HIV/AIDS - OutWrite Newsmagazine (Winter 2012)

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HIV/AIDS ALLY WEEK

(Human T-Cell)

MY MORNING WITH AN X-TUBE STAR ANATOMY OF A SEDUCTION OUTwrite

TRANSMISSION A. B. C. D. E.

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C.

Vaginal Fluids Blood Semen Pre-Cum Breast Milk

REPLICATION (1-2 days)

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HIV virus injects its RNA into T-cell

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HIV RNA codes for reverse transcriptase, an enzyme that can create a second complementary strand for itself

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Now that the HIV virus has two strands, it can enter the nucleus of the T-cell (where the cell keeps its DNA)

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HIV RNA also codes for another enzyme called integrase, which can integrate the two new strands of HIV DNA into the host chromosome, where it will be indistinguishable from host DNA

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The host cell carries out transcription as usual, using its DNA to code for mRNA

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The mRNA codes for protein production through the process of translation.

The proteins made from mRNA originally from HIV, but now hiding in the host chromosome, code for new viruscapsules and viral RNA

1. Integrase inhibitors (block entry of HIV DNA)

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New viruses assemble from the particles made by the host’s hijacked machinery, and burst from the cell to infect other T-cells

2. HAART : Highly active antiretroviral therapy (a cocktail of drugs targeting steps in the reverse transcriptase phase)

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The T-cell will produce new viruses for a period of variable length before dying.

Once the number of T-Cells per milliliter of blood drops below 200, cellular immunity is lost

(since science hasn’t figured out a way to remove HIV from the body, these treatments aim to inhibit replication)

TREATMENT

3. Protease inhibitors (stop protein synthesis) and cell entry inhibitors

PREVENTION 4. Safe sex 5. Drug rehab / safe needle use

OUTwrite

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HIV/AIDS ALLY WEEK

(Human T-Cell)

MY MORNING WITH AN X-TUBE STAR ANATOMY OF A SEDUCTION OUTwrite

HIV -PG. 10HIV | OPINION | DISCRIMINATION

Bad Blood ARGUING AGAINST THE MSM BLOOD B AN

AIDS -PG. 10-

-PG. 11-

HIV | ACTIVISM | CHARITY | COMPASSION

Silence = Death LESSONS IN AIDS ACTIVISM

by : Kenny Saleh

by : Kim Lau

HIV | YOUNG | RELATIONSHIPS | BAREBACK

The Condom Question HIV & QUEER RELATIONSHIPS

by : Andy Hernandez

-PG. 12

-PG. 11-

-PG. 13-

PHOTO ESSAY

I’M POSITIVE

FROM THE ARCHIVES

(AIDS LIFE CYCLE - TEAM CYNERGY) BY:

Andy Hernandez

-PG. 06POLITICS | ACTIVISM | GRASSROOTS

A Minute of Your Time

BY:

Charlie Hall

(10 PERCENT, MAY 1983)

-PG. 07-

-PG. 08-

CAMPUS | LGBTQ | DIALOGUE

PASSION | PRIDE | BASKETBALL

Seeing with a New Spectrum ASSESSING UCLA’S VITAL SAFE SPACE

by : Dylan Chouinard & Kim Lau

A New Way to Play

TALES FROM

-PG. 07-

MARK CHAMBERS AND

THE C ANVASSING TRAIL

Struggling Against Apathy

THE NATIONAL GAY

WORKING FOR A MORE COMPLETE SPECTRUM

B ASKETB ALL ASSOCIATION

by : Marcus McRae

by : Katie Schowengerdt

by : Kayla VernonClark

-PG. 04-

-PG. 16-

-PG. 04-

HOT / NOT

DATE NIGHT

LESBIAN STEREOTYPES

(RECIPE FOR INTIMACY)

Justin Sedor & Andy Hernandez

BY:

DEBUNKED AND AFFIRMED BY:

Katie Schowengerdt

-PG. 09-

-PG. 14-

-PG. 15-

CAMPUS | ALLIES | USAC

PORN | BODY IMAGE | INTIMACY

A&E | TELEVISION | POSITIVE REPRESENTATION

Plastic Rainbows

My Morning with an Xtube Star

Dear Leslie Knope

UCLA’S ALLY WEEK EVALUATED

by : Bryan Platz

by : Will Herder

CONCERNS FROM A QUEER PARKS AND RECREATION FAN

by : Logan Linnane -Front CoverPRODUCED BY:

OUT WRITE

Stephanie Gilbert Katie Schowengerdt Justin Sedor Pauline Woo Andy H.

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR: My 3+ years here at OutWrite have shown me that communication is one of the most difficult skills to learn as a human being. It’s also among the most crucial, especially if you’re part of a group that is constantly marginalized and beaten down in its quest for respect and change. Indeed, for me, communication is change. Changes in understanding, in attitude and in the way we relate to each other all come from being able to talk freely and openly with each other, and from being willing to put down our guns and listen.

This quarter’s issue brought with it a great deal of conflict and tension – a series of problems caused by failures in communication.

To me, this is a clear reminder of the need for a frank and honest dialogue within our community, an idea that encompasses the sole mission of this publication. To those who have accepted OutWrite for what it is – a forum for conversation – I would like to personally thank you for helping to effect change in your community. To those who see OutWrite as something else – “problematic,” “dishonest,” “self-serving” – I invite you to join us in conversation, either by posting on the website (http://outwritenewsmag.org), engaging us on Facebook or Twitter (@outwritenewsmag), emailing me (jsedor@media.ucla.edu) and/or our staff, or by coming by our office in Kerckhoff 149B. If we cannot speak to each other, as mutually respectful members of the same community, how can we hope to come together to effect real change?

With that out of the way, let’s talk about HIV/AIDS. OutWrite is UCLA’s queer and ally newsmagazine. OutWrite, formerly called TenPercent, was established in 1979 and was the first LGBT collegiate newsmagazine in the nation.

OutWrite is an alternative multi-platform media outlet that deals with the issues that matter to young, engaged Queer or LGBT-identified individuals, both at UCLA and beyond. By illuminating topics that are not covered by the mainstream media, and by doing so with a distinctive, frank, passionate and progressive voice, we strive to engage our community and ser ve their needs through dialogue and active expression.

The UCLA Communications Board has a media grievance procedure for resolving grievances against any of its media. For a copy of the complete procedure, contact UCLA Student Media at 310. 825. 2787.

Copyright 2011 ASUCLA Communications Board

OUT WRITE

www.outwritenewsmag.org facebook.com/outwritenewsmag @outwritenewsmag

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Justin Sedor

MANAGING EDITOR Katie Schowengerdt

DESIGN Pauline Woo Andy Hernandez

STAFF WRITERS Brandi Craig Stephanie Gilbert Charlie Hall Will Herder Kim Lau Logan Linnane Bryan Platz Austin Rose Kenny Saleh Katie Schowengerdt Kayla VernonClark

ARTISTS Will Herder

CONTRIBUTORS Sergio Garcia

COPY EDITORS Fanilla Cheng

PHOTOGRAPHERS Kendall Chase

MEDIA DIRECTOR Arvli Ward

MEDIA ADVISER Amy Emmert

OUTWRITE THANKS Marcus Mcrae/ Queer Alliance This magazine was made possible with the support of Campus Progress, a project of the Center for American Progress, online at CampusProgress.org

HOT NICKI MINAJ

She may be a little bubble-gum, but bitch is fierce. As is her gay alter-ego, Roman Zolanski, who gets ample time to shine on her new album, Pink Friday: Roman Reloaded. (In stores April 3)

PASTELS Throw out your rainbow sweater, it’s time to tone it DOWN this season.

HILLARY CLINTON

GIRL SCOUTS

Her landmark speech in October, aimed at ending anti-LGBTQ sentiment worldwide, reminded us that we have the most powerful woman in the world as an ally

If you haven’t heard, the organization recently accepted a trans girl, redefining the term “safe space” in the context of gender expression. So buy lots of thin mints.

MING WONG: MAKING CHINATOWN

An adventurous, campy exhibit by queer Singaporean artist Ming Wong, reinterpreting the 1974 film “Chinatown” through transformative video performances. (On exhibition at the Redcat in downtown LA now through April 1)

HUNX AND HIS PUNX With an album called “Gay Singles,” punk frontman and queer dreamboat Hunx is set to rock out at The Echo March 20 (Echo Park)

LANA DEL REY

“Cool” is really the only appropriate way to describe YouTube phenom Lana Del Rey. Don’t believe the haters – her new album “Born to Die” is the perfect soundtrack for a long, lazy afternoon in the LA sun.

