A&U September 2021 by A&U: America's AIDS Magazine

art & understanding for 30 years

Comic Velocity & Paul Sammut

Micheal Ighodaro Jack O'Brien Adam Fried

Poetry by Shari Caplan

David Ernesto Munar

steven

REIGNS

In A Quilt for David, the Poet Fights the HIV Stigma that Dehumanized a Dentist

SEPTEMBER 2021 | ISSUE 323

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 CREATING, 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. BVYC0370 04/21

CHAD LIVING WITH HIV SINCE 2018 REAL BIKTARVY PATIENT

KEEP CREATING.

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. See Chad’s story at BIKTARVY.com. Featured patient compensated by Gilead.

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

Contents

September

2021

FEATURE

COVER STORY

David Ernesto Munar Strengthens Chicago's Howard Brown Health

GALLERY

A&U's Chael Needle Talks to Writer Steven Reigns About Fighting HIV Stigma in His New Book, A Quilt for David

Paul Sammut Unpacks HIV/ AIDS in Comics

FEATURES

36 Doctor's Orders Dr. Jack O'Brien Tackles HIV Prevention as an Act of Care

48 Poetry Zoe Leonard at the Whitney by Shari Caplan

DEPARTMENTS 4 Frontdesk 6 Digital Footprints 10 NewsBreak

cover photo by Tommy Wu

FEATURE

Activist Micheal Ighodaro Stands Up for LGBTQ+ and HIV Justice

viewfinder 8 12 16

For the Long Run Ruby's Rap Art & Understanding

lifeguide

40 Access to Care 42 Money Matters 44 The Culture of AIDS 47 Lifelines

Frontdesk From the Editor

Total Eclipse of the Heart

tigma persists. Just look at what rapper DaBaby said at a Miami music festival in late July. Along with crass remarks about women and gay men, he also said disparaging and inaccurate things about people living with HIV/AIDS: “If you didn’t show up today with HIV, AIDS, any of them deadly sexually transmitted diseases that’ll make you die in two or three weeks, put your cellphone light in the air.” Luckily, many called out his stigma on social media and elsewhere. He defended himself at first, claiming those not in attendance could not understand the context of his speech. Even so, he still circled back to an us/ them mindset, proclaiming his gay fans weren’t “nasty” but “classy.” As in, only some gay men acquire HIV or participate in activities (like public sex) that he considers unacceptable. DaBaby issued not one, but two apologies. DaBaby is twenty-nine years old, born in 1991, the same year Magic Johnson told the world that he was living with HIV. Magic and others have worked tirelessly to educate the public about what it is like to live with HIV/AIDS and to dispel the misinformation and fear that often drives HIV-related stigma and discrimination. Yet DaBaby talks as if he has time-traveled from 1983, when mainstream society had a collective total eclipse of the heart. The rapper is not alone. Many people are still perpetuating the same stigmatizing ideas about people living with HIV/AIDS. And so we still must counter their fiction with fact. In this month’s cover story, writer Steven Reigns talks to Managing Editor Chael Needle about HIV-related stigma, which forms the core of his new book-length poem, A Quilt for David. Thirty-plus years ago, based on unsubstantiated claims, Kimberly Bergalis and others accused their dentist, Dr. David Acer, of transmitting HIV to them. Acer had died by the time Bergalis went public, and many of the patients, the media and others decided Acer was a villain. They foisted their animus upon the gay man living with HIV even in death. During the course of the interview for the cover story, beautifully photographed by

Tommy Wu, Reigns discusses stigma then and now: “HIV transmission education has helped dismantle stigma but hasn’t eradicated it....Sadly, most modes of HIV transmission have religious or societal judgment such as anal sex or IV drug use. COVID does not have this since transmission happens from breathing. I think a component to the stigma might also be discomfort around illness which is ultimately a fear of death. Everyone you know will die, you will die, it is the one thing we can be sure of yet it’s rarely talked about. Seeing people sick or in the dying process can remind one of the inconvenient and uncomfortable fact that it will be us too. Distancing by othering or blaming the sick can be a defense mechanism against facing our own mortality.” We have our work cut out for us. As Senior Editor Hank Trout found out in his interview with activist Micheal Ighodaro, stigma is rampant in his homeland of Nigeria and policy makers have created laws to criminalize gay sexuality. Ighodaro fights to make sure human rights are the rule, not the exception. David Munar, interviewed by Editor at Large Chip Alfred, leads Howard Brown Health toward greater and greater health equity, providing support to vulnerable populations in part to counter stigma. And Dr. Jack O’Brien, interviewed by Dann Dulin, takes every opportunity to promote the fact that people living with HIV/AIDS can lead empowered lives. It may seem challenging to keep up our anti-stigma campaigns, but speaking out——something David Acer could not do——and uniting our voices will go a long way in helping people make the choice to love rather than loathe.

DAVID WAGGONER

AMERICA’S AIDS MAGAZINE issue 323 vol. 30 no. 9 September 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 Nonfiction Editor Jay Vithalani’s cover story interview with Sarah Schulman generated a lot of buzz.

Photo by Stephen Churchill Downes

mostloved

The endearing graphic for the 9th annual Chris Hewitt Awards helped lead readers to the winning entries.

mostshared The activist and community-building lessons in Chael Needle’s interview with photographer Jessica Tanzer resonated with readers, as did her art work.

