre: “Connie’s legacy lives on [in] her beloved queer community, who are living authentic and productive lives for the betterment of all of us.

She taught us to organize, speak up, be visible, act up, fight back and most of all to do the work. She would be taking it to the streets and raging against the anti-trans youth laws that have been enacted around the country.

She would support many causes because she was intentionally intersectional.

She was a street fighter so she would be into marching with Trans Black Lives Matter, Stop Anti-Asian Hate, Equality Act, global trans rights, ERA, so many causes, but she would make time. Also, she would keep fighting to find a cure for AIDS, to stop stigmatization of HIV survivors, and for universal health care.”

Alencastre also addressed the need to tell these stories of LGBTQ activism now before it’s too late. “Our storytellers and first-hand witnesses are getting older, memories fade, and getting the record straight becomes more urgent. The boxes of mementoes, letters, photos, videos of loves gone many years ago clamor to be uncovered and re-introduced to our zeitgeist.”

AIDS DIVA: The Legend of Connie Norman has had several successful virtual screenings in festivals in the U.K., Korea, Italy, and Miami, were the film won the audience award, and its first in-person screening at Outfest at the Directors Guild of America. Upcoming festival appearances in person will be Mexico and Australia, and, in the U.S., Palm Springs, California, Georgia, Oregon, and possibly New York. The filmmaker hopes that the film will be available for online streaming sometime in 2022.

For more information log on to www.aidsdivaconnie.com; you can also follow @ aidsdiva on both Twitter and Instagram, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook. com/groups/708452179758877.

Hank Trout, A&U Senior Editor, interviewed writer Micheal Ighodaro for the September issue

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MY unexpected

LIFE IN A NEW MEMOIR, ADVOCATE MARTINA CLARK DISCUSSES LIVING WITH HIV & COVID-19

by Hank Trout

Photographed Exclusively for A&U by Timothy J. Haines

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• OCTOBER 2021

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W

e’re all familiar with “the butterfly effect,” the idea

that even an action as small as the flutter of a butterfly’s wings can set off ripples that travel far and wide, altering the course of history.

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When Martina Clark spread her wings as an HIV/AIDS activist, she set off ripples that changed the course of HIV/AIDS history. From a shy self-doubting young woman newly diagnosed with HIV, to the strong, confident, assertive advocate who reordered the United Nations’ response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, Ms. Clark has impacted the lives of millions of people living with HIV worldwide.

A Bay Area native, Ms. Clark earned a BA in International Relations from San Francisco State University in 1989 and an MFA in Creative Writing and Literature from Stony Brook Southampton in 2016. Open about her HIV-positive status when hired by the United Nations, she worked for two decades in UNAIDS, UNICEF, the Department of Peace Operations, and other UN agencies.

She lives in Brooklyn, New York, and teaches writing, critical reading, and global politics at LaGuardia Community College/CUNY. She has lived more than half her life with HIV. And now, Ms. Clark has blessed us with her memoir, My Unexpected Life: An International Memoir of Two Pandemics, HIV and COVID-19 (Northampton House Press), a compelling mixture of personal memoir, travel reporting, humor, activism, and as she put it, “an up-close look at the squishy underbelly of the United Nations.” It traces her extraordinary life from her diagnosis with HIV in 1992 (aged twenty-eight) to starting treatment, surviving an abusive • OCTOBER 2021

marriage, fostering a teenage daughter, conducting condom demonstrations with a wooden penis and a silicone vagina in more than fifty countries, quitting the UN after two decades, and contracting and surviving COVID-19 in 2020. The memoir is eminently readable, emotionally powerful, and soul-bearing, the remarkable story of a woman living life “with an incurable illness——okay, two incurable illnesses——a well-stamped passport, and a stubborn determination that keeps me alive to bear witness to the human condition.”

A&U corresponded with Ms. Clark on the eve of publication of My Unexpected Life.

Hank Trout: The day you received your HIV diagnosis, you had a flashback to fishing in the South Pacific and catching a worm-infested blue marlin. You write, “The haunting image of that infested fish and those hungry worms flooded my brain. It had been so beautiful yet was being eaten alive from within. That was how I felt.” Can you elaborate a bit on your initial response to the diagnosis?

Martina Clark: I felt numb and couldn’t make sense of things. I remember thinking that my life had been wiped clean. Everything prior to that moment seemed to have been yanked away. I cycled through every imaginable emotion. I was angry that this had happened to me at such a young age. I was ashamed. I’d already felt I was the family fuck-up; this was just further confirmation of my inability to do things the ‘right way.’ I was confused because, as far as I knew, I’d never seen another woman with HIV. All of this, and more, raced around in my brain trying to make some vague sense out of my new reality. Mostly, though, I felt heartbroken and terribly, terribly sorry for myself.

But ever the pragmatist, I couldn’t afford to wallow, so I kept going. I [told] my sister, whom I was living with at the time, and her husband. Then I told some close friends, then some more and, finally, when I’d had a fair amount of practice, I told my parents and other siblings about three months after my diagnosis. It was a relief to get it off my chest because I’m a really shitty liar.

Now, nearly thirty years later, I still find it hard to tell people on my own. I don’t mind that they know, at all, but maybe I’m still reliving that moment of shame. Guilt, stigma, shame, they are evil foes.

Your applications to the Peace Corps and a language school in Prague had been accepted. But HIV immigration restrictions prevented you from taking either position.

How did that affect your life’s plans? Did the rejections give you some idea of how being HIV-positive would affect you both personally and professionally?

Every single damn thing shifted. Everything.

With those disappointments, I began to understand that the consequences of having HIV were far greater than physical symptoms. At the beginning, I feared I’d never be able to travel internationally again. I let my passport expire which, for me, was paramount to giving up. I felt as if the universe was punishing me for being a fuck-up. My love of travel was, at least in part, rooted in never really feeling like I belonged.