Key Tracks: -Video Games -Diet Mountain Dew

Parks and Recreation

NBC’s often odd, always charming comedy has become the best thing about Thursday nights.

(Thursdays at 8:30 on NBC)

THE VOICE

Blake, Cee-lo, Adam and especially the increasingly sloppy X-tina >>> those American Idol has-beens.

(Sundays @ 8 on NBC)

RACHEL MADDOW

Hey, girl. The way you call out all those conservatives for their wildly inaccurate claims is super sexy. I’m digging the glasses, too.

(Weeknights at 9pm on MSNBC)

“BULLY” The gritty documentary film follows the lives of persecuted teens around the country to expose the reality of bullying.

(In theaters March 30th)

DOWNTOWN LA Not just for business people and the homeless anymore!

Underground clubs, restaurants, galleries, and bars are making Downtown well worth the trek on a Saturday night

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

SO YOU THINK YOU KNOW Y

5 FALSE

VVVVVVVVV

4 OUT WRITE

VVVVVVVVVV

VVVVVVVVV

VVVVVVVVVV

We debunk the top five myths (and confirm your top ALL RELATIONSHIPS ARE BUTCH/FEMME. This shouldn’t even need to be discussed anymore, but in case you had any doubt, this is not true. There are couples that consist of two feminine women, and relationships between two butch women, as well as pairs of everything in between. Even in sexual acts, where there is a role of “top” and “bottom”, these roles can be switched, reversed, or completely obliterated.

Furthermore, you can’t assume what someone likes in the bedroom by their outfit or haircut, so please don’t try.

WE HATE MEN. This just doesn’t make sense. We have so much in common, we’re meant to be best friends! One of my favorite past times is talking about girls with the guys, which therefore leads back into a discussion about why I get so much more action than them. (See True Stereotype #1) If anyone is hatin’ on anyone, the guys may be a bit envious of the lesbians- it’s okay, no hard feelings.

WE ALL LOOK THE SAME. If you take one look around a Spectrum meeting, you will see that the women attending do not all have Beiber haircuts or excess amounts of flannel. There is a wide range of lesbian dress, hair styles, and everything else, so don’t even try to put us all into the same box.

WE HAVE NO SENSE OF STYLE. Soo not true. The hipster movement practically began with lesbians. We rock the skinny jeans with oversized sweaters like no one else, and our sense of style has bombarded straight girls’ closets for years, leading to a rather difficult process of determining who is actually a lesbian when you go to the bar.

WE’RE JUST WAITING FOR THE RIGHT GUY TO COME ALONG. Many parents and conceited men use this line to explain how that perfectly attractive and intelligent woman would prefer to be with a woman rather than a man. Dudes, stop thinking so highly of yourself. If that woman is so attractive and intelligent, she knows what she likes. And unfortunately for you, it’s not a guy. Get over it.

MADONNA

NOT CYNTHIA NIXON

When did Miranda become the spokeswoman for the LGBT community? Newsflash: your public belief that “gay is a choice” is more than a little problematic to a large section of your fan base.

Nicki and M.I.A. get the award for “shortest and most irrelevant guest verse in the history of pop music” on the juvenile and forgettable “Give me all your luv,” the first single from Madge’s new album MDNA. Listen up Madonna: dressing up as a cheerleader doesn’t make you any younger – and neither do those juvederm injections.

RYAN GOSLING

Unless you’re a single white female in your mid-to-late thirties, there are better options out there.

RICK SANTORUM

The Tea Party darling keeps digging himself into a deeper hole with the LGBTQ community. He’s sort of like Sarah Palin, but without the reality show and the funny accent.

SHIT (PEOPLE) SAY

It was funny for a hot second, we’ll admit, and it did spark real conversation about important topics.

But that horse has been beaten to death 18 times over. It’s time for a new distraction to keep us from studying for finals.

STACEY CAMPFIELD The Tennessee State Senator authored the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which prohibits “any instruction that discusses sexual orientation other than heterosexuality” in Tennessee schools, was denied service at a restaurant in Knoxville recently. No soup for you, homophobe.

NAVAJO PRINT Though it may score you hipster points, cultural appropriation is never cool, bro.

WeHo NEW GIRL

America’s favorite sell-out hipster makes weird noises and annoys her male roommates for half an hour.

Totally worth your time. (Tuesdays @ 9pm on Fox)

Fiesta Cantina: not the only place in LA with a bitchin’ happy hour.

It’s time to move on.

NEON Not the business, unless you’re dancing all night to raise pediatric AIDS

VVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVVV

W YOUR LESBIANS, EH?

WE U-HAUL. We can’t help it. Twice the estrogen, twice the emotion, twice the need for more closet space. Not only is it fiscally responsible for us to move in together, but our hearts just can’t take the thought of not waking up to the maybe-possibly-kinda true love every morning. Go ahead and embrace the U-Haul, but might I advise a month-by-month lease?

WE SHARE CLOTHES. How can we pass up the offer to have two complete closets instead of one?

When one of us thinks that jacket is so last season, our significant other has the perfect outfit to keep that jacket in use. Not only is it practical, but there’s nothing better than getting a text from your boo that reads “Babe, I’m wearing your sweater, and it smells like you ”.

5 TRUE

VVVVVVVVV

WE ARE BETTER IN BED. This is a fact. There’s a reason why supposedly “straight” girls leave their boyfriends for us. We may lack an anatomical penis, but we make up for it in ways that you can only dream of.

WE ROCK COMBAT BOOTS AND FLANNEL. Regardless of our spot on the butch-femme spectrum, just about all of us own a pair of lace-up military-fashioned boots. We can dress them up, dress them down, and always manage to look fashion-forward. Same goes for flannel. It works well over a dress, or with loose jeans. It might be a stereotype, but it is for a reason.

VVVVVVVVVV

WE FUCK OUR FRIENDS. While this does not mean we want to have sex with every woman on the planet, the lesbian world is a small one, and that means that more often than not, our next hookup is someone we have been friends with for years. As creepy as this sounds, it makes sense. The women we become friends with are people we feel comfortable around, we know their sexual preferences, and we probably know their exes so we know exactly what we’re getting ourselves into.

VVVVVVVVV

VVVVVVVVVV

our top five suspicions)

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OUT WRITE

A MINUTE OF YOUR TIME Notes from the Canvassing Trail by: Kayla VernonClark | kaylavc--@gmail.com

6 OUT WRITE

The door standing in front of me is worn with age. It may have once been a pleasant shade of blue, but its extended life has stripped it of color. This weary door is my most daunting enemy. All I have is a clipboard, a smartphone, and a good cause. It feels a bit like running into a war zone holding a bow and arrow.

Hello, I’m a student volunteer going door to door talking to registered voters, and I’d like a minute of your time to talk to you about a law that was just passed. We are not supposed to ask them for their time, because that gives them the opportunity to say no.

We are not supposed to call it the FAIR Act, or tell them immediately the organization that sent us, so as to secure an unbiased approach.

I take a breath that’s far too unsteady, trying to repeat all of the rules over and over in my head, stumbling even when I whisper them to myself out loud.

The moment after I’ve knocked on the first door, I actually feel sick to my stomach.

I wait a minute, two, but no one answers.

It isn’t until two doors later that I receive a response. It’s a Latino man with a towel slung over his shoulder like he’s cooking – probably for the children whose delighted cries I hear. I mistakenly ask him for a moment – but he shrugs and steps out onto the porch.

I describe the FAIR Act, the law that had been passed to institute the teaching of LGBT and disabled people’s histories, the same way prior laws have been created to teach about a variety of other minorities. According to the opposition, it would turn children gay.

We ask for their feelings on the Act in the form of a rating on a scale of 0-10. The man says he is a five, directly in the middle – that he does not have enough information.

His arms are folded, throwing glances over his shoulder to remind me he has a life to which he must attend. I show him a propaganda video from opponents of the FAIR Act, and his answer is the same. Five. Not enough information. Finally came Vote for Equality’s own working ad, and his answer remains a five.

“Something like this will help reduce bullying in schools,” I attempt. It is difficult to balance between keeping a statement free of antagonism but strong enough to be persuasive.

“Parents should be doing that,” he says, and while I note his reaction I don’t carry it further. Fear rears his grotesque head, and his stubborn middle position leaves me helpless. I thank him and leave.

Despite knocking on over twenty doors, I only receive three answers. I want to help, but there is nothing quite like waiting breathlessly in front of a door for someone to po-

tentially inform you that you deserve to burn in hell.