@AmericasAIDSMagazine

@au_magazine

Photo by Jessica Tanzer. Courtesy of Cornell University's Human Sexuality Collection

@au_americas_aids_magazine • SEPTEMBER 2021

FOR THE LONG RUN

DEMANDING BETTER—BUT FOR WHOM? US PLHIV Caucus' Federal Policy Agenda Excludes Long Term Survivors

arly in June of this year, the US PLHIV Caucus issued a document called Demanding Better: An HIV Federal Policy Agenda by People Living with HIV. When word of the document showed up in my email inbox, I quickly downloaded the document and read through it. I expected (hoped) to find in the document new strategies for improving the quality of life for myself, all of my friends, and the community at large. I had reason to be hopeful. After all, the US PLHIV Caucus is a well-known, well-respected consortium of organizations, coalitions, networks, and client groups of people living with HIV, and independent advocates living with HIV, including the International Community of Women with HIV/AIDS–North America, the Positive Women’s Network–USA, the SERO Project, and the Global Network of People Living with AIDS–North America. The HIV Caucus prides itself on collectively speaking with a unified voice for people living with HIV in the U.S. There is no doubt that they have done valuable work for the HIV community. And there is indeed a number of proposals in Demanding Better that should be implemented pronto. I wholeheartedly applaud the Caucus’ focus on healthcare equity for African Americans, Indigenous Americans, and other people of color,

their work to address gender disparities in care, and their efforts to engage HIV-positive people in policy decision-making and reducing stigma attached to HIV/AIDS. Lofty, worthy, achievable goals, all of them. However, I was extremely disappointed and, frankly, angered that Demanding Better fails to address issues specific to long-term survivors of HIV/AIDS. I scoured the fifty pages of the document, hoping to find some reference, even brief, to us long-term survivors and the unique needs we live with. To no avail. The agenda does indeed address “people living with HIV”——but surely the folx at the Caucus must realize that the economic, emotional, physical and mental healthcare needs of a sixty-eight-year-old man who has been HIV-positive for three decades or more are quite different from the needs of, say, a twenty-two-yearold who has just recently seroconverted. And the people in the Caucus must also certainly be aware that more than 50% of the people living with HIV in the U.S. are over the age of fifty (here in San Francisco it’s more than 65%). That fact alone makes our absence from the Demanding Better policy statement so egregious and hurtful. I expected better——although I’m not sure why I expected better. This absence is nothing new to us long-term survivors. We are routinely excluded

from (or barely mentioned at) national and international AIDS conferences, and we are nowhere to be found in the federal Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative. We long-term survivors are not only the majority of people living with HIV, we are the forgotten majority. Those of us who were the first on the frontlines of the fight against HIV/AIDS, who suffered unspeakable losses and grief, who have carried on this fight for forty years, who are still living with PTSD from all of that——those of us who deal every day with stigma, loneliness, isolation, innumerable comorbidities, untreated mental health difficulties, lack of mobility——those of us who, because HIV has crippled our immune systems, face a higher probability of heart attacks, osteoporosis, various cancers, lipodystrophy, and neuropathy—— we are ignored even by agencies and organizations within the HIV community. Like, sadly, the US PLHIV Caucus. That is unconscionable. How did this happen? How did an organization that purports to “speak with a unified voice for people living with HIV in the U.S.” manage to exclude us long-term survivors——more than half of the 1.2 million PLHIV in the U.S.——from their proposal? I know that several members of the Caucus are renowned activists and long-term survivors themselves——did they not speak up during Caucus deliberations that led to Demanding Better? Did none of them think to ask, “Hey, what about us?” On September 18, we will mark National HIV/ AIDS and Aging Awareness Day, highlighting the complex issues related to HIV prevention, care and treatment for aging populations in the United States. NHAAD was launched by The AIDS Institute in an effort to raise awareness due to the alarming increase in the number of older adults becoming infected with HIV as well as those older adults over fifty aging with HIV. Let’s use NHAAD to demand better for ourselves. And let’s hope the US PLHIV Caucus pays attention. Hank Trout, Senior Editor, edited Drummer, Malebox, and Folsom magazines in the early 1980s. A long-term survivor of HIV/AIDS (diagnosed in 1989), he is a forty-year resident of San Francisco, where he lives with his husband Rick. • SEPTEMBER 2021

illustration by Timothy J. Haines

by Hank Trout

Without health justice, we cannot end the HIV epidemic. Show your support at sfaf.org/shop

NewsBreak

hiv league awards 39 student scholarships

he HIV League has announced the eighteen 2021 HIV League Scholars and twenty-one recipients of the HIV League Micro-Scholarship, investing $104,500 in their education. The HIV League is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to empower the HIV community through scholarship, wellness, and education. To achieve those goals, the HIV League sponsors the HIV League Scholarship, the only national scholarship program for students living with HIV, as well as the needs-based HIV League Micro-Scholarship. The HIV League works to bring higher educational equity among students who are a part of the HIV community. Acknowledging the many intersectional factors that individuals in the HIV community embody, the HIV League Scholarship also works to help achieve higher educational equity among women, people of African descent, Indigenous people, and transgender BIPOC. The recipients are selected because they have shown how promising they are as students living with

CDC awards $117 million to advance health equity

he Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced on July 27, 2021, that it has awarded $117 million to state and local health departments “to help rebuild and begin to expand

HIV through their educational accomplishments, leadership, and service. This year’s HIV League Scholars who are full-time students and will each receive $7,000 over two years include Christan Eduardo, of Brooklyn, New York; Enrique Hernandez, of New York, New York; Shakira J. Gonzalez Hernandez of San Juan, Puerto Rico; Del Likins of Portland, Oregon; Ang Quiroz of Riverside, California; and Andrew Stinson of Los Angeles, California. HIV League Scholars receiving $3,500 over one year include: K. Anderson of Tempe, Arizona; Grant Gutierrez of Seattle, Washington; Ethan Hawes of Lexington, Kentucky; Dominic Min-Tran of Seattle, Washington; and Martez Smith of Brooklyn, New York. HIV League Scholars who are part-time students and will receive $1,000 to $1,500 over one year include Danny Burke of Portland, Oregon; Billy Brown of Eastern Texas; Barbara Darby of San Francisco, California; Brooke Davidoff of Long Beach, California; Alejandro Gonzalez-Caceres of

Miami, Florida; TerahAnn Green of Indianapolis, Indiana; Sato Hilario of Brooklyn, New York; Eunice Mejiadeu of Winchester, Virginia; Kara R. of Sacramento, California; Miguel Garcia of Seattle, Washington; and Claudine Rose of Bronx, New York. Recognizing that HIV-related stigma still exists today with roots in homophobia, transphobia, racism, and misogyny, the HIV League gives recipients of the HIV League Scholarship the option not to make their name public. The remaining 2021 HIV League Scholars have taken that option and requested that their names remain private. For more information, log on to: www. HIVLeague.org.