When one travels, one is not expected to belong, so it actually felt safer.

Professionally, I was definitely disappointed to lose those opportunities, but I never had a specific career in mind, so I worried less about that. Work really was mostly about earning money. If I enjoyed it, so much the better.

In a section called “Comfortable with Death,” you write, “By the time I was old enough to drink legally, I’d lost at least a dozen friends OCTOBER 2021 •

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and family members.” How did that affect your response to the deaths of friends and colleagues from AIDS? Experiencing those deaths in my early life was like attending boot camp for the AIDS crisis. I compartmentalized so many deaths because loss was a feeling I’d long grown accustomed to. I rarely grieved, as a child and even now. Today, I think it is because I know that if I grieve one death, I risk grieving them all and the pain would swallow me whole. I’d never be able to function again.

You write that, after your diagnosis, “Like——I assume——most patients diagnosed with a life-threatening illness, I kept wondering, Why me?” Instead of wallowing in self-pity, you started learning more about HIV/AIDS. What reserves did you draw upon to escape the selfpity and seize control of your life with HIV? I am pragmatic. I didn’t have the luxury of checking out or taking “me time” to process my status. So I kept working. I think this actually saved me and allowed me to learn about the virus and what I could do to change the course for women in the future so that at least my own life would not be in vain. In 1992, we didn’t yet have viable treatment, so I felt I had nothing to lose. I was sure I’d be dead within a matter of years, at best, so it made perfect sense to fight as hard as I could.

I found my life more meaningful than ever before.

Being diagnosed in the San Francisco Bay Area was a blessing. Having HIV was not an anomaly there. Had I been diagnosed in a rural town in the Midwest, I’m not sure I would have got out of this thing alive. This would be a very boring interview, probably about cows. I’m a person who makes the most of the situation they’re in. I have yet to master manifesting the situation I want to be in. But I’m not giving up.

in your UN work? Where do you feel you had the most success?

It was hardest to be heard at UNAIDS. In retrospect, we were all in the process of defining our roles and what UNAIDS even was when it started in 1996. I now think that my messages were heard and internalized. But nobody really knew how to respond.

The other barrier was funding.

When I worked at UNICEF, I never had a working budget that was big enough to tackle the job at hand.

So I was forever going around with my tin cup begging for donations.

At the end of the fiscal year, if other teams had left over money they couldn’t spend, I’d be there at the ready with my list of dream projects depending on the price. UN organizations get their money from governments and, in the case of UNICEF, from private and corporate donations. None of those entities wanted to give us money to take care of our own personnel. The struggle was convincing the senior management that we needed more investment in our own human resources support for staff well-being, including HIV. The most success I had was in the small workshops and hallway conversations with staff. Talking to parents about how they could educate their own children about HIV, for example, was an immediate win. And then the side conversations when a colleague would ask questions they were embarrassed to raise in a group were moments I felt gratitude that they were able to approach me. I didn’t always like their questions, but I valued the chance to help them think things through.

The other major success was UN Cares, the UN system-wide workplace program on HIV. Through that the UN signed on to a mandatory HIV training—— in real time——for all personnel, worldwide. Even today, sessions continue, and virtual learning options are in place. The day it was launched, I felt incredibly proud. From that day forward, internal staff well-being and LGBTQ+ issues inched up a notch on the senior management’s agendas.

"I’m a person who makes the most of the situation they’re in. I have yet to master manifesting the situation I want to be in. But I’m not giving up."

Can you explain your motivation for becoming active in the HIV community so soon after your diagnosis?

My motivation was two-fold. First, I was initially invited and embraced by two extraordinary women.

Penny Chernow, my first social worker immediately after diagnosis, and Rebecca Denison of WORLD [Women Organized to Respond to Life-Threatening Diseases]. Second, I was motivated to find other women and men who could relate to having HIV. I had an amazing support team in my siblings and friends, but none of them really knew what I was dealing with——how could they?——so integrating into the HIV community felt like coming home. Albeit a home I’d never really wanted to live in, but it turned out to be very warm and cozy and built with so much love.

The majority of your memoir details the exhausting, detailed, rewarding and sometimes frustrating time working with various groups within the UN. Just briefly, can you describe how your extensive travel informed your activism? Did traveling and working abroad make you a better activist?

Context. Yes. My extraordinary privilege of traveling for the UN to work with our personnel all around the globe helped me to understand a fuller reality of what it means to live with HIV. In each place I collected a new piece of the puzzle so that I could better represent the needs of more people living with HIV or AIDS. I’ll never understand everyone’s realities, by any means, but now when I advocate for our community, it’s not just about me, I sincerely hope this has made me a better, more inclusive and responsible activist.

You kicked down a lot of doors during your twenty years at the UN! As the first openly HIV-positive person hired to work for UNAIDS, and in subsequent positions, you helped to change many of the UN’s policies around HIV/AIDS. What are some of the barriers you encountered

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There are moments of great humor in your memoir. For instance… can you introduce us to “Woody” and “Sil”?

Ah, Woody and Sil, my faithful traveling companions for so many years.

Woody and Sil have now gone into retirement and are living a comfortable life on a shelf in my bedroom closet. I first met Sil in New York. She arrived in a small box at my office at UNICEF in mid-town. Squishy and the color of a cat’s tongue, she was sent to me by a friend and colleague. Sil is short for Silicone.

• OCTOBER 2021

She’s a silicone vagina model. She went on every single work trip I had for the UN. Woody we met later.

Woody was a gift from a UNICEF colleague during a trip to Nairobi, Kenya. Woody is a good looking blond. Blond wood, that is. He’s a wooden penis model. That evening, I wrapped Woody and Sil in a T-shirt and nestled them in my suitcase in the hotel and, well, let’s just say they’ve been a couple ever since, taking the world of condom demonstration——male and female——by storm.