The last woman I speak to treats me with great suspicion. “What do you want? Do you want money or something?” Luckily, I can say there is no money involved, that I just want a bit of her time. “Well, who are you with?” she snaps.

When I tell her, she immediately softens. A smile lights up her face. She offers tens across the board, rolls her eyes at the opposition campaign, and tells me I am doing good work. I feel triumphant, despite playing no part in her ardent support. But it reminds me that this matters.

In Vote for Equality’s wrap-up, we discuss our results and share stories of voters who have been moved. Of course, I feel my own excursion has been largely fruitless — no one I speak to has been influenced whatsoever by the commercials, and I feel like I moved no one.

But while the others’ experiences have not gone much better, there is a tangible number of success stories. What consistently changes their minds are stories of personal experience. Coming out to people at every door and allowing someone to see the world through different eyes seems to be the key.

“I asked if they’d ever met a gay person,” says a leader for Vote for Equality. “I shook their hand and said, ‘It’s nice to meet you.

Now you have.’” She tells her own coming out process, and the weight of the struggle.

She lays bare the pain of the acceptance that is denied her.

And people respond. They react with surprise, with sympathy, and with understanding. Many never consider the internal battle that the realization often entails, with the turmoil only heightening due to the bullying many people witness day in and day out. This leader exposes herself, offers people frank stories of her fear, her pain, her triumphs.

“I never thought about it like that,” they often say. “Wow,” still others say. “I see where you’re coming from now.”

It is not a speech. It is one human being talking to another about her own experience.

Inside of her, they find their own struggles reflected, the weight of their own emotions.

They have never endured what she has, but they have been afraid before. They have seen people hurt before. Perhaps they have been hurt before themselves.

The struggle becomes real. The struggle becomes about real people, searching for the same love and compassion as the people on the other side of the door.

Knocking on doors is not enough. But at its core, it has proved something very basic: people matter to other people. And little by little, people are changing.

SEEING WITH A NEW SPECTRUM

Response: Struggling Against Apathy

Assessing UCLA’s Vital Safe Space

Working for a more complete Spectrum

by: Dylan Chouinard & Kim Lau

by: Marcus McRae | Director, Queer Alliance

CHOUINARDDYLAN@yahoo.com KLAU@media.ucla.edu

“There are three kinds of gays. Party gays like to have fun and get drunk. Political gays are activist-y and fight for rights and stuff. Normal gays fall in the middle.”

If that reads like a joke or an absurd, almost offensive oversimplification, consider how often you’ve heard this phenomenon, summed up so effectively here by third-year sociology student Billy Prasatcharoen, being both mocked and lamented by many in our community. Conventional gay wisdom – in many circles on this campus, anyway – goes like this: there are those who go to WeHo or Long Beach every Thursday (and Friday and Saturday), looking fierce and pounding shots. There are those who canvas for EQ-CA and march for transgender rights and pride themselves on their activism and consciousness. And then there are those who don’t fall into either camp. The “normal gays,” as Billy put it. A bit mysterious, a bit aloof, and perhaps, some might say, a bit apathetic, these folks are often the ones that don’t conform to either “stereotypical gay” mold.

Here at UCLA, there’s a distinct perception, especially among freshmen and other newcomers, that only two of the “three kinds of gays” regularly attend Spectrum, the general meeting for Queer Alliance. As QA’s all-inclusive space, and one of the first interactions many students have with the organization, it’s one of the central places for queers to find a safe space, build awareness, and get involved with the rest of QA. “Mostly just party gays and activist gays go. Normal gays don’t go because they’re not huge in the party scene or the activist scene,” says Prasatcharoen. These “normal” gays, he argues, are less interested in politics than in establishing themselves and socializing with the UCLA community more broadly. Third-year english and psychology student Lee Jasperse clarifies, “The ‘normal’ part is kind of misleading. Basically it refers to those who place other involvements over QA, and who don’t feel the need to engage with their queer identity in a campus community-focused way.”

Queer Alliance, one of the first and most important stops for any new queer- or LGBT-identified individual looking to get involved with queer issues on campus, has been an important part of our community since 1969 – it was founded just after the Stonewall riots. The group plays a vital role in both the queer social scene and advancing queer political interests here at UCLA. With events like National Coming Out Week and an annual Drag Fashion Show, to the weekly Spectrum meetings and the groups like Blaque and Pan-Asian Queers that focus on issues unique to minority queer communities, Queer Alliance and its leadership do a great deal for the queer community on campus. QA goes a long way toward fulfilling its goal, as posted on the QA website, of being “a bridge between all people who are dealing with issues of sexual orientation and/or gender identity.”

Sounds great, right? So why don’t the “normal gays” go to Spectrum meetings? “While QA has an incredible and comparatively large number of members, so many of the campus’s queer identified students have never participated in an LGBTQIA-related event or club, or even utilized the fantastic resources available to them,” concludes Jasperse. There has to be a reason why so many in the campus LGBTQ community shy away from Spectrum meetings, leaving only a solid base of committed members to steer the conversation.

Indeed, perhaps that’s at least part of the problem.

First-year biochemistry student Matthew Galang says, “Once you get acquainted with other people in the community, there’s not much incentive to come, and I feel like when our attendance is low, our ideas get stagnant, because the same people tend to share similar ideas.”

He and others say they have noticed that discussion is often steered by regulars who understand the group dynamic, rather than incorporating the group as a whole, or new, often-silent members.

In addition, some say Spectrum’s commitment to education and consciousness-raising is sometimes taken too far. At a Spectrum meeting early in the quarter, the use of words and phrases deemed offensive by the leaders, like “you guys” and other gender- and sexualityrelated terms, was addressed quickly and extensively –

often with the effect of silencing people for the rest of the meeting, for fear of being corrected again. Several members, including first-year Michael Elliott, have said they’re turned off by what they see as “hypersensitive” reactions to the use of certain language in the meeting space.

On the other hand, others see important benefits in dealing aggressively with potentially loaded language.

Galang notes, “I definitely see where the hypersensitive thing comes from – I myself had similar thoughts on that for a long time. But being exposed to so many people, [you learn that] sometimes it’s those little things that make all the difference” in facilitating positive, productive interactions. Although they may carry negative consequences for those less versed in the speech valued in a space like Spectrum, Galang says, such discussions build an awareness that is in itself a key part of the queer consciousness that Spectrum and QA are built around. “Even if you identify as gay or lesbian, you’re not necessarily queer. Being queer comes with the responsibility of understanding other people’s struggles.”

And, indeed, this sense of being “queer,” more about awareness, compassion, activism, and a deep level of respect than merely about sexual identity, is a key part of the Spectrum philosophy. But the queer identity is a loaded one politically, growing as it has out of a desire to empower and effect change in the community through defiance of traditionally oppressive norms of behavior and expression.

Perhaps it’s this queer mentality that doesn’t quite jive with the “normal” gays. Maybe it’s this decidedly political identity associated with the Spectrum space, and with QA more generally, that has turned people away. Indeed, since the passing of Proposition 8, attendance in QA spaces like Spectrum has been on the decline, perhaps suggesting that many in the campus LGBTQ community have grown tired of politics. According to QA board member Briana Mendoza, “We had heightened momentum when Prop 8 was going on, and then when it passed most people, I feel, kind of gave up on California.” Some think that QA’s mission as not only “a bridge between all people” in the LGBTQ community and their allies, but also a vocal and progressive political force, has left little room for those less enamored with activism.

As the organization pushes to reassert itself, the leadership is simultaneously struggling to find a balance between political and social goals important to various communities at UCLA. “We have two kinds of people.

How do we make the political more social and the social more political? Everyone’s at different places in their identity and what it means to be queer, queer of color, trans. And how do we teach people to be an ally? Not only for straight people, but for queer people to be allies to queers of color and trans people,” says Mendoza.

Such goals are central to Spectrum’s mission, and they’re clearly important in a community plagued by ignorance and racism that goes largely unaddressed.

But if people don’t go to meetings, if the “normal” gays don’t see Spectrum as an important part of their campus lives, the question arises as to how these aims can be accomplished. Of course, no group is for everyone, and Spectrum can’t be expected to cater to the needs of everyone at UCLA who identifies as LGBTQ, a community with a wide range of political awareness and inclinations. But the quickly-growing population of LGBT and queer-identified people at UCLA, who, for all their differences, have certain fundamental hardships, traumas, and consciousness in common, some would say, suggests a need for a space that is truly tolerant and welcoming to all.