HIV prevention and treatment efforts as the U.S. continues to respond to COVID-19.” As part of the federal Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE) initiative, the awards were distributed among the fifty-seven priority areas identified in the EHE, enabling local entities to expand and tailor HIV prevention strategies to meet community needs. Individual awards range from $1.9 million to $10.6 million, based on the burden of the epidemic and the number of focus counties within each state. “We are committed to making the end of HIV in the U.S. a reality,” said Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra in a press release. “That is why this initiative and responding to COVID-19’s impact on the HIV epidemic is so critical to tackle for the Biden-Harris Administration.” Innovative community-driven solutions are essential to the success of the EHE. Recipients of these new funds have presented plans for how they will use these and other funds to carry out each of the initiative’s four key strategies to meet local needs. EHE also works to address racial, ethnic, and geographic disparities and to achieve health equity through a comprehensive approach: providing resources where they are needed the most and meeting people where they are with the services they need. This includes acknowl-

edging the root causes of these disparities (such as poverty, unequal access to health care, limited education and employment opportunities, systemic racism, homophobia, transphobia, stigma and discrimination) and working to implement policies, practices, and programs that help overcome these obstacles. “Longstanding inequities continue to contribute to severe disparities among people with HIV,” said Demetre Daskalakis, MD, MPH, director of CDC’s Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention. “That is why this initiative encourages a comprehensive, whole-person approach to care that not only provides treatment and prevention but addresses core needs and the social determinants of health that contribute to disparities.” Acknowledging the fundamental role that community-based organizations play in providing HIV prevention and care services, the CDC requires that at least one-quarter of recipient funding go to fund activities implemented by CBOs. The CDC is planning to award an additional $9 million later this year to support at least sixty front-line CBOs to develop self-testing programs and distribute self-test kits in these communities. For more information, log on to https:// www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/newsroom/. • SEPTEMBER 2021

HHS announces The HIV Challenge to end stigma

n late July, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) launched The HIV Challenge, a nationwide competition to engage communities to create new, exciting ways to reduce HIV-related stigma and to increase prevention and treatment among racial and ethnic minorities. The HIV Challenge, a collaboration between the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health (OASH), and the Office of Infectious Disease and HIV/AIDS Policy (OIDP) and the HHS Office of Minority Health (OMH), seeks new, innovative, effective approaches to increase the use of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) among people who are at increased risk for HIV and antiretroviral therapy (ART) among people who are already living with HIV. Phase 1 submissions are open from July 26, 2021, through September 23, 2021. The HIV Challenge competition is open to the public. HHS will award a total of $760,000 to fifteen winners over three phases. The competition is divided into three phases:

AIDS Walk Atlanta & music fest returns

he annual AIDS Walk Atlanta and Music Fest returns to Piedmont Park on Saturday, September 25, 2021, after having been cancelled last year due to COVID-19 restrictions. The event will begin at 10:00 a.m. (EDT), starting with a 5K run and walk, and culminating with a free concert event. Now in its thirtieth year, AIDS Walk Atlanta attracts thousands of attendees from across the metro Atlanta community. Hoping to raise $1 million, this year’s event will provide unrestricted funds to support the following ten non-profit organizations: AID Atlanta; A Vision for Hope; Center for Black Women’s Wellness; Center for Pan Asian Community Services; Jerusalem House’s National AIDS Education & Services for Minorities; Open Hand; Positive Impact Health Centers; SEPTEMBER 2021 •

Phase 1 (Design of Concept): Participants will develop concepts for community engagement strategies to reduce stigma related to HIV prevention and treatment within a specific population. Up to fifteen submissions may be selected to each receive a prize of up to $20,000. Phase 2 (Development of Approach): Participants selected to receive a Phase 1 prize will create well-developed approaches for community engagement strategies to reduce stigma related to HIV prevention and treatment. Up to seven submissions may be selected to each receive a prize of up to $40,000. Phase 3 (Refinement of Approach and SmallScale Testing): Participants selected to receive Phase 2 prize will test dissemination and uptake of their approaches at a small scale/community level. Up to three submissions may be selected; the winners may receive a prize of up to $60,000. “In alignment with the National HIV Testing Day and 40th anniversary of the first CDC reporting of

Someone Cares; and Thrive SS. AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the producer of the annual walk and music fest since 2019, will contribute a dollar-for-dollar match for all monies raised by each of the benefitting organizations. This year’s Music Fest will feature Atlanta’s own award-winning hip-hop artist and actor, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, as the headliner, as well as R&B vocalist, Sevyn Streeter. According to the Georgia Department of Public Health, 70% of individuals living with

HIV and its themes to reenergize and reengage, The HIV Challenge will create an opportunity for on-theground voices to participate in developing novel innovative approaches,” OIDP Acting Director, Kaye Hayes said in a press release. “The approaches will address HIV-related stigma in ways that can be successfully implemented within their local communities and replicated in the future.” For more information about The HIV Challenge submission requirements, deadlines, judging criteria, competition rules, prize amounts, and how to submit a proposal, log on at: www.challenge.gov/challenge/ reduce-HIV-related-stigma.

HIV in the State of Georgia reside in the City of Atlanta; Fulton and DeKalb Counties have the highest numbers and rates of persons living with HIV; and 79% of those diagnosed with HIV were male, 19% female, 2% transgender, with Black Americans accounting for the racial group most impacted by HIV. Dawn Averill, AHF Atlanta regional director, said in a press release, “This annual event offers a time to create a greater awareness of the impact of HIV and AIDS on the local Atlanta community, as well as an opportunity to bring together thousands of individuals from across the region to raise critical funds for these ten worthy organizations. AHF is proud to present this event as one of the many ways that we educate and empower the local community to join the fight against HIV and AIDS.” To learn more about registering for the walk or run, creating a team, or joining a team, log on to: www.aidswalkatlanta.org. —Reporting by Hank Trout

by Ruby Comer

Adam Fried

Mr.