Throughout the memoir, you lace your narrative with pertinent information and your experience with COVID-19——you contracted COVID in 2020 and are now one of the “long-haulers.” Do you remember your reaction when you first heard about COVID? In addition to the physical torment you suffered, how has COVID impacted your day-to-day life and your activism?

Ouf. Like so many of us, when I first heard about COVID-19, I did not grasp what was about to unfold. In January 2020, I began reading articles, then watching a few news clips. I bought a box of surgical masks and tried to get everyone I knew to take a few. Some laughed. Some indulged me. By February, the story was everywhere.

My masks were now not so silly. When my world shut down on March 12, 2020, a OCTOBER 2021 •

colleague asked me if I thought this would last very long. I remember shaking my head and saying, yeah. I think we’re going to be at home for the rest of this semester. I so wish I’d been wrong.

As the sounds of sirens and helicopters replaced the sounds of cars and pedestrians and loud-ass New Yorkers, I immediately thought back to the mid-1980s when I lived on Castro Street in San Francisco. I began to remember some of my earliest memories of the AIDS crisis, as if it were happening all over again, but on a much larger scale. When I contracted COVID-19, I convinced myself I had a mild case because I never had to go to the hospital. But a year and change out, I’m still dealing with it. I can’t say COVID is worse than HIV, because that would be a lie. But the lingering pain on my left side and the still-undiagnosed hypersensitivity on my left temple are an actual pain in my side. The U.S. handled COVID so very badly and it is a disgrace.

And I think that’s all I’ll say on that before I fall down an orange-tinged rabbit hole.

Hank Trout is a Senior Editor of A&U. He interviewed writer Brian Malloy for the August issue.

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NEVER SILENT

A&U's Hank Trout Talks with Peter Staley About His Memoir of ACT UP, Activism, Love, Loss and Resilience

Y

34

ou know Peter Staley’s face. You’ve seen him in hundreds of photographs: Peter standing on the awning of the FDA building in 1988, unfurling a huge Silence = Death banner, or standing with other ACT UP members on the balcony of the New York Stock Exchange with air horns blasting the traders below. You’ve seen him in dozens of news reports about ACT UP’s massive demonstrations, in films about the AIDS pandemic, on magazine covers (including A&U, June 2015), and on numerous television talk shows, like Crossfire, talking about AIDS with ultra-conservative Pat Buchanan. His name is indelibly associated in our minds with ACT UP. But Peter Staley was never just a poster boy for ACT UP. Now, he has told us the rest of the story behind those images.

Staley’s new, much-anticipated memoir, Never Silent: ACT UP and My Life in Activism (Chicago Review Press), is, quite simply, a remarkable achievement, the most important memoir I’ve read since Cleve Jones’ When We Rise. His writing is exquisite in several places; his stories are richly detailed, fascinating, sometimes funny, sometimes devastating; and his tone is that of a man driven by compassion, a man who sees obstacles and leaps over them.

After a year at Oberlin College studying music, Peter switched majors to economics at his brother Jes’ urging. Before long he landed a job at Morgan Guaranty. The bank was rife with testosterone-driven homophobia; still closeted, Peter thrived there but had to endure “fag” jokes and taunts. “The toxic masculinity on the trading floor felt Darwinian. Adapt or die,” he writes.

After his diagnosis in 1985, “[m]y new mission was buying time.” Starting with a Discover Magazine article called “Special Report: AIDS, the Latest Scientific Facts,” Peter set out to learn everything about the disease. On March 24, 1987, as he arrived at work, a young gay man handed him a flyer announcing a massive AIDS demonstration in front of Trinity Church. He watched the demonstration on the national news that night. “One week later, I would join these men and women at their weekly meetings of the newly named group ACT UP…I would leave my job on disability and devote what time I had left to the activism I had watched on TV that night.”

For the next ten years, Peter planned and led some of the most infamous, most impactful ACT UP demonstrations of the era. When he left ACT UP in 1997, he and other ACT UP alumni established Treatment Action Group (TAG); he created the invaluable AIDSmeds.com, a comprehensive online data base of medications; he joined in the effort to curb the meth epidemic in the gay community; and he served on the Board of Directors of amfAR . He is still acting up; he has never given up on “the power of collective empathy.”

Toward the end of the book, reflecting on having survived when far too many of our friends didn’t, Peter writes, “I marvel at being alive. But it is a haunted joy.”

• OCTOBER 2021

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Hank Trout: After a long period when AIDS disappeared from most people’s radar, there seems to be a rebirth of interest in the early days of AIDS activism. What do you think has spurred this renewed interest?

Why did you write this book at this time?

Peter Staley: I think the breaking of that silence started almost ten years ago with the release of How to Survive a Plague in 2012. There’s been a fairly constant flow of content ever since, with more in the works. The long silence before then was painful and felt like our early AIDS history was being forgotten. The first fifteen years of the crisis took a huge mental toll on the affected communities. There was a very human response once the pace of funerals subsided. We all needed to catch our breath. Great works about the Holocaust and the Vietnam War didn’t appear until many years later, so the same happened here.

Ever since Plague came out, I’ve received at least one message a week over social media from someone, usually in their twenties, who was inspired by the film—— inspired by our history and by ACT UP’s activism. I’ve stayed in touch with dozens of these folks, and some had their lives changed, becoming activists themselves, or entering the world of public health. So I’ve come to appreciate the power of personal and communal narratives. David France touched on highlights of my activism, but there’s a lot more to me than videos of my arrests. My life has been a wild ride, and if one reader is inspired to become an activist by reading my take on that wild ride, then all the writing was worth it.

You write humorously about your childhood, including tales of your budding pyromania, being a child prodigy on the piano, and flying a kite into an electrical transformer and causing a major blackout in your Staley (left) with activist Robert Hilferty, 1989

Long Beach neighborhood. So… you’ve always been a hell-raiser?