Not everyone would choose to be an activist, just as not everyone would choose to dance on the tables at Truck Stop. But a space that could bring all the many “different kinds of gays” into the fold could create a focus on the similarities that unite the community, rather than the differences that seem to divide. Such a space could go a long way towards expanding and deepening the conversations we have with each other as lesbian and gay and queer and trans individuals, conversations we must have if we are to understand each other. As second-year communication studies student Patrick Malkoun says, “If I knew once a week the entire UCLA queer community would come together to get something done, I would feel a greater pride in our community.”

The diversity of Spectrum – encompassing those who have just come out to those who have been out for years, 1st years to graduate students, different races and genders – make for a space which is pulled in many different directions. To give some perspective on the difficulty this creates, I pose a question to the reader: if you had to plan meetings relevant to all LGBTQ people at UCLA, what would you discuss?

You may be able to come up with some meeting topics that will interest everyone, but chances are, it is just a matter of time before someone voices that Trans issues are not relevant to them or asks why racism is being talked about in an LGBTQ org meeting.

Spectrum can be difficult to run. Still, the Queer Alliance board has a deep sense of accountability to the LGBTQ community on campus, and has a number of measures in place to try to have everyone’s voice represented in Spectrum. First, to avoid having meetings dominated by what one person deems important, we have a rotating meeting facilitation. To highlight the joint ownership of the space, facilitation is also open to general members. Also, the first hour of the Queer Alliance board meetings are open for comments and constructive criticism.

If Spectrum is just not the space for someone, the Queer Alliance has several other access points. These range from discussion groups to community service with high school GSAs, from board meetings to planning meetings for large events, like Drag Fashion Show – a minimum of 13 hours of activity per week. It is deeply concerning to us if even one person comes to a meeting and feels that we are not addressing their needs or providing a safe space; I genuinely hope that anyone who sees issues with our spaces will use these or other methods to address problems to the board, so we can improve our work.

There are two main issues why I think it’s difficult to mobilize LGBTQ people, both on and off-campus. The first is a lack of solidarity. Our community has a strong need for allyship, not only from heterosexuals, but also across the LGBTQ identities for one another. On this note, I don’t think that QA is “hypersensitive;” gender-inclusive language is absolutely necessary to create a safe space for Trans and gender non-conforming folk who come. Allyship for other identities is also necessary. It is a common critique of QA that we are not a “gay” org, but seem more interested in every other identity other than gay identity. But how many of us have not uttered the words “I’m more than just gay”?

The Queer Alliance ideology, inspired by Queer theory and 3rd wave feminism, dissects what being “more than gay” means: we believe that it involves developing a consciousness of intersectionality – how all our identities fit together, and of thinking critically about all of the systems of oppression that marginalize us as Queer people, not just homophobia, but also sexism, patriarchy, racism, cisgenderism and classism, not just those we’ve experienced personally, but those experienced by all LGBTQ people. Having this solidarity is crucial to our unity because we are not a community based on shared bloodline, customs or language.

The second issue we face is that the LGBTQ community as a whole has for too long allowed others to define our political issues for us – when we lost Proposition 8, it was as if we lost all willpower to rally around other community issues which continue to exist, at least on campus. The “party gay,” “normal gay,” “activist gay” labels, may be somewhat realistic, but are also a way we limit our own political agency. To be an activist does not have to mean that we spend every day trying to repeal Prop 8, it also means that we fix the things that we see are broken for LGBTQ people in our own experiences, and create safe spaces where they do not exist. One of the high school GSAs that our community service component works with, for instance, is the same school that one of the current leaders attended and saw a need for more support of LGBTQ students. QA has also successfully fought for Trans-inclusive healthcare at UCLA. As the director of the Queer Alliance, I thank OutWrite and those interviewed for starting this very important conversation.

Why Spectrum membership is not larger and broader is a question that the Queer Alliance board has long wrestled with, and we feel that addressing the root causes for this are important, not only for the Spectrum space itself, but because the dynamics which affect the space are a microcosm of the nature of unity and organizing in the broader LGBTQ community outside of UCLA.

7

A New Way to Play Mark Chambers and the National Gay Basketball League by: Katie Schowengerdt | katieschowengerdt@gmail.com

Mark Chambers first realized his love for basketball in a way that is likely resonant with many queer people. “I loved cooking, I loved gardening. I had all these books on the back porch. One day this woman asked my mother, ‘Oh, you like to cook and garden?’ and my mom said ‘Oh no, those are Mark’s.’ And the woman said, ‘So Mark is going to be a little bit of a sissy?’ That’s exactly what she said! And I thought ‘I am NOT a sissy!’ So I started playing basketball because it was a game you could play by yourself, and I was actually pretty good at it.”

Although Chambers is currently studying sociology and education, and plans to work with Teach for America after graduation from UCLA in 2012, he has already made quite a name for himself in arenas outside of academics. Mark Chambers founded the National Gay Basketball Association in 2003, which allowed for gay basketball leagues to play one another in cities all over the country in a network that was both supportive and wellorganized.

“There was no organization whatsoever. People would host tournaments and the tournaments would be canceled. They would be too close together, so you know what? I just took it on myself to get it organized,” Chambers said. He began working toward this goal in 2002 with other people, namely Sam Codie, who founded the Chicago National Gay Basketball Championships and Ted Cappas, who was the acting director.

“My whole vision was that we have cities with established leagues, but what about the cities that don’t have established basketball leagues? How do we do this? I got a lot of pushback about trying to centralize basketball. What about that gay kid in Mississippi? In Utah? Or Portland? How do they experience this thing? Once NGBA was up, emails were flooding in, not only about starting teams,

Photos by Kendall Chase

8 OUT WRITE

but about joining teams. Right now we have over 900 registered players,” Chambers said. The NGBA is also responsible for implementing four new categories to the 2006 Chicago Gay Games for both men’s and women’s basketball.

Chambers is acutely aware of the challenges that come with being out and also an athlete, and utilizes the NGBA to provide a safe space for gay basketball players where both parts of a person’s identity – the identity of a queer person and the identity of a basketball player – can co-exist. “If you’re not seen as this athlete, then you don’t feel comfortable playing. NGBA’s motto is ‘more than basketball.’ When you come here, you won’t be judged by your ability, your sexuality, your race, your anything,” Chambers said. Indeed, a gay basketball league isn’t just about athletics.

“We all want to belong. I get e-mails all the time from people that feel just like I did, people that play the sport but don’t see anyone that looks like they do, because of stereotypes. [They say,] ‘I’m finally able to merge my life with the person I love and the sport I love.’”

This is one of the biggest benefits of a queer basketball league like the National Gay Basketball Association: people can embrace their love of the game without fear of discrimination or rejection.

Indeed, this is the main purpose behind the organization. Despite the implications of a specifically gay basketball league, Chambers does not hesitate to say that there’s no correlation between athletic ability and sexual orientation, even if society seems to see the basketball community and the gay community as fundamentally incompatible.

“Sport is sport. At the biggest tournament, we had a completely straight team – well, they weren’t completely straight, one guy on the team was gay – and I’m sure they learned a few things, because they lost,” Chambers recalled with a smile.

Whether people gravitate to the organization for the love of the game or the desire to be accepted by a group of open-minded athletes, Mark Chambers founded the National Gay Basketball Association as an oasis for players and the people that love them. “It’s empowering – bringing your boyfriend isn’t an issue, being macho isn’t an issue. This is who I am, this is who I love, this is the game I love.”

PLASTIC RAINBOWS UCLA’s Ally Week Evaluated by: Bryan Platz | bplatz7@gmail.com

“FAGGOT!”

guy, whose only contribution to a conversation is a sarcastic one-liner or the encouragement of some sexual deviation. McRae points to the committee’s “essentialist” notions of what the initiative is, demonstrated in their choice to have Savage represent the entirety of the queer community through his small, privileged segment, thus breeding further ignorance about the diversity and the needs of the queer community here at UCLA, rather than serving to facilitate Sidrak’s proclaimed goals of “education and interaction.”

Furthermore, by backing a speaker such as Savage, the committee marginalizes lesser-known communities, while also hindering intercommunity allyship. Leaders of the queer community do

Illustration by Pauline Woo

The word is howled from a car as it races through the intersection at Gayley and Strathmore on a recent Friday evening, hurled at firstyear psychobiology student Kenny Saleh as he walks back to his dorm from work in Westwood.

Despite UCLA’s recognition as an LGBTfriendly university, homophobic acts still occur regularly. This incident is a perfect example of why UCLA needs to further expand allyship; the Undergraduate Student Association Council attempts to address this need every year with a program known as Ally Week.