Ruby Comer: Adam! Wow, so nice to see you again. It’s been a while! [I utter passionately…] Rent…! [He beams.] Thankfully it continues to entertain, educate, and inspire! Has there been any other production that has knocked your socks off? Adam Fried: The most recent Russell T Davies’ series, It’s a Sin, truly hit me like a truck. A group of lovable friends is unaware of what was about to hit them in the

U.K. in the eighties. Oh I just got chills, Adam! How has the AIDS epidemic affected you? Growing up as a young gay man, I had a lot of fear about it. At seventeen, when I came out to my parents [he pauses then loudly enunciates] before they even told me they loved me unconditionally——like our dog!——was their fear surrounding AIDS. Hmmm… [I chuckle.] To quote more accurately, my Dad said, “Look at Rascal [our dog]. Do you think he even knows or cares that you are gay? NO! He loves you no matter what——and so do we.” That’s priceless, Adam. How did…[He politely interrupts]. I have to say Ruby that I consider myself lucky that I haven’t personally had any friends or people in my life who’ve been diagnosed with AIDS, and the few friends I • SEPTEMBER 2021

Ruby illustration by Davidd Batalon; photo by David Muller Photographyi

Fried and I have crossed paths more than once. (Straight away I’ll impart to you: his surname is pronounced as in, “I freed the people,” and has German roots.) Adam, thirty-four, and I were both raised in Ohio; he’s from Dayton, I’m from Columbus. Of course yours truly is slightly older, but not much! His father was in the Air Force so he visited Wright-Patterson Air Force base and their museum many times. (“The best aircraft curation in the country,” he delights.) My father was smitten with the base too, as there was talk that alien beings are being stored there. Yes, it’s true. Also, Adam and I have attended same performances of Broadway Cares in New York, and participated in several AIDS Walks as well. Happiness Adjacent was one of my favorite films of this actor, who’s also a writer, producer, dancer, and singer. The 2017 movie centers on two guys who meet on a seven-day cruise and then carry on a steamy love affair, all while one of them is on the DL, who’s in tow with his wife. The entire film was shot entirely on an iPhone! You could have fooled me. Watch Adam’s stirring performance in this delightul rom-com airing now on Amazon Prime. Adam’s professional training began by attending a summer pre-college intense conservatory theater program, Theatre Cherub, at Northwestern University. Some of his classmates were Kate McKinnon and America Ferrera. He then went to earn a BA in Musical Theatre from Ball State University, then graduated from UCLA in the Professional Program for Acting for the Camera. The thespian has performed on stage regionally and in national tours, working several years in N.Y.C. before moving to L.A. to work in film and television. His one-man show, Misunderstood: An Unrequited Love Story has been performed at the Laurie Beechman Theatre, The Duplex, and New York’s famed Don’t Tell Mama. Adam is founding producer and co-director of Chrysalis Pictures, a nonprofit, which seeks to produce underrepresented voices, offering stories that make the world a better place. They often participate in arts education and other programs that give back to their community. His current project through Chrysalis is creator and head writer on the series Dirty Laundry. Adam is also co-director of the Moving Parts Film Festival (Hollywood’s International Social Justice Film Festival). Currently he’s shooting the upcoming espionage television series, In The Shadows. On the intimate side, Adam’s all-time beloved film is The Wizard of Oz, and his first teen crush? Ethan Embry! Since Mr. Fried lives beachside in scenic Santa Monica, I haul myself out there in “Mother Lincoln,” my 1969 burgundy colored Mark III Continental. This classic “boat” is luscious, even if I say so myself. I meet Adam under a shady palm tree near the Santa Monica pier, sans mask, thank god!

have that are HIV-positive are undetectable and able to manage a healthy and normal life. That’s good news. How did you confront your parents understandable concern? I assured them that it’s a risk for everyone, not just gay people, and it’s not a concern for me as I plan to be safe! They quickly moved to embracing me, but if I’m honest, it took them some time to truly accept me. It was only when I was in college for several years that they inquired if I was dating anyone and started to take an interest. Now… they are Jewish parents who want to be grandparents, so they like to know all the details of my love life! [Adam grins.]

Happiness Adjacent, starring Ian Dick and Adam Fried

So how did you first hear about the epidemic? I first learned about the epidemic while growing up in Dayton. Being a young artist and wanting to pursue acting, many scripts and screenplays at that time touched on characters afflicted with AIDS. I was in middle school when we really dove into the history about it, and later, in sex education class we covered prevention.

photo courtesy Guest House Films

[Thunderbolt! Boom! Bam! Swish! A heavy deafening wave crashes onto the beach.] Wow, where did that come from?! [Adam shoots a stunned glance then continues.] Then of course when I was twelve I saw the national tour of Rent. I remember hearing about AZT as well. While watching the musical, here I was, witnessing a group of New Yorkers all dealing with this very scary and very real disease. It was an iconic moment for me, Ruby. Afterwards, I looked up more about AIDS. The musical also inspired me to pursue an acting career in N.Y.C. I wanted to be like them, but not sick. I moved to New York when I was twenty-four, after having performed in two national musical tours and working in regional theater. It was an exciting time. I was living my dream and performing in the Big Apple! [Adam takes a moment and his dreamy coffee-brown peeps dart upward.] Dating in the Big Apple was also exciting. [A satisfying devilish smile washes over him.] As a Pisces I fall pretty hard, pretty fast. I’m just not wired to be a one-night-stand man. Oh, Ruby, I feel very lucky for my life. That’s so nice to hear. Really. By the time you came of age the cocktails had just been established. Even so, sex still came with risks. How did all this play out for you, Adam? I think sex in general is a wild experience to discover and explore for the first time. I, of course, like any other teenager had raging hormones. I finally fell SEPTEMBER 2021 •