It will surprise no one, including those who knew me as a kid, that I love being the center of attention. The showman that used rainbow-colored smoke bombs to storm the NIH was the same teenage troublemaker back then. I still love causing trouble.

After joining ACT UP, you continued working as a bonds trader at Morgan Guaranty, despite their homophobia. How did you navigate those two worlds, the homophobic environment at work during the day and the freedom to ACT UP at night?

Well, not as well as I thought I was. I held on to the real-world job for far too long, as if it were some sort of life-preserver allowing me to pretend I wasn’t sick.

After months of juggling Wall Street and ACT UP, I basically had a meltdown, on Black Monday of all days (when the stock market collapsed). I had wiped that meltdown from my memories of that year, only to be reminded of it while researching the book.

I reconnected with my first ACT UP boyfriend, Michael Nesline, to ask him about that year. A few months after the Dow crashed, my T cells crashed too. I quit my job the day after those frightening results and decided to go full hog on the activism with whatever time I had left.

My favorite parts of the book are your very detailed descriptions of the planning and execution of some of ACT UP’s large-scale attention-grabbing demonstrations and disruptions, like putting an inflatable condom over Sen. Jesse Helms’ house (brilliant!). Did you keep contemporary notes that you referred to for your memoir, a diary or journal to rely on?

I’ve never kept a diary, but I’m a fastidious filer. I keep the receipts. In the case of the condom on Helms’s house, I still have the actual receipt for that huge custom inflatable house condom. I have the press releases and news stories that came out immediately after. And on every action I describe in the book, there are surviving comrades, all of whom I interviewed to get the details right.

You left Morgan Guaranty in 1988 and became “a full-time activist.” How were you able devote your full attention to activism in such an expensive city as New York? Did your freedom to do so ever cause any friction with other activists?

After five years on Wall Street, I had about $200,000 saved up. But I had also bought a co-op and asked my dad if he’d give me $1,000 a month to cover less than half of my mortgage and maintenance. I was definitely privileged, but not in a trust-fund-baby way. That said, the SSDI and the $1K from dad allowed me to spend 100% of my time on ACT UP. There were only a handful of others in the group with that kind of freedom. My Wall Street job had definitely branded me as a rich kid, which I just shrugged off, especially since it was a bunch of non-poor white New Yorkers branding me as such. In relative terms, almost all of us were privileged.

At ACT UP’s first anniversary demonstration on Wall Street in 1988, you were interviewed by a TV newswoman, identified as “Peter Staley, AIDS Victim.” What did that label say to you about prevailing attitudes toward gays and AIDS at the time? Has the “victim” label has stuck? If so, how do we combat that label?

The prevailing attitudes toward gays and AIDS back then can be summarized as “let the faggots die.” But I was never convinced that the mainstream media’s use of the term “victim” was our number-one issue. I never joined our language police on that one, especially when we went too far and hissed African leaders who were on our side, speaking at an AIDS conference, using otherwise reasonable language.

My activism has never involved policing language. I guess it has its place at times, but I always see bigger fish to fry. I definitely don’t stand in the way of others feeling passionate about that kind of activism. That passion eventually turns to bigger fish.

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Let’s talk about sex. You write, “Some might ask how could we do all this partying and hooking up when our friends were dying.” And you respond, “Well, how could we not?” Can you elaborate? Why was it important to continue having sex in a time of plague?

photo courtesy Philip Hannan

I had the pleasure of corresponding with Peter for this article.

• OCTOBER 2021

Anthony Fauci meets with ACT UP at The Center In the face of so much death, the only way to get out of bed each morning was to live life full-out—to laugh at death, to love each other passionately before death rips you apart. The French film BPM, which dramatized the director’s memories of ACT UP Paris, captured this dichotomy beautifully. It’s the best AIDS film ever made. Each week of whatever time we had left was filled with demos, funerals, arrests, dance clubs, a new drug called Ecstasy, endless meetings, hospital visits, and constantly proving that safe sex worked through endless experimentation. It was all so painful and beautiful at the same time. I hope I capture it in my book because the history books rarely do.

photo courtesy Tracey Litt

ACT UP was known for both outrageous public media-seeking actions and “insider” activism——meeting with government officials and pharma companies’ representatives. Can you elaborate how the two forms of activism complemented the other? What lessons should today’s activists take from that two-pronged approach?

The only test [of an action] should be, whatever works now. And that often means not doing activism that copies ACT UP. One of the reasons TAG split off was that the street activism was no longer working. After three to four years of non-stop coverage, “AIDS demonstrators” became yesterday’s news. One of the most beautiful demonstrations in the history of this country was the ashes action at the White House. It shocks audiences today when they see it, but what they don’t know is that the press ignored it. All of this coincided with the treatment activists finding strong allies in the public health establishment, and that coalition was definitely getting things done——a constant stream of small victories that eventually added up to major breakthroughs.

With all of that happening at the same time, the split worked. It stopped the infighting, and everyone could get back to work.

When protease inhibitors were added to the medication regimens we were on, suddenly, we felt “We’re going to live!” exhilaration. How did your activism change once an HIV diagnosis was no longer a certain death sentence? How did goals and tactics change?

Most of my friends pivoted to the international problem——the vast access inequality to treatments that’s giving me so much déjà vu these days with the COVID vaccines. Personally, I suffered from real burnout after ten years of non-stop activism.

My transition after having my death sentence revoked wasn’t easy. A lot of us had OCTOBER 2021 •

issues. But I never completely stopped. I was on amfAR’s board, and I launched an educational website for people with HIV. The international work that amfAR and other activists pivoted to was night and day compared to earlier activism. It was true coalition work with a fully diverse set of activists from around the world, which is much closer to today’s AIDS activism.

Since resigning from TAG in 1997, you continued your activism, taking on the crystal meth epidemic among gays, helping David France assemble How to Survive a Plague, taking on Michael Weinstein and AHF for their denialism about PrEP, and supporting Dr. Fauci through the Trump circus, among other issues. At a time when you could understandably retire from activism, what continues to drive you? What is left for Peter Staley to accomplish?