The week-long initiative is organized by the Internal Vice President office, headed by Kristina Sidrak; she describes the event as “educational and interactive in nature.” The IVP website further states the goal of the event as “making a public commitment in striving to build a university that is inclusive, committed to the physical safety and emotional wellness of its students, faculty, and staff, and therefore taking a stance against injustice and violence.”

These plans sound nice on paper, but they clash with the way the event is coming together this year. The inclusion of the Ally Award Ceremony, an event that sparked much controversy in the queer community last year, exemplifies a shallowness that offended many who attended last year’s Ally Week. The award represents the celebration of a small community of highly-visible existing allies, rather than the growth of the ally community, a more meaningful goal to queer students. Further, it recognizes its honorees for actions that they “should be doing [already], just like everyone has a responsibility to stand up against racism and sexism,” says Marcus McRae, Director of UCLA’s Queer Alliance. This misguided celebration conflicts with a more progressive approach to the initiative, which caused much of the controversy regarding last year’s event.

While the Ally Award Ceremony is relatively harmless, some actions of the committee send a more distressing message to the queer community. This year the committee pushed to invite the popular writer, radio-host, and darling of the straight community, Dan Savage, as a guest speaker during the week, a move which demonstrates the committee’s limited perspective of the LGBT community – namely, the mainstream, white, gay male segment. In essence, the committee reinforces the stereotype of a sassy gay

not view Savage as an ally to trans people or queer people of color, due to Savage’s common use of the derogatory words such as “shemale” and “tranny” as well as various racist remarks made towards people of color, such as stating – inaccurately – that “70% of African-American voters approved Prop 8” in order to suggest that it is the African-American community’s fault for the passing of Prop 8; he’s been “glitterbombed” several times by queer activists, an honor that has also been bestowed upon Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann. The trans community and queer people of color arguably require the most

allyship; associating Savage with Ally Week hinders efforts to create allies for those who need it most.

When asked what it means to be an ally, Sidrak remarks, “there are various stages and levels of commitment that the framework of allyship entails.” But what is the commitment of this year’s Ally Week leadership? Besides their obvious pro-LGBT efforts, the level of their commitment may not encompass the interests of the entire community.

A little investigation brings the motivations of the Internal Vice President into question. During last year’s Undergraduate Student Association Council elections, Sidrak distinguished herself as a queer ally. Sidrak claimed at an endorsement hearing that she was a part of last year’s Ally Week Committee – a claim she denied in her interview for this article. Is this what allyship is to those of the IVP office and USAC? Is the LGBT community simply another pool of potential voters and supporters? By using the community to support herself rather than the other way around, she diminishes the seriousness and value of Ally Week – and arguably of being an ally in general.

McRae sees allyship on campus as “politically convenient,” a perception that is, with regards to Sidrak’s history, perhaps not far from the truth.

Perhaps the cause of the superficial approach to the event originates from the superficial views of the office. Egocentricity such as Sidrak’s expresses a view of the LGBT community that is singular, but Sidrak should aim to understand – and design Ally Week to help others understand – the complexity of the community as well as the individuals within this community.

Says McRae, “The LGBT identity is part of a person, but not the only part of a person.” For most of us, this is barely worth mentioning; it’s how we live our lives, but it’s an idea that appears to escape the organizers of Ally Week. They should have a genuine focus on educating people about the many ways queer folks express and relate to the LGBTQ identity, rather than boiling a diverse group of individuals down to the Gay White Male stereotype.

Ally Week has the potential to change the conversation between LGBTQ Bruins and the rest of the UCLA community. But until the organizers change the way they perceive the queer identity, Ally Week will continue to be a disappointment – offensive at worst and misguided at best.

9

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SILENCE = DEATH Lessons in AIDS Activism by: Kim Lau | klau@media.ucla..edul.com

BAD BLOOD Arguing against the MSM Blood Ban by: Kenny Saleh | saleh.kenny@gmail.com

Do you identify as male? In the years since 1977, have you had sexual contact with another male, even once?

You’ll have to answer this question, word for word, on a donor form if you want to give blood in this country. The form offers three answers: “yes,” “no,” or “I am female.” If you check “yes,” you’re done. You’re forbidden to donate blood.

Why? As the Food and Drug Administration explains, men who have had sex with men—known in the blood world as MSM—”are at increased risk for HIV, hepatitis B and other infections.” MSMs’ blood is excluded to protect blood recipients from this risk.

Although a similar policy banning blood donations from sexually active men who have sex with men was lifted in the U.K. late last year, an FDA advisory panel reaffirmed this policy on June 11, 2010, bringing back the numerous questions that have been asked for years. What about the football jock who fooled around with the gay kid in high school 30 years ago and has spent the rest of his life as a celibate priest? What about the gay couple that has been faithful for 40 years? What about the gay man who passed his last HIV test? It doesn’t matter.

You can’t give blood, because you’re in the wrong “group.”

On the other hand, if you’re in the right group— heterosexuals— you can give blood despite dangerous behavior. Even if you have sex with prostitutes, if you’re an IV drug user, and/or have had an HIV-positive opposite-sex partner- as long as it was

OUTwrite

Over on Bruinwalk on a cold February day, at least three fundraisers are taking place. Most are for Dance Marathon, an event that enlists thousands of students to raise money to fight pediatric AIDS. They’re wearing colorful shirts and sporting catchy slogans.

Meanwhile, in a coffee shop just a short walk away in Westwood, a veteran AIDS activist tells a different story.

Cat Walker was a dedicated AIDS activist who helped lead ACT UP Los Angeles from its first meeting in 1987 until the mid-1990s.

Walker remembers AIDS differently from the way it is now. “AIDS was a really terrifying thing back then. The way it started in the early 80s, it was sort of mysterious - we didn’t know what it was, how people got it. There was no effective medicine for AIDS; a diagnosis was like a death sentence.” Walker saw many of his close friends contract AIDS and die just a few months later.

“More and more of my friends were getting sick and starting to die,” Walker said, “I felt guilty.

Why am I okay and my friends aren’t?”

The situation was desperate. Walker explains, “The government at the time acted like it didn’t care, didn’t want to do anything about it, didn’t want to invest in research. They were fairly more than 13 months ago- the FDA would like your blood.

And if you’re an African-American woman?

The FDA wants your blood too. Why wouldn’t they? Although the African-American community is statistically more likely to be HIV-positive than any of the aforementioned cases - for a combination of many reasons such as gaps in education, high rates of poverty, inadequate health insurance, and lack of awareness of infection – the FDA does not discriminate against black blood donors. Of course they don’t. That would be ridiculous, outrageous, and unconscionable. We have learned as a society that it is flat-out wrong to discriminate based on race. But the numbers don’t lie, and they call into question the logic of discriminating against MSM. The FDA bases its MSM policy on simple math. “Men who have had sex with men have an HIV prevalence … 60 times higher than the general population,” the agency observes. Even taking into account that many who are HIV-positive wouldn’t try to donate blood in the first place, the FDA estimates a population of MSM blood-donor applicants whose HIV prevalence is “over 15-fold higher than the general population.”

So a 15-fold

dismissive even though thousands of people were dying.” Beyond simply ignoring the problem, some used AIDS as another reason to ostracize the gay community: Rev. Jerry Falwell famously called it “the judgment of God”, gay men “paying the price” for their lifestyles. The effects were devastating to an already marginalized community. Living as a gay man in the 80s, Walker was surrounded by people contracting AIDS. “Inside the gay world, people were just dying, and outside in the straight world people were just going on with their lives like nothing had happened. It felt like I was living through an apocalypse, like everyone’s going to get AIDS and everyone’s going to die.”

It was around then that several AIDS activist groups began to appear. In particular, Larry Kramer started ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, in New York. Walker says, “Our main goal was to get more attention, force the government to fund research and pharmaceutical companies to make affordable treatments.” Their slogan: Silence = Death. ACT UP became famous for its demonstrations; protesters would block traffic, peacefully occupy pharmaceutical company offices and participate in massive civil disobedience actions.

Walker explains, “Part of what gave us notoriety

Three months have passed Since I gambled in the sheets Only once

THE CONDOM QUESTION HIV and Queer Relationships by: Andy Hernandez | ajonjoli@ucla.edu Justin Sedor | jsedor@mail.ucla.edu

So let’s say that for the moment, you’re a 19 year- old gay guy, and you’ve been with your boyfriend for 7 months now and you’re going into sexy-time when you realize that all you have is lube--you used the last condom last night. But, really, do you really need it? After all, it has been seven months, and you’re madly in love, and you definitely haven’t been fooling around. What’s the problem? It should be fine, right?