in love during my freshman year of college where I became sexually active. I wasn’t scared at the time [of acquiring HIV]. I was excited! But it wasn’t with a casual stranger; it was a monogamous boyfriend. I think I’ve always been a little more careful about it all. I find it more enjoyable having a connection, as there’s more of a sense of trust there. For me, it’s very intimate and intense pleasure. I like this, Adam. I don’t hear this all that often. It’s almost like a fairytale, but it’s real. You’ve revealed to me before that you first got tested for HIV at twenty-two. Tell me about that. Well, it was in Spanish Harlem. A good friend from college was going to get tested after her wild sexual escapades, and I realized I hadn’t had it done yet, so I went with her. At first it was terrifying. I remember it being even more dramatic because the building we were in waiting for our results, the fire alarm went off. We rushed to the curb of the street and waited for twenty minutes before going back in. It felt like twenty long hours! Fortunately I was safe then, and am happy to report I’m safe now too. Kudos. When you date, Adam, how do you broach the topic of STIs? It’s always brutally awkward to bring up on the first date, but it doesn’t make it any less important. Before our first date, while we’re chatting, I try to make a joke about it getting it out of the way, like a Band-Aid. Honesty is the best, and hopefully the guy I’m interested in is as careful and safe as I am. It’s all an important component in establishing compatibility. Returning to fear, how do you tackle this anxiety? I’ve learned to go for a long hike. When I return, things completely change. Also breathing and meditation help a lot to clear the mind and silence that inner voice. Sometimes it gets out of control and we allow it

to boss us around. Oh boy, can I relate to that one! Sometimes my thoughts go a million miles a second, especially while I’m trying sleep. Ugh. What motivates you to give back? I was taught to give back to those who are less fortunate by my amazing parents. [I nod energetically.] I have also learned that the actors and artists I most respect have been generous with their time, giving back to peers and mentoring those that want to follow in their footsteps. I hope in turn I can inspire others to do the same. [He breaks.] Giving to others just feels good, Ruby, and it’s important to do so, now more than ever, especially after this COVID pandemic. Uh, huh…COVID. What did you learn from this prison sentence? Well, this has certainly been a crazy time in our history! [He shakes his head non-stop, quietly releasing a heavy sigh.] I learned to treasure my friends and family, and the people that matter most in my life. Also…to not sweat the small stuff, and to not take anything for granted. [I nod uproariously in agreement.] Time is our most valuable commodity. I want to accomplish my dreams and not waste a minute of it! [Adam peacefully peers out at the Pacific Ocean then turns to me in urgency.] Mental health is a very important factor, Ruby, and I saw many personal friendships and people crippled by fear and depression from the lockdowns. I’m grateful that I maintained my positive attitude…and my health. Free yourself up and be entertained at Fried’s Instagram @adamfriedla. Ruby Comer is an independent journalist from the Midwest who is happy to call Hollywood her home away from home. Reach her by e-mail at MsRubyComer@aol.com.

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ART & UNDERSTANDING

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by Chael Needle

ACTS OF KINDNESS

A Reflection on the Writing & Activism of Craig G. Harris ntroduced as a supplement to local Albany paper, Metroland, Art & Understanding,the magazine founded by David Waggoner, sought to archive literary and artistic responses to AIDS. The archival aspect became part of the magazine’s mission because writers, artists, and activists were dying from opportunistic infections and other conditions related to AIDS, and yet, by the light of candle-bright vigils, some of them found enough energy to create, using the time they had left. And some were creative in more ways than one——some were not only powerful writers but also powerful activists and advocates, outside of and within institutions. I want to focus on the twining of the two modes of expression because in today’s social media landscape, arguably the dominant way we connect with others, we can easily participate in the displacement of action by words. Social media and television news punditry seems inundated by talk, talk, talk——but where’s the walk? Thoroughly reflect and thoroughly discuss, yes, but then we need to act. Words can sometimes be action——the performative coming out (adding #MeToo to a post, for example)——but mostly words are used to express ideas, experiences, knowledge. But knowledge needs to be translated into action if the world is to truly change for the better. And by change, I mean there needs to be an improved material difference in the lives of people in need. Someone who was adept at words and action, who enjoined them in a marriage of equals, and tapped their ability to dazzle circuits of power, was Craig G. Harris. His work first appeared in the Winter 1992

issue of Art & Understanding——a poem, an essay, posthumous publication. His poem, “No Private Matter,” a mediation on the union of two men, ends: love lasting as the closing couplets of a sonnet, the lingering hint of costly cologne, the tongued Pentecostal flames is not incubated in isolation it achieves fullness in the loosely knotted casement of community. His essay, “Homily,” had been delivered to the Sunday congregation at the Church of St. Mark the Evangelist in New York City on October 7, 1990. In one part of his homily, he describes his educational workshop during the just-concluding 2nd Annual Harlem Week of Prayer. Sent to the Bahá’í Center, he was met with ten members who had come to workshop unprepared to learn about HIV/AIDS but instead to pray for “AIDS victims.” For the congregation, Harris cleverly flips the script on this politically incorrect term: “In New York City alone, there have been 17,413 reported AIDS cases among African Americans and Latinos/as. They are Gay men. They are IV drug users. They are heterosexual men. They are heterosexual women. They are children under the age of 13. They are our co-workers. They are our fellow parishioners. They are our friends. They are our family members. They are children of God who are sick. They are children of God who are suffering.