It’s crazy, but I’m busier than ever, especially around COVID. I joined a bunch of younger activists to launch PrEP4All, and it quickly became one of the most influential AIDS groups in the country, using a savvy game of deep research, building allies in Congress, using leading news outlets to shame our targets, teaming up with legal experts, and taking pharma to court. AIDS activists have become huge players in public health. When a new bug hits, we can be the muscle that forces politicians to listen to the scientists, and the public health establishment loves us for this. We can swoop in, and quickly make a difference. We can save lives. I still find that thrilling.

Looking to the future of LGBTQ+ and HIV/AIDS activism, what do you see as the most important next step? That is, where should activists be focusing our attention now? What do you see activists doing today that gives you hope in the midst of this forty-year-and-counting pandemic?

With the LGBTQ community, our trans siblings are under constant attack by the Trumpists, so we should remain laser-focused on a community-wide defense to protect them. Internationally, there’s a huge backlash by far-right leaders against the progress we’ve made in leading democratic countries. With HIV/AIDS, it’s access, access, access——to PrEP, to treatment, to health care, to housing, and at some point, to vaccines. But I’m hopeful. I still think I’m going to live to see HIV vaccines and, ultimately, a cure.

Hank Trout interviewed Martina Clark for this month’s cover story.

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ALI NA O S WALD Photography

portrait - editorial - creative - promotional - event

photo editing & retouching photo education portfolio review

alinaoswald.com

ACCESS TO CARE

lifeguide

by Hank Trout

HEALTHCARE ON TRACK

O

ViiV Healthcare Releases Promising Data from Two Drug Studies n July 17, 2021, ViiV Healthcare announced promising findings in two recent drug trials, reported at the International AIDS Society Conference 2021 (IAS 2021).

The first of these presentations outlined 48week data from the Phase III SALSA study, demonstrating comparable safety for two-drug regimen Dovato versus continuing an antiviral regiment of at least three drugs, reinforcing Dovato’s efficacy for use in a switch of drug regimens.

The two-drug regimen (2DR) Dovato (dolutegravir/lamivudine) demonstrated non-inferior efficacy compared to continuation of a current antiretroviral regimen (CAR) of at least three drugs, with zero cases of virologic failure and no development of resistance, in a diverse population of virologically suppressed adults with HIV-1 who have not experienced prior virologic failure. The diverse SALSA study population presents a broad representation of people living with HIV on a variety of different regimens of at least three drugs.

The study drew participants to more than 120 study sites across North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, South America, and Africa. A significant proportion of participants were female (39%), aged fifty or over (39%), and represented varied racial backgrounds (59% white; 19% black; 14% Asian).

Study participants were HIV-1 positive adults on a CAR with an undetectable viral load for at least six months, with no historical NRTI or integrase strand transfer inhibitor (INSTI) resistance mutation, and no evidence of hepatitis B infection. Dovato is approved in the U.S., Europe, Japan and other countries worldwide.

Kimberly Smith, MD, Head of Research &

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Development at ViiV Healthcare, said: “SALSA is the second switch study to demonstrate Dovato’s non-inferior efficacy and high barrier to resistance, with no participants experiencing virologic failure in the Dovato arm of the study. These findings demonstrate its versatility for participants who had previously been on a broad range of different regimens, cementing its place in the HIV treatment paradigm.”

The second ViiV Healthcare study demonstrated that their new long-acting HIV regimen consisting of cabotegravir and rilpivirine, administered once a month via injection, can be successfully implemented in a broad range of U.S. healthcare practices, even during COVID-19. The once-monthly long-acting regimen of cabotegravir and rilpivirine was authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in January 2021 under the brand name Cabenuva.

Positive twelve-month data from the CUSTOMIZE (Cabotegravir plus Rilpivirine long acting in the US to Optimize and Measure Implementation and Experience) trial, which included people living with HIV and healthcare teams, and overlapped with the COVID-19 pandemic, demonstrated that Cabenuva (a co-pack with two injectable medicines including ViiV Healthcare’s cabotegravir and Janssen’s rilpivirine) can be successfully implemented across a range of healthcare settings in the U.S. This study, begun in 2019, included a variety of clinic types, from private practices, university clinics and federally qualified health centers, to integrated health care systems. The majority of healthcare staff (96%) agreed that the long-acting regimen was feasible to implement in their clinic,

and most (78%) felt that optimal implementation was achieved within one-to-three months, with only minor adjustments to clinic logistics required.

Patients too seemed pleased with the new monthly injectable regimen. The people who participated in the trial agreed that the long-acting regimen was acceptable and appropriate to implement, with the majority (97%) expressing interest in continuing to receive the long-acting regimen over daily oral therapy after the study ended at twelve months.

The CUSTOMIZE trial also assessed the safety and efficacy of the regimen. Over the course of the study, findings showed that 100% of participants with available viral load results maintained viral suppression, and there were no virologic failures. Injection site reactions were the most common overall adverse event, reported in 72% of participants who received one or more injections through the twelfth month.

Other patient-reported results: 74% reported that nothing interfered with their ability to receive the monthly injection; 87% found monthly clinic visits very or extremely acceptable; 92% reported that they preferred the long-acting regimen over their previous daily oral regimen; 97% reported they would continue with the long-acting regimen of cabotegravir and rilpivirine after the study; and 93% found the time spent in clinic to receive the injections to be very or extremely acceptable.

Maggie Czarnogorski, MD, MPH, Head of Innovation and Implementation Science at ViiV Healthcare said, “Administering monthly injections for the treatment of HIV is a new experience for healthcare providers and some anticipated that there would be barriers to implementation. Over the course of a year, even with the added challenges of COVID-19, the barriers that providers and patients thought they would face turned out not to be as concerning as originally thought. What’s more, the risk of failure with this therapy has always been low, and this is reflected in the data showing that all the people living with HIV who participated in the trial maintained viral suppression, and many found that monthly visits with their healthcare professional were valuable and had a positive impact on their overall HIV care.”