Maybe not. Last June, Northwestern University released a study revealing that young gay couples are six times more likely to have unprotected sex than gay men who have sex casually.

Makes sense, at least in the context of the situation above. But that number has real implications for the continued prevalence of HIV among young gay men--even those in relationships. For while gay men make up nearly 70% of all new HIV/AIDS diagnoses among young people in the United states, another recent study by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention also found that the majority of new HIV infections occur within committed gay relationships.

This is clearly a point of great interest and concern, because it goes against what we are taught about safe sex – namely, that limiting the number of sexual partners limits the risk for HIV and other STDs. The data suggests a few things about what HIV means for young LGBTQ individuals today.

Firstly, young gay men simply may not be getting tested enough (if they’re being tested at all), and are led to believe that they are negative based on a result that is not up to date. Indeed, Brian Mutanski, the study’s lead author, observed that about 80% of young gay men that are HIV positive are unaware of their status because they aren’t being tested often. This would inform discussions they may have with their partners about their HIV status, in which they may cursorily mention that at some point HIV tests were had and were negative. Of course, this opens the door to numerous questions about when the last test was taken, especially in relation to when one last partook in some risky behavior – questions that many gay individuals, especially those in relationships, may not be comfortable asking.

In addition, the fact that so many new infections arise out of seemingly committed relationships suggests that many young gay men seem to be misunderstanding each other in terms of what it means to be a relationship. If one partner believes he’s in a monogamous arrangement while the other sees things differently, this would presumably increase the

My cold veins pulse What do they contain?

It was only once Of course, my blood is healthy I’m positive Reassurance feels weak An empty declaration of love whispered to a stranger, but he loved me I’m positive Blood is drawn I see the vial, fragile as my fate but I’m still safe I’m positive Terror begins a lusty embrace Enveloped in a frozen panic My mind lost in a morbid trance I know my fate I’m positive The wait corrodes my mind I’ve prepared to hear the worst Not me, not me I’ll never fuck again I’m positive Unshakeable images of Pills, needles, tests Stigmas, lies, and shame Define my future I’m positive Awakened from my trance of terror I await the verdict Unprepared for any result How naïve to think this would be simple But I’ll fight no matter what I’m positive.

OUTwrite

AIDS LIFECYCLE TEAM SYNERGY -SANTA MONICAMORNING PRACTICE by: Andy Hernandez | ajonjoli@ucla.edu

12 OUT WRITE

FROM THE ARCHIVES TEN PERCENT, MAY ‘83

13

OUT WRITE

MY MORNING WITH AN XTUBE STAR by: Will Herder | willartherd@gmail.com

I was looking at Ktownyumyum’s profile after I got back from his house. There is a picture of him on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, leaning next to a star on the sidewalk with his name photoshopped in. In another picture he is performing fellatio on the camera operator; he holds a Golden Globe and looks up into the lens. “I’ve been fucked by Emmy, Oscar, and Golden Globe winners,” the caption reads.

Ktownyumyum has taken thousands of pictures and videos of himself in various positions and scenarios with multitudes of men. His bed partners are truly a multitude. In his “About me” section he proclaims his utter love for all types: “daddies,” “chubs,” “young,” “old,” “ethnic” or any other genus under which men identify themselves in the back alley cruising spots of the internet.

Ktownyumyum is one of hundreds of thousands of members of an online video community much like YouTube, but with a profoundly different prefix. Xtube and countless websites like it host a different kind of homemade video. Be it through grainy cellphone lenses or more high-end HD equipment, there are a lot of videos of people fuckin’. Ktownyumyum, who maintains a large presence across several amateur sites, boasts upwards of a million views on his pics and vids. His adoring followers leave their rave reviews in the comments below, begging to be chosen as his next co-star.

Looking at these torrid videos with six-digit view counts of this man who let me into his home, served me coffee, and let me pet his chihuahua Peanut, I felt a little belatedly starstruck.

The man surely knows what he likes. I suggested Starbucks; he insisted we meet at his apartment (If dozens, perhaps hundreds of other men had ventured into his lair, I would emerge unscathed ... RIGHT?). I vaguely recognized the tidy little apartment from his videos.

As my tour of the house led inevitably to the bedroom, he showed me a wooden chest, a relic of his army days, at the foot of his notorious bed.

Inside: a lifetime of snapshots. Family reunions

14 OUT WRITE

and vacation photos intermingled with hotel room gang bangs. In one photo, he’s standing in a flower-print shirt with a lei around his neck in Hawaii; in another, he’s in his army uniform, young and muscled on a balcony holding some guy’s dick. He seemed to share the same enthusiasm for collecting snapshots as he did for collecting sexual conquests.

When we sat down to talk, he suggested we film the interview. Naturally.

Ktownyumyum, otherwise known as Eric, does not make money from his videos. He and many like him put a great deal of time and effort into making videos and posting them on websites such as Xtube. Indeed, they make videos because they relish it – and it’s not just the sex. The rush of exhibitionism and the technical and artistic challenge of making a movie are just a few of the motivations that drive the desire to become an Xtube star. AlphaHarlot runs her own sex blog and posts videos on Xtube. She’s in it for the art.

“I don’t necessarily get off on the fact that I’m being watched; it’s more the whole process leading up to posting the video that turns me on … wardrobe, lighting, location, toys etc … planning everything out and doing the actual shooting is what gets me going. The fact that other people are able to enjoy my finished artistic product is kind of just a bonus.”

The lighting may be artificial, but she insists on her page that the orgasms are not.

Amateur videos like AlphaHarlot’s bear little resemblance to the screaming, silicone porn standard of yesterday. Porn studios, although now dabbling in “reality-based porn,” can never capture that quality of homemade videos that makes them so appealing: the hominess. And AlphaHarlot is no typical porn star. Full-figured, with technicolor streaks in her brown hair and a melange of facial and body piercings, she becomes a bastion of sexiness in her videos, truly an alpha harlot. The combination of hardcore sex with voyeuristic intimacy makes for an erotic thrill that surpasses any produced porno. Her fans seem to agree.

* * * Amateur sex communities like Xtube have created a digital grassroots movement that has fundamentally changed one of the largest and most lucrative entertainment industries – porn. And amateur porn is arguably changing the world. By granting viewers access to realistic representations of their wildest fantasies, says AlphaHarlot, “it makes the world smaller and I think that’s fantastic.”

Sex, of course, continues to sell. As we envelop ourselves in media we expose ourselves to commercialism. Corporate entities inject sex into every facet of life in a self-interested attempt to stimulate consumption as well as consummation.

But as we expose ourselves to countless Victoria’s Secret vixens and Abercrombie abs, we change the way we see ourselves and each other; airbrushed models and unrealistic body types can erode one’s sense of sexuality and self. Watching real people having sex can be as reassuring as it is arousing.

Amateur porn has provided a shred of intimacy amidst the cold, anonymous wilds of the web and the world. One feels a comfortable, empathetic twinge watching people screwing in their apartments with the TV on in the background.

We all look so similar, and those commonalities of appearance and behavior humanize the experience. Ktownyumyum says, “People thank me for the vids because they don’t like the ‘pretty boy muscle guys’ in professional porn. They like to see guys who they might have a chance with, or someone they know who they fantasize about.

Like the co-worker, the guy next door, the guy on the subway.”

Note to curious readers: Just before press time, Ktownyumyum changed his Xtube name to “LAwhore.”

He would like to clarify for readers that “even though my screen name on the site is LAwhore, I would characterize myself more as a nympho sexhibitionist who likes to perform and be watched and less of an actual whore.”

DEAR CITY COUNCIL CANDIDATE LESLIE KNOPE, I’m writing to you on behalf of the LGBT community of the great city of Pawnee, Indiana. As a gay youth from the relatively small gay community of Pawnee, I would like to let you know that you have the queer vote in this town.

It’s not a surprise that all of us love a strong independent woman with a unique voice, and you are providing just that.

Further, your approval rating amongst gay voters has skyrocketed since you stood up for marriage equality by marrying the gay penguins Tux and Flipper at the Pawnee Zoo. Granted, it was by accident and you thought they were a straight couple,

DEAR LESLIE KNOPE Thoughts on the NBC Comedy from a Concerned Queer Citizen by: Logan Linnane | loganlinnane@gmail.com

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Image from NBC

but the fact that you took a stand on the issue of gay marriage shortly afterward was not taken for granted.