They are children of God, this time coming in the form of our African American and Latino brothers and sisters——17,413 strong——and they are bringing us a message. “They are not AIDS victims. They are simply people who struggle daily with the manifestations of Human Immunodeficiency Virus infections. But we will be the AIDS victims if we continue to ridicule and torture and resist hearing the message which is being sent through these children of God.” Harris had a powerful voice, whether as a poet, an orator, or an activst. He disrupted the first American Public Health Association (APHA) plenary on HIV/AIDS to protest the exclusion of any people of color, taking the stage and proclaiming, “I will be heard.” He fought for his communities——African American, LGBTQ+, people living with HIV/AIDS. He was a member of Other Countries, the black gay writers collective founded in 1986 and based in New York City. As a journalist, he wrote for The Advocate, the New York Native, and Ebony, among other publications. His short fiction and poetry are included in anthologies such as In the Life: A Black Gay Anthology, Brother to Brother: New Writings by Black Gay Men, Gay Life, New Men New Minds: Breaking Male Tradition, The Road Before Us: 100 Gay Black Poets, and Tongues Untied. In 1986, Craig G. Harris, a son of the South Bronx and Vassar grad, served as the coordinator for the first conference on HIV in the black community, organized by the National Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays, an organization based in Washington, D.C. In the late eighties, he served as the executive director of the Minority Task Force on AIDS in Harlem and also worked for GMHC, where he became Assistant Coordinator of Prevention Education in 1989. He was working on an unpublished volume of AIDS-related poetry, Hope Against Hope, when he died in November 1991 at age thirty-three. Harris reminds me of the important interplay that praxis demands——thoughts (words set down, discussion and dialogue) and action, energized by love. It was certainly evident that Harris loved his brothers and sisters, his romantic partners, his communities, his family, his higher power, and himself. It’s a lesson in love that we should take to heart in today’s disaffected world, where cruelty seems more handy than compassion——Craig G. Harris and his purposeful acts of kindness. Chael Needle is Managing Editor of A&U. Follow him on Twitter @ChaelNeedle. • SEPTEMBER 2021

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LEADING ADVOCATE by Chip Alfred

or more than three decades, David Ernesto Munar has earned his reputation as a visionary leader and a dedicated champion for some of the Windy City’s most vulnerable populations. After working his way up to President and CEO of AIDS Foundation Chicago (AFC), Munar then took on the top spot at Howard Brown Health, the largest LGBTQ healthcare system in the Midwest. He has also established himself as an influential voice for people living with HIV, helping to shape national HIV/AIDS policy during the Obama administration. Yet, despite all of Munar’s accomplishments, he is not driven by rewards or accolades. What motivates the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame inductee goes deeper than any personal or professional triumphs. He says it’s just a part of who he is. “Living with HIV, having the opportunity to work in a nonprofit and to build skills around public policy advocacy and making change happen really crystalized for me that being an HIV activist was the cause I wanted to dedicate my life to. It was an important moment in my life to understand that there was a purpose for me. It’s bigger than a career aspiration or any institution. It is a value that I carry with me.” Munar, fifty-one, was born in Queens, New York, to Colombian immigrant parents. “At a very young age, I knew I was different. I was teased, harassed by bullies for being a sissy, or less of a jock than they were. I knew to hide anything that would confirm their taunts,” he tells A&U. “I remember feeling panic-stricken with my parents in the room hearing anything LGBT or stories about the dawning of the AIDS epidemic in the news on TV.” He has also had body issues throughout his life. “In high school, I was the fat kid on the cross-country team

who became skinny and got to varsity.” He immediately loved running. “It was an escape for me. It helped me with stress, but also with the identity of not being comfortable in my own skin.” Munar is still an avid runner who has completed fourteen marathons to date and numerous half-marathons. After high school, Munar moved to Chicago to attend Northwestern University. He graduated in 1991 with a BA in Hispanic Studies and some practical social justice experience under his belt. Just a few months later, he was hired by AFC as the Administrative Assistant. In 1994, he agreed to participate in a research protocol at Howard Brown that was providing HIV testing for gay men every six months. “I had tested negative six months prior. I had begun dating someone exclusively; he was the only person I had any contact with,” Munar recalls. “He assured me he was negative and got tested regularly, so it was quite a shock when I tested positive. I didn’t believe it.” He asked for repeat testing a few times that year. “It was really a tough time. I was twenty-four in Chicago and alone. Every component of that was a lonely experience. There were no effective treatments then. Working at AFC, I knew about all the experimental treatments that had been celebrated as the pathway to controlling HIV and then failed people. There was a desperation; people were willing to try anything.” He says it took him several months to process it and move towards acceptance. As he moved toward acceptance, he was also moving up the ranks at AFC and garnering national attention. In 2007, he helped launch the Coalition for a National AIDS Strategy, which led to the National HIV/AIDS Strategy unveiled by President Obama in July 2010. The following year, the White House named him a Champion of Change and invited him to speak as the nation commemorated the 30th Anniversary of the HIV/AIDS Epidemic. After that, Munar was invited

photos courtesy Howard Brown Health

David Ernesto Munar, Howard Brown Health CEO and HIV Advocate, Is Leading the Fight Against LGBTQ Health Inequity in Chicago