For more information on both of these studies and other ViiV Healthcare initiatives, please log on to: www. viivhealthcare.com.

Hank Trout writes the For the Long Run column for A&U. • SEPTEMBER 2021

3 EDITION rd

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OCTOBER 2021

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by Jeannie Wraight

A HUNGRIER WORLD A Potential Solution for COVID-Damaged Food Security for People Living with HIV

T

hroughout 2020 and the beginning of 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic shook the world to its core affecting everything from public health, economics, healthcare systems, and food and service delivery.

As countries across the globe begin to eliminate COVID-19 restrictions and return to some sense of normalcy, as a global community, we must now aid in helping to pick up the pieces left in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Perhaps one of the most pressing issues since the advent of the global COVID pandemic is the worsening of famine conditions in many countries, with people living with HIV being hit particularly hard.

COVID-19 has deepened the already devastating issue of food insecurity in the developing world. The World Bank estimates that 115 million people were pushed into extreme poverty by the pandemic. Over 690 million people are currently estimated to be food insecure and 190 million are reported to be living with extreme hunger.

That latter number is expected to grow to 270 million by the end of 2021.

“COVID has made the world’s poorest poorer and the hungriest hungrier,” says Steve Taravella, spokesperson for the World Food Program, the UN’s hunger relief arm. Taravella says “the Romebased agency expects to feed up to 129 million people around the world this year, the greatest number in its sixty-year history——and that the impact of the COVID pandemic is a major reason.”

Countries currently experiencing famine conditions or on the brink of famine include Yemen, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Afghanistan, Venezuela, the West African Sahel, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Syria, and Haiti. High rates of COVID infections in some middle-income countries such as India, South Africa, and Brazil, have also created rapidly rising levels of hunger.

War, climate change, and poverty are typically among the predominant agents of famine. The emergence of a fourth agent during 2020——the COVID-19 pandemic——has greatly increased the number of those suffering from hunger. Disparate pandemic restrictions dramatically impacted supply chains. Business closures resulting in short-term and permanent loss of employment, school closures preventing some parents from working and children from accessing school meals, along with homelessness and the loss of family breadwinners have all contributed to the growing rate of hunger——and in many cases in unforeseen communities. Globally, local farmers and processors——universally the main source of food for non-urban areas——were unable to adequately manage their land and

42

workers, and their supply chains further contributed to food shortages.

For people living with HIV in the developing world, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic greatly worsened complex socioeconomic conditions and access to food, medical care and HIV services. Resources once directed for HIV have been diverted during the COVID-19 pandemic, including the attention of public health leadership, medical personal and facilities, and financial and research budgets.

Mathematical models show that severe treatment disruptions in high HIV-burden areas could increase HIV-related deaths by 10% over five years, and HIV treatment interruptions in sub-Saharan Africa of 50% of patients for six months could lead to more than 296,000 HIV deaths within a year. Due to innovative strategies, treatment interruptions in many countries were not as severe as feared, yet the consequences people living with HIV are experiencing, and will experience for years to come, are significant.

One of the most effective tools we have in combatting famine are ready-to-use-therapeutic foods or RUTFs. RUTFs are pre-packaged high-caloric therapeutic foods that contain dense levels of vitamins and nutrients aimed to treat malnutrition in both children and adults.

Malnutrition in adults living with HIV can have devastating effects on the immune system, weakening the body’s response to HIV and other infections, including COVID-19 (which significantly heightens mortality in this population).

Severe weight loss is one of the strongest factors associated with serious illness and reduced survival in people living with HIV, even those on antiretroviral therapy. Research indicated that macronutrient supplementation such as that provided in RUTFs has a positive effect on weight gain and adherence to medication in people

living with HIV. For children, even short-term malnutrition can result in lifelong complications. Malnutrition in children is known to cause weaker immune systems as well as lower intelligence and diminished socioeconomic skills. The WHO estimates that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, interruptions in mother-to-child viral transmission services could increase child deaths from HIV by 40-80% in areas with high rates of HIV infection.

The totality of these impacts on adults and children living in high HIV burden areas can be reduced if proper nutrition is supplied in right measure. At minimum, the supply of RUTFs for HIV-positive children is essential.

During a time when as Americans we are struggling to overcome the setbacks of the past year, we must not relent on the fight against HIV in the developing world. Funding and resources in these regions have taken a devastating hit as countries around the globe strive to recover from the havoc caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to Mark Lowcock, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, in the absence of humanitarian assistance the lives of 235 million people are at stake during 2021 alone.

Ensuring access to RUTFs for people living with HIV can help save the lives of millions of people currently struggling to survive not just one but two pandemics.

Jeannie Wraight is the former editor-in-chief and co-founder of HIV and HCV Haven (www.hivhaven. com) and a blogger and writer for TheBody.com. She is a member of the Board of Directors of Health People, a community-based organization in the South Bronx and an advisor to TRW (Teach me to Read and Write), a community-based organization in Kampala, Uganda. She lives with her husband in New York City.

• OCTOBER 2021

FI LM FILM

Rebel Dykes

Directed by Harri Shanahan and Siân A. Williams Riot Productions

R

ebel Dykes is one of the best documentaries I have seen in a long time. The interviews, animation, and archival footage all come together to create a portrait of women navigating sexuality, affection and kinship in post-punk London of the 1980s. Directed by Harri Shanahan and Siân A. Williams, the film provides clarity and context, a history lesson about a largely forgotten community made vibrant and compelling from the first frame to the last.