We all knew you were our representative of choice when you accepted our invitation to the local gay bar “The Bulge,� and were so open-minded and tenacious when we taught you how to properly dance to Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face.� We must have had an effect on you, because the next morning you made a stand on daytime television for the group who had named you “Queen of the Gays� the night before. Your stand on marriage equality was a significant political statement that Pawnee desperately needed. And for this bravery and overall sass, we thank you.

While following your rise from a simple civil servant to esteemed City Council candidate, I’ve admired the power you have claimed as a woman in politics, as well as your sense of integrity and purpose. Along with appealing to the LGBT community, I’ve seen you stand up for feminist values as well. I was especially inspired by your challenge of the boys-only camping troop, when you established the all-girl troop the “Pawnee Goddesses.� Indeed, the decision to let the boys in when they realized your troop was undeniably superior showed a touch of class and inclusiveness we need in a candidate.

But even though you are clearly a powerful, confident woman, you could stand to toughen up a little more. So far, your male candidates have not hesitated to play dirty in their ads and speeches, while you’ve been stubborn about taking the high road. While your integrity is admirable, consider this:

as a woman, you have made it clear that you want to be treated like any other (male) political figure. But while the boys are clearly not taking your femininity into account as they go for the jugular, you refuse to play by the rules of the game in which you fight so hard to be included. I daresay that you must be more ‌ fierce!

I know your ultimate goal is to be a strong woman in power like your idol, Nancy Pelosi. However, this is a striking contradiction to your desire to be well-liked. It’s apparent that you are taking on a role that some people don’t see as appropriate for a woman, but this is one of the most poignant aspects of being a groundbreaking woman in politics. You can’t be afraid to get your hands dirty. You’re keeping up your title of “Queen of the Gays,� but if you want to remain on the throne you’re going to have to make a conscious effort to be more than just another harmless female civil servant in a dowdy tan pant suit.

I fully appreciate the complicated position you are placed in by being under the public eye while trying not to step on anyone’s toes. But is being well-liked as important as having a firm position on the rights of many of Pawnee’s citizens? It might take more than a simple “You go girl!� or one night at the local gay bar to create the impact you want to make, but you’ve got to take your image up a notch. If you don’t want to be another Hillary Clinton taken down by the Obama’s of the world, we have a ways to go. Be strong, be bold, and don’t be afraid to have the gumption to take down your political opponents, while being a positive voice for human rights.

15

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6:00 p.m.

Your date knocks on the door. Be ready with the cocktail.*

6:15 p.m.

Turn on the music.

Playlist suggestion - bossanova (Os Mutantes, Sergio Mendes, etc).

Now that the tunes are rolling and you’re enjoying your cocktail, there’s time for some dancing.

*The cocktail THE SOFIA VERGARA MARGARITA. NEED: Juice of 1 grapefruit 2 habanero peppers, chopped 1 cup sugar Tequila (habanero simple syrup) Put the sugar and habanero in a pot with 1 cup of water. Bring to a boil, then take off heat and let cool.

6:30 p.m.

Time for the first course. Take the ceviche* out of the fridge.

Your date will love it--it’s spicy, refreshing, and, best of all, it’s nice and light so as not to weigh you down later...

6:45 p.m.

Put the vegetables* in the oven at 400 degrees

Fill 2 glasses with ice and pour 2 shots of tequila and half of the grapefruit juice over each glass. Then add simple syrup to taste.

Stir and serve.

*Ceviche (prepare at least four hours in advance) NEED: 1 pound of shrimp which is peeled and deveined (it’s a little pricier, but worth the labor it saves) 1 small onion 1 tomato 1 cucumber ¾ limes 1 habanero 1 serrano 1 mango 1 avocado Set a large pot of water to boil for the shrimp.

Meanwhile, chop the rest of the ingredients into small uniform pieces and set aside in a large bowl. Once the water comes to a boil, add shrimp and cook for a 1 minute, then drain and set aside to cool. Chop into cubes, roughly the same size as the vegetable mixture.

Mix in with the vegetables, then cover the ceviche and put in the fridge to chill.

Serve with cheap tostada shells and plenty of tapatio and lime.

16 OUT WRITE

*Sweet and Spicy Sweet Potatoes NEED: 2 large sweet potatoes, cut into chunks 1 red onion, thickly sliced 6-8 canned chipotle peppers, diced 2 large zucchini, cut into chunks 1 tsp oregano salt, pepper, equipment: cookie sheet mix everything together, lay out on cookie sheet, cook for 1 hour.

7:30 p.m.

Put the chicken* in the oven

* Roasted Spice-rubbed Chicken Breast NEED: 2 boneless skinless breasts 2 tbsp cayenne pepper, chopped 1 tsp black pepper 1 tsp salt 2 cloves of garlic, crushed or chopped 1 tsp oregano 1 tsp paprika 1 tbsp honey 3 tbsp olive oil

7:00 p.m.

Wash that ceviche down with some more tequila.

Change the Pandora to Alejandra Guzman or Shakira, the Bossa Nova’s too chill

Turn oven on to 400. Mix the spices, honey, and olive oil together in a bowl until it forms a thick paste. Rub on chicken in an even layer.

Place chicken on a cookie sheet and bake for 15 minutes, turning halfway through. *You could also make this recipe on the barbecue, under the broiler, or in a grill pan

7:45 p.m.

Dinner’s ready.

Squeeze lime over ever ything and ser ve with a light beer (Corona is especially nice).

ANATOMY OF A SEDUCTION A Foolproof Guide to Flir ting with Food

8:30 p.m.

Movie time. Scar y movies provide the per fect cuddling oppor tunity during the scar y par ts. “Scream” and “The Omen” are good options. Entice with desser t*

*Mango-Lime Granita 1 bag frozen mango chunks, thawed and blended juice of one lime 1 cup water (sparkling?) ½ cup sugar zest of one lime (optional) equipment: casserole dish; blender mix lime juice and water. Heat in a pot on stove until warm. Stir in sugar until it dissolves. Let cool.

Mix with mango and pour into medium-sized casserole dish. Lay flat in freezer. After 3 hours, scrape with a fork to break up the mixture into smaller chunks. Leave in freezer for another two hours, then scrape again until mixture is light and fluffy. Serve.

Illustrations: L. Andy

10:30-? p.m.

We gave you the goods – what you do with them is entirely up to you...

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BAD BLOOD (CONTINUED)

SILENCE =

So a 15-fold difference is good enough to warrant group exclusion. How about a nine-fold difference?

According to the Centers for Disease Control, HIV prevalence is eight to nine times higher among African Americans than among whites, and the rate of new infections in a given year is seven times higher. For black women, HIV prevalence is 18 times higher than for white women.

Modern HIV testing is extremely accurate and “the chance of a misread occurring is anywhere between 0.0004% and 0.0007%,” according to Avert, a leading HIV & AIDS international charity organization. However, because of this minute but real possibility of an inaccurate reading, the FDA chooses to err on the safe side and bar all MSM’s from donating blood. Under FDA doctrine, even slight differences in average risk are sufficient to warrant group exclusions. The agency says its job is to “maximally protect” blood recipients. “Several scientific models show there would be a small but definite increased risk to people who receive blood transfusions if FDA’s MSM policy were changed,” it notes.

A similar calculation applied to African Americans, it seems, would yield a similar result.

Sounds crazy, right? But blood is already excluded on the basis of African origin. The Red Cross informs prospective donors that under FDA rules, “Persons who were born in or lived in Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Niger and Nigeria since 1977 cannot be blood donors.”

But this isn’t racism. It’s based on relevant statistics with regard to the increased risk of a particular HIV type in these populations; it’s what comes of treating individuals according to group membership. The FDA has a similarly coarse rule against blood from anyone who has spent half a year in the United Kingdom, based on the threat of mad-cow disease. Where does it end?

When the FDA barred Haitian blood, Haitian groups asked why black Americans, whose HIV rate was higher than that of Haitians, weren’t similarly excluded. It’s a good question, and it was never answered.

However, African Americans are eligible candidates to donate blood because, as claimed by the FDA, “no group will be disallowed to donate blood based on

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such immutable traits such as race.” However, it is evident that homosexuality too is an immutable trait. So why are gays still not permitted to donate blood?

We don’t have to keep going down this road. Instead of rejecting people based on group membership, they should be assessed as individuals. It’s fine to ask about factors known to affect the risk of infection: travel, promiscuity, condom use, drug abuse, piercings, tattoos, etc. But the evaluation of these factors has to be more nuanced than a categorical exclusion. And the surest measure of each individual’s risk is a blood test.