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to testify before the Democratic National Convention Platform Committee in making a difference. “It’s so gratifying when I hear people say, ‘Wow, this is advance of the 2012 national convention in Charlotte. There he delivered an the first experience where I felt affirmed. I felt like I could confide in my health impassioned plea to the committee to “commit to concrete steps to achieve an care provider, like I had a partner to help me figure this out.’ Whether it’s AIDS-free generation” and asked them to consider his detailed plan on how to transitioning or dealing with a health issue or domestic violence, whatever the make that happen. need is. To the extent that we can amplify that for more than just our patients, Jim Pickett [A&U, April 2021], Senior Director of Prevention, Advocacy, and that’s superlative.” Gay Men’s Health at AFC, was hired in 2004 by Munar, whom he could see was When I asked Munar about what’s next for him, it seems pretty clear this “a national level leader.” Pickett describes his former boss as that rare breed of guy with only two workplaces listed on his LinkedIn profile won’t be adding CEO who is a “policy wonk,” a deft strategist, and a genuine people person all a third anytime soon. There are three major construction projects for Howard rolled into one. “David has a passion for the policy work and understands how Brown on the horizon, and he intends to shepherd all three to completion. to translate it effectively for all kinds of different audiences. He also underThe projects include a new home for the North Halsted clinic, a new LGBT stands that success is about the people around him. He sees value in people community center/Howard Brown clinic with community partners on the South and is able to pinpoint it and help bring out their potential.” Side of Chicago, and a permanent home for the Broadway Youth Center (BYC) In 2014, after twenty-three years at AFC, the opportunity to lead Howard for young people who are experiencing housing instability and homelessness. Brown presented itself. Howard Brown had been struggling financially and “BYC is really important to us because so many LGBTQ young people experithere was a sense among some in the LGBTQ community that the organization ence discrimination, stigma and harm in their schools, in their communities, was out of touch with the people it serves. In an interview with Windy City Times before he accepted the position, Munar stated, “I’m thrilled that we’ve crossed the barrier to marriage equality, but there’s no equality without health. If you’re sick and you’re out of the system, you’re not equal. We can’t for a moment believe that the lives of LGBTQ people have been forever improved. Not without racial justice, ethnic justice, economic justice, and assistance for the poor.” Munar knew he would be taking on a challenging role, but it was one that would allow him to effect change on a larger scale for LGBTQ people in Chicago. “When I joined Howard Brown it was two clinics, a youth program in the basement of a church, and about 7,500 patients,” he says. Under Munar’s leadership, after shoring up the organization’s financial situation and securing Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) status in 2015, federal resources were coming in that allowed Howard Brown to thrive and grow. “The community responded. We saw an enormous demand for healthcare. Our community was desperate for quality healthcare services that it could rely on. From 2015 to 2019, we grew to Breaking ground at the new Broadway Youth Center twelve clinics spanning twenty miles, and we were strategic in opening clinics in communities of color.” Howard Brown now sees between 35,000 and 40,000 patients. With more than 700 full-time in their religious organizations, and even in their homes.” Munar adds, “These staff members and an annual operating budget exceeding $150 million, it is three projects will help the organization fulfill its mission for the next fifty years one of the nation’s largest LGBTQ organizations. and that’s going to be its legacy of service to the community.” “Howard Brown Health exists because there is a dearth of culturally As for his own legacy of service, David Ernesto Munar takes a moment to competent care or even respect for our community at many other health reflect on his past before pondering his impact on the future. “I had to navisystems,” Munar explains. “In fact, the more we look, the more we find how gate a world as an adolescent where I did not have adults or peers to support poorly prepared many health systems are to provide high-quality healthcare me. I was a young person living with HIV and scared to death. It’s my hope that to segments of the LGBTQ community, including people affected by HIV. We’re I can make things like coming out and moving through the world as an LGBTQ focused on modeling the kind of care that we want for LGBTQ people and person or as a person who is affected by HIV or as a person who is living with trying to influence our peers to change their practices through our education, HIV better than it was for me.” advocacy and research programs.” For the patients at Howard Brown, Munar says, “We want to see our For more about Howard Brown Health, visit: www.howardbrown.org. For more about patients achieve the best health possible for themselves and to reduce the disAIDS Foundation Chicago, visit: www.aidschicago.org tractions of illness and poor health on their ability to thrive. Health inequality is not biological, it’s all social. It’s the effects of trauma, stigma, and discriminaChip Alfred is A&U’s Editor at Large, a public speaker, and a media and public tion. To the extent that we can mitigate those inequities, we can allow LGBTQ relations consultant based in Philadelphia. Follow Chip on Facebook @ https://www. people the space and the energy to pursue their dreams, their careers, and to care for their families.” Munar is encouraged to see that Howard Brown is facebook.com/chip.alfred.5. SEPTEMBER 2021 •

Comic Velocity Artist & Curator Paul Sammut Brings Us Up to Speed about HIV & AIDS in Comics by Chael Needle

Inés Ixierda & Clio Sady, Legalize Positivity (cover), 2020. Mel Rattue, Strutting to Stop Stigma (cover), 2020. Carlo Quispe, Paco (cover), 2020. A. Andrews & J. Amaro, Just a Pill? (cover), 2020.

ow have artists and activists used comics to create and shape conversations about HIV and AIDS? That’s the question London-based artist Paul Sammut answered in an exhibit that he curated for Visual AIDS.

“Comic Velocity: HIV & AIDS in Comics” showcased a selection of items from the UK HIV/AIDS Graphic Communication Archive, and comics/sequential art by Alison Bechdel; Howard Cruse; Jennifer Camper; Kate Charlesworth; Chris Companik; Jon Eikenberg; Gilbert Hernandez; Bruce Rapp; James Romberger, Marguerite Van Cook, and David Wojnarowicz; Carlos Sánchez Becerra; David Shenton; Michael Slocum and many others. The art ranged from the informative (safer sex pamphlets) to the expressive (Jon Eikenberg’s “The Endearing End of Emmett”) and it mixed established forms (Marvel Comics) with emerging ones (zines). Notes Sammut, who recently earned a Sequential Design MA at the University of Brighton, where his reseach focused on suburban LGBTQ+ histories: “The exhibition title, ‘Comic Velocity,’ borrows the term ‘velocity’ from academic Ramzi Fawaz, who has used it to describe variations in emotional intensity conveyed through comics. These emotions can be communicated through the form of a comic, from the ordered formula of a newspaper gag strip to expansive super-heroic double page spreads, and to varying ends; educational strips tend towards order and regularity, but sometimes use humor and melodrama to entertain and engage, while biographical stories

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Kate Charlesworth, Life, The Universe & (Almost) Everything #122, 1991.

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David Wojnarowicz, James Romberger and Marguerite Van Cook, 7 Miles a Second, 1996

depend on personal experience, from the light and anecdotal (e.g., Zander Alexander, PWA by Michael Slocum) to the intense and angry (e.g., graphic memoir 7 Miles a Second by David Wojnarovicz, James Romberger and Marguerite Van Cook).” And, alongside this emotional gear-shifting, the exhibit’s introductory text reminds that the medium is characterized by “democracy, accessibility and immediacy,” much-needed attributes when communicating about HIV/AIDS. The exhibit at PS122 Gallery in Manhattan ran from June 11–July 11, 2021. Visual AIDS has now published Comic Velocity: HIV & AIDS in Comics, an illustrated publication that examines and celebrates a diversity of responses to the pandemic. Notes Sammut: “The publication is not an exhibition catalogue, but is intended to stand alone. It includes some works that aren’t in the exhibition alongside some texts——an essay by comics creator Leonard Rifas about AIDS educational comics from 1991, and new texts by comics scholar Margaret Galvan, interdisciplinary artist Alexandro Segade, and an overview by myself, so hopefully it will exist as a reference point in itself.” This is not the first time Sammut has done curatorial and arts-publishing work. Sammut has worked with curator Alexandra Terry under the name P.A.S.T. Projects and run the project space White Cubicle (2012–2017). Currently, he is a member of the queer publishing platform Strange Perfume and his own work has been published under the imprint Valletta House. A&U recently had a chance to correspond with the artist and curator. Chael Needle: What was the impetus for the exhibit? Paul Sammut: There were quite a few reasons why I wanted to organize the exhibition. I’ve loved the work that Visual AIDS are doing for quite a while now and they have an annual open call for curatorial proposals. When I saw it come up again I was finishing my MA and thought, well, this makes sense: a show about David Shenton, Controlled Hysteria (1987)