With the help of interviewees Debbie, Roz, Fisch, Seija, Baya, Del, Lulu and producer Siobhan (Fahey), among others, the documentary takes us back in time to meet their younger selves and the wider group of “rebel dykes,” often poor, punk, working-class, as one interviewee describes them. Fighting isolation and the laws that conspired against their existence, they search out each other and build community through love, sex and friendship. They live, work and play in a grittier, less-safe-than-now London, facing dyke-bashers and white supremacists if they go out, especially at night. As interviewee Yvonne says, “It was dangerous just to be who you were in those days.”

Women forged bonds along political lines, first at the anti-nuke Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp, whose different encampments at different gates attracted different groups of lesbians, and then at Chain Reaction, the first lesbian BDSM club, another space where women could come together to connect and explore and form family. To fight for who they were and who they might become, rebel dykes started clubs like this as well as DJ nights and cabarets and bands. With a DIY sensibility, they initiated Black-led spaces, kink-friendly spaces, women-centered spaces, polyamorous spaces. They started motorcycle clubs and sex toy businesses, made art, and published lesbian erotica magazines. Sex positivity was key. They gave themselves “permission to play.” They were defiant and protective of their community and their spaces. As one banner in the film read: No One Fucks Us Over.

They also responded to HIV/AIDS. Some had to raise awareness that yes, indeed, lesbians were at risk for acquiring the virus and how dental dams were important for safer sex. Many joined their gay brothers in fighting against AIDS inaction as well as against Section 28, which outlawed the “promotion of homosexuality” by local authorities across the U.K. While many of the interviewees championed their own openness to and embodiment of the continuum of sexuality and gender identity, they were often critiqued (is S&M a tool of the patriarchy?) by others who sought to secure one version of lesbian sexuality and/or one version of feminism. Either fearful of obscenity laws and/or mindful of the politics of feminist erotica, LGBT and women’s bookstores refused to carry Love Bites, a photography book by Della Grace that celebrates the women who rebelled, in leather, in tutus, in the streets, between the sheets, in each other’s arms.

Rebel dykes resisted the policing of their sexual expression by the larger

44

LGBT and feminist communities and in this sense became pioneers of radical self-definition and intersectional attentiveness that queers today may take for granted. The film is a tribute to this special tribe and a torch for anyone who wants to pick it up and carry it forward.

Check out the Rebel Dykes History Project CiC, the accompanying Impact Campaign which combines an archive, art and film to “preserve, explore and share the archive of a bunch of kick ass post punk dykes who shook up London, UK in the 1980s,” as the film’s literature describes it. More about the project here: rebeldykeshistoryproject.com.

—Chael Needle

BO OKS BOOKS

Two Books by Joseph F. Delgado

The Tango of the Shipwreck: A Novel AIDS: The Novelette

J

Besus & Abadi Ltd.

oseph F. Delgado is a prolific novelist, short story writer, professor of Hispanic literature, book critic, and filmmaker whose poem “Mariological Recitative of Mystical Pharmacology” appeared in A&U in April 2018 and whose The Other Passover was reviewed here in November 2020. He has now added two more works of fiction to his oeuvre.

The shorter of the two, AIDS: The Novelette, reads to me more like a monologue to be performed. The piece is comprised of short sketches or memories.

The narrator is an elder, economically successful Hispanic man, living with HIV for decades, who reminisces about his positive diagnosis (which led to an AIDS • OCTOBER 2021

diagnosis later), his trouble with various early HIV medications, his friends, night sweats, the innumerable doctor’s office visits, and other maladies any HIV-positive person will recognize. He mourns friends lost to AIDS but professes no experience of “survivor’s guilt.” The tone varies from wistfulness to anger to “Why me?” self-pity. Nearly blind from CMV infection, the narrator ends the story in his study, clearing off his desk because “No one knows what might happen next.”

The longer work, The Tango of the Shipwreck, is a heftier, more complex, more rewarding read. The main character Tomas Eduardo Principe grows up in poverty in Puerto Rico with a malicious mother and a father who routinely molested Tomas, sometimes along with his uncle, from an early age. When the abuse is discovered, Tomas’ father and uncle manage to turn things around so that Tomas is blamed——labeled a maricón, a puta. His mother orders him from the house, and he winds up staying with an aunt and uncle who won’t even give him a house key.

Working in a small jewelry store, Tomas meets an older gentleman who frequents the shop. Javier Toro is a very successful businessman who takes a shine to Tomas. They begin meeting for lunches, then dinners, and eventually Tomas moves in with Javier and begins his education to become a mechanical engineer. Javier and Tomas form an easy, love-filled relationship, with Javier smoothing the rough off the diamond that Tomas is to become. To solidify their relationship in pre-marriage equality days, Javier adopts Tomas, who changes his name (also to Javier Toro) and goes by Javi from then on. Their genuine bliss crashes and burns when the older Javier suffers a burst aneurism and instantly dies in his office.

Devastated by the loss of his lover, Javi moves to San Francisco, where he becomes a star engineer, creating structural supports designed to withstand severe seismic activities. His rising career stardom eclipses his personal life——he hasn’t had sex with anyone since Javier’s death. To fill his time, in addition to singing tango songs once a week in a nightclub, he decides to volunteer tutoring struggling students at a youth center. There he meets Gabriel, a seventeen-year-old gay man who, like Javi, was thrown out of his home for being queer. Gabriel had been living and hustling on the streets and knew “kindness” only as a transactional thing——be kind to me, and I’ll blow you. Javi gives Gabriel his first taste of genuine love. For the next several years, Javi and Gabriel enjoy a very rich, but strictly father-son relationship. Under Javi’s tutorship, Gabriel blossoms into a compassionate, talented, financially successful young gay man.

Along the way, Javi meets and develops a business relationship with Walt, a former linebacker with the Pittsburgh Steelers who has set up a successful financial advisory firm and is interested in financing and using Javi’s work on abating seismic activity.