In its latest recommendations, posted this past January, the FDA’s advisory committee on blood suggests further research and acknowledges that current screening policy is “suboptimal in permitting some potentially high risk donations while preventing some potentially low risk donations.” But since it’s unclear which “alternative policy” would be better, the panel recommends that the “indefinite deferral for men who have had sex with another man even one time since 1977 not be changed at the present time.”

So the gay blood ban will continue. And that’s OK, according to the American Plasma Users Coalition, whose testimony strongly influenced the FDA committee. “By their very nature, blood donor screening is discriminatory; however, it is justifiable when it provides increased protection to public health,” the coalition argues. “Criteria for donor deferrals must put safety of the recipient first and be based on scientific and epidemiological evidence about large groups of people,” according to the FDA. The logic behind the ban is flawed – not only are all donations already tested for HIV, but even potential donors who present doctors’ results confirming an HIVnegative status will be turned away. And at a time when the country (and Los Angeles in particular) is experiencing a severe blood shortage – a shortage that Red Cross officials recently called “one of the worst [we’ve] seen,” the ban makes even less sense. According to Red Cross statistics, an American needs blood every two seconds.

Every two seconds, an opportunity passes for a gay man to save a life.

Sometimes we tried to do it legally, and sometimes we planned civil disobedience and planned arrests. When people committed civil disobedience and got arrested, it got more media attention. If we just did legal demonstrations the media would ignore us, but if we blocked the street, then we’d get attention.”

Even when it was negative attention, ACT UP believed that it was necessary to get the public to pay attention to the thousands of people dying without hope of treatment from AIDS. In 1987, people in Los Angeles began discussing plans to form an ACT UP of their own.

Walker joined up immediately, saying, “I felt like this was something I could do, something I could do to help my friends.” But it soon evolved into more than that. Walker devoted his life to the movement, and would go on to be arrested four times for protesting with ACT UP. He recounts one experience with a smile.

“It was at a demonstration in Woodland Hills, outside a hotel where governor Wilson was speaking and he had just vetoed an important bill. LAPD grabbed me by the hair and threw me in the street and then arrested me for being in the street. ” ACT UP’s effects were far-reaching and sweeping successes followed in the mid-’90s.

“Things started turning around, new drugs started coming, people that I knew that had HIV stopped dying. Not everybody [survived], but the deaths came a lot less often, so it was easier to sort of forget.”

A NEW ERA OF ACTIVISM Now, much of the stigma surrounding AIDS has faded, compared to the terror of the ‘80s. AIDS activism is at a different place than it was before, and some of the same tactics ACT UP used in the ‘80s and ‘90s are no longer needed. ACT UP itself disappeared in the late ‘90s as AIDS became less mysterious and less of a pressing crisis.

However, even as there have been so many successes in AIDS research and treatment, the evolution of AIDS charities and activism has been less positive. There is a growing disconnect between the AIDS activists and those who they claim to fight for. When ACT UP held its protests, the majority of its membership was composed of HIV/AIDS victims themselves; those who were not HIV-positive were so heavily involved in the experience that they could truly claim to empathize with their suffering brothers and sisters.

The people who support AIDS activism today have good intentions, and their work does support a good cause, but what is lost is a great deal of personal investment. People who attend annual banquets and then write large checks to AIDS charities do not inspire the sweeping change ACT UP members once did. Somewhere between some so-called activists and AIDS victims, the corporate nature of the charity system has taken away the human face of the disease.

Where organizations like ACT UP have disappeared, new charities have emerged, including the Pediatric AIDS Coalition, AIDS

THE CONDOM QUESTION (CONTINUED) DEATH (CONTINUED)

Lifecycle, and the AIDS Healthcare Foundation. These charities have the financial backing to fund AIDS research and treatment on a scale that grassroots groups like ACT UP could never achieve, and their presence even extends to UCLA - the Pediatric AIDS Coalition raised over $450,000 from Dance Marathon this year alone. Fundraisers like this, in which thousands of students get involved with AIDS activism, are a testimony to how far we have come from the 1980s, but it also obscures certain facts: after the fundraiser is over, how many stay to finish the fight?

But the human side, the experience of suffering, loss, and strength, is still alive and vivid in spaces like Corpus, a publication dedicated to people expressing their experiences with AIDS through creative media. Flipping through the first few pages of any issue, one of the first things that becomes apparent is the very real confusion and hurt that comes with AIDS. What makes it even more incredible is the sense of rising to the challenge and struggle.

Andy Quan, editor of Corpus explains the journal as a place for “stories of shared experiences that would move us beyond statistics, that a revelatory photo or phrase might bring enlightenment at the level of spirit or soul … where we have the potential of becoming stronger through adversity and where we create passionate and positive activism, relationships, art and community.” At the same time, Quan calls Corpus a place where they are “vulnerable … to stigma and discrimination, to violence, internal and external.” Publications like Corpus remind us of the fact that even with all the progress that’s been made, AIDS is still as real and as emotional as ever.

Organizations and fundraisers like Dance Marathon contribute enormously to the progress we are making to treat HIV/AIDS. But at the same time, we must somehow connect our activism to the people who need our help.

In Dance Marathon, the organizers focused on making pediatric AIDS an urgent and human issue, and listening to the testimonies of real children struggling with AIDS, it was probably the most personal experience the majority of dancers ever had with AIDS. However, the experience is still far removed from Walker’s. “It was frightening when people were dying all around, but at the same time I felt like I was part of a movement that was changing things and moving things. I felt like I had a purpose, and I feel like people around me felt that too.” Even though AIDS itself is still the same disease, the essence of its activism has changed. The majority of activists do not attach the same depth of emotions to fighting for AIDS and in that, we have lost a crucial part of the fight. Looking back at the history of ACT UP, we simply do not care as much.

There are many things we can learn from people like Cat Walker. But the first is to get involved. If those thousands of students at Dance Marathon fulfilled the pledge they made to get involved in the fight against pediatric AIDS, perhaps the spirit of ACT UP, and the connection to those who are most in need, will not be lost.

direction we should be looking into for the wellness of our community. If we want to reduce the rate of infections that occur between committed gay men, there must be more prevention programs directed specifically towards younger gay couples who don’t really know what it means to have safe condom-less sex in the context of a relationship.

Indeed, it must be so confusing to be young and gay and in a relationship. The lack of representation of gay people in the media is bad enough; positive, realistic examples of gay relationships are even harder to come by. Thus you’re forced to assume heterosexual ideals of what a relationship should be – just like the ones you see in chick flicks and sitcoms, where HIV and STDs are myths that don’t bear mentioning. If we think about our relationships as all-male versions of Ross and Rachel or those kids in The Notebook, we open ourselves up to the very real risks that come with ignorance of the issues that plague our community.

Further, these surreal, manufactured straight relationships are built on ideals that don’t account for an important reality (for straights as well as gays): how you feel about a person or a relationship or the way you’re living your sex life can change at any moment. And that’s ok. It really is. It doesn’t mean that you’re a bad person, or that you’re a slut, or that you’re shallow – it means you are in touch with what you want from a partner. New thoughts about a relationship can be a little scary, but that should not dissuade you from exploring them, and from discussing them openly with your partner. Each partner is entitled to feel differently about a relationship. You shouldn’t let the confusion of your shifting ideas give way to poor sexual practices, or to secrets that could put your partner in danger.

As important as it is to communicate and have serious talks about what it means to have safe sex in and outside of a relationship, Mutanski states “It isn’t enough to ask your partner his HIV status … instead, both people in a serious, monogamous couple relationship should go and receive at least two HIV tests before deciding to stop using condoms.”

But it’s deeper than that; the problem is about more than how we conduct ourselves with our sexual partners, whether we’re in a relationship or not. It’s the way we approach sex as a community.

Queer people, and gay men in particular, don’t have the luxury of looking at sex the same way as straight people. HIV is a very real part of who we are, and is an important aspect of how we relate to each other. In order to win the fight, we need to be accountable for each other – starting with discussing potentially risky behavior, especially in the context of a relationship. Its not about slutshaming or slutblaming – ideas regarding sex practices and healthy relationships need to be addressed if there can be any hope of learning to trust your partner, especially when the numbers are so frightening.

We must act in solidarity with each other, and not inherit the faulty, oppressive ideals that come with abiding by heteronormative constructs.

We’ll never win at that game; those rules weren’t meant for us to follow. Instead, we should focus on having new conversations that aim to construct new ideals to empower us and foster mutual respect between gay men. Communication is key in any relationship, but it is imperative to the health of our community that we learn to confront our reality and talk about what really matters.

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