comics and HIV/AIDS. I want to be useful in my art projects and thought that showing comics in a context of a contemporary art organization would open up new audiences to Visual AIDS, and to the amazing work that cartoonists and comic artists have been doing for years. Robert Walker, O+Men, Issue #1, 2008 I really believe in looking back to find new ways forward and, as a queer person, as a sick person and as an introvert, I can see how the world still doesn’t work for many of us, so I love spending time researching in archives finding out about how people have lived before. Those marginal voices have existed and we can learn from them to find better, more inclusive ways of living now and in the future. This is all to say that I’m a massive nerd and I’d already been collecting and researching historical queer comics, and looking at queer histories, of which HIV/AIDS is a huge part, and this exhibition seemed to be a good opportunity to continue learning while

doing something useful. I thought that looking at comics that engage with AIDS would highlight some amazing work by artists that I love, outside of the circles that have already been exploring it (mainly academia and specifically the queer comics community) and demonstrate what comics can do, exploring this serious subject matter in so many ways, with multiple viewpoints. Those multiple viewpoints are important to present a project that doesn’t speak for, but of, other people and their experiences.

In what ways did you see those multiple viewpoints converging and diverging in the comics? The exhibition was organized to present multiple viewpoints with the aim of allowing each artist to speak for themselves through their work. So, for example, the show was not structured chronologically, and while there are some groupings, works are placed next to very different projects to highlight similarities and differences. An example of this would be two adjoining vitrines that include comics published by and for people with HIV and AIDS in Newsline and A&U. In one vitrine

• SEPTEMBER 2021

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we have a selection of issues of Newsline displaying Jennifer Camper, Bearing Angry Witness, 1993. and A. Andrews (Just a Pill?), Inés Ixierda comics by Michael Slocum who establishes a & Clio Sady (Legalize Positivity), Carlo lightness in his strips with loose, floating panels. Quispe (Paco), and Mel Rattue (Strutting The connecting vitrine includes issues of A&U with comics by Chris Companik and to Stop Stigma) really show what comics can do to highlight the issues Jon Eikenberg; Companik’s comics, HIV + Me, utilize defined panels and bright that affect people living with and at risk for acquiring HIV, like HIV crimisuperhero-style colors whereas Eikenberg’s strip The Endearing End of Emmet is nalization and what is means to “live well” with HIV, among others. Why confined to one short block or panel of detailed black and white drawing. Even at first did you decide to commission four new projects? glance it’s clear that these three people living with AIDS are using the same medium Commissioning new projects was really important for me from the outset. Part but expressing things in quite different ways. of Visual AIDS’ mission is to address the fact that the AIDS pandemic is ongoing and What did you learn in the process of curating this exhibit? I felt that this should be incorporated into the project. I knew there was all this great I’ve learned so much while working on this project, not least about a number of historical material, and so that needed to be balanced by foregrounding some new amazing comics artists. We had to adapt the project (which was supposed to open last work exploring current issues related to AIDS. Working with the artists on their projects year) because of COVID, which meant thinking of new ways to get the work out there. was really interesting, some hadn’t made comics before, but I think they all produced I’m not so Internet-focused and prefer working with physical publications, but we built useful and worthwhile new works, which, thanks in part to funding from The New York a web platform for the new commissions with the help of Hugh Frost, who runs the Community Trust DIFFA Fund, we were able to share online and print in small format publisher Landfill Editions in the U.K. and had received funding to create an online versions to be distributed for free, mimicking the distribution of projects like the publication of comics a few years ago. We also decided to produce some podcasts in lieu of physical events to promote the new works. I’ve mostly worked in quite a DIY GMHC Safer Sex Comix of the 1980s. way in the past, but it was brilliant working alongside the people at Visual AIDS. It’s genuinely been a real privilege to work with so many people on this project, many of For more information about Visual AIDS, log on to: visualaids.org. Comic Velocity: HIV & AIDS whom were already heroes of mine, and their generosity has been really amazing, in Comics may be ordered at: visualaids.org/store. in terms of sharing stories and putting me in touch with other people. I’ve also, obviously, learned more about HIV and AIDS, too, through the work and also through For more information about Paul Sammut, visit: https://paulsammut.co.uk. the people we’ve worked with. The new work you commissioned as part of Strip AIDS 2020 (and made available as free take-aways for “Comic Velocity”) is so engaging. J. Amaro SEPTEMBER 2021 •

Chael Needle writes the Art & Understanding column, a look back at thirty years of A&U magazine.

Shaping Their Own Narrative An HBO Documentary, The Legend of the Underground, Creates a Compelling Portrait of Micheal Ighodaro and Other Nigerian LGBTQ+ & HIV Activists by Hank Trout

he emigrated from Nigeria to the United States where, with the help of the ASO Housing Works, he was granted asylum. Living in the U.S. has led Micheal to professional roles where he promotes and fights for the rights of the global gay community. He works as an Assistant Professor of LGBTI Studies at The New School and is an LGBTQ+ activist and an advocate for HIV prevention through AVAC, the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, a network of nearly seventy countries, mostly in Africa, which works to accelerate the production and delivery of HIV prevention medications. In 2015, he was honored by the White House, under the