Before long, Javi has fallen in love with Walt, who pursued him like a heat-seeking missile. Walt moves in with Javi, and OCTOBER 2021 •

together they raise Gabriel. A happier non-nuclear family could not exist, based on unconditional love and emotional commitment, instead of biological blood.

That happiness vanishes in an instant when Gabriel is diagnosed with AIDS. Javi and Walt find a way to carry on.

The novel weaves together two threads of a story. One, is the story I’ve summarized here; the other story puts us at Javi’s mother’s funeral several years later. As Delgado tells that story, he weaves it around and into the stories of Tomas and Javier and Gabriel and Walt. Due to family dysfunction, the funeral is as awkward as you might imagine. Relatives and friends of his mother, whom he doesn’t know or remember, inundate him with condolences, none of which he finds very sincere. When it is time for Javi (still Tomas to them) to speak, he uses the opportunity to read the congregants like a rosary, up one side and down the other.

While I enjoyed reading Tango, the book is not without its faults. The major fault for me is Delgado’s treatment of Gabriel’s diagnosis and death.

Tango is 441 pages; Gabriel is diagnosed on page 399; on page 404, he’s dead. When I read those five pages, I felt cheated——no, I felt Gabriel was cheated. Such a vibrant, loving, energetic, compassionate character deserved more than five pages devoted to his death. But then again, I remember that sometimes AIDS deaths did indeed come that quickly, that shockingly. I wanted more time to mourn Gabriel than Delgado gives us. Otherwise, this is a heartfelt, engrossing novel.

—Hank Trout Hank Trout interviewed Martina Clark for this issue.

Chael Needle writes fiction and poetry, alongside his HIV/AIDS journalism. Follow him on Twitter @ChaelNeedle.

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A Calendar of Events

lifelines

AAP-Food Samaritans (AAP), the Palm Springs, California nonprofit

OCTOBER 2021 •

Photo by O’Bayley Communications

that helps feed low-income people with chronic diseases in the Coachella Valley, will kick off its fundraising season with a food-and-cocktails celebration on October 7, 2021, at a private address (provided upon registration). The season will culminate with AAP’s signature fundraiser, the 27th Annual Evening Under the Stars, on April 22 of next year.

AAP promises that guests at October’s Season Kickoff will “enjoy luscious cocktails, abundant delectable hors d’oeuvres, and a special performance by the spectacular Broadway star, Andrea McArdle.” Ms. McArdle originated the title role in the Broadway musical Annie in 1977 and has performed in musicals on Broadway and in theaters worldwide since her auspicious debut.

A highlight of the kickoff celebration will be the announcement of the headline entertainment for next April’s Evening Under the Stars. The annual fundraising gala has grown from intimate affairs at private residences in Palm Springs thirty years ago to a grand celebration held on the grounds of the O’Donnell Golf Club, featuring world-renowned performers such as Gladys Knight, Lily Tomlin, and Cyndi Lauper.

Attendance at the Season Kickoff is free; however, their press release says, your “attendance at the event signifies an intention to join the Jeannette Rockefeller Angel Program or purchase tickets to Evening Under the Stars (April 30, 2022), or become a sponsor of Evening Under the Stars.”

For more information about AAP—Food Samaritans and the Season Kickoff celebration, call (760) 325-8481 or visit AAP by logging on to: www.aidsassistance.org.

47

POETRY

In Which I hate My Bones Bones like sticks, calcite rolls, bones underneath intolerant skin and loose muscles, bones made of stones, like transparent lamenting through years of bed, stories of untold bones parched without wavering blood, of colloidal tendons and dead osteocytes, half incurred bones bowed, fishstick traced to a heavy load of fish played in water, kingdom of fish bone in this skeleton is a ricketed bone, traces of acids and wild ketones, shams of unhurt stones bones in famine wombs; trochlearis drilled & hanging moans, plays like dominoes, of overcast weather, bones floating in lame microgravity of retroviral cells, under rugged armpits like profit bankrolls, distilled blithesome of magnesite gravestones bones drying over hot Indian summer, like cut paper scraps, catacombs of roots layered in buttermilk, sour undertones connotations un-rocked to bottom of limestones, a hammering through centuries of dissolution, of bone fossils braided with a disease, hurting bones stalled on the cliff, bones— how we learnt it in the hospital white bones, why we loved you the most, and—the only memory of you that remains beyond the smell

—Ajay Sawant

Ajay Sawant studies English Literature and Journalism at the University of Delhi. He serves as the poetry editor at Antistrophe Quarterly Review. His poems have been published or are forthcoming in LiveWire News, Art & Understanding (A&U), Hawaii Pacific Review, Xavier Review, The Bombay Review (TBR), Modern Poetry in Translation (mpT), The Louisville Review and Fleurde-Lis Press, and Rattle among many others. Ajay often tweets at @ajaycycles. “In Which I Hate My Bones” won Honorable Mention in the 2021 Chris Hewitt Awards, organized by A&U.

48

• OCTOBER 2021

Brian had his HIV under control with medication. But smoking with HIV caused him to have serious health problems, including a stroke, a blood clot in his lungs and surgery on an artery in his neck. Smoking makes living with HIV much worse. You can quit.

CALL 1-800-QUIT-NOW.

#CDCTips

HIV alone didn’t cause the clogged artery in my neck.

Smoking with HIV did.

Brian, age 45, California

HOW DOES HIV TREATMENT WORK AS HIV PREVENTION Starting and sticking with HIV treatment every day helps lower the amount of HIV in your body. It can get so low it can’t be measured by a test.

That’s undetectable.

Less HIV in your body means it causes less damage. And according to current research, getting to and staying undetectable prevents the spread of HIV through sex.

It’s called Treatment as Prevention. Or TasP for short.

There’s no cure for HIV, but if you stick with treatment you can protect yourself and the people you care about.

Talk to a healthcare provider and watch It’s Called Treatment as Prevention at YouTube.com/HelpStopTheVirus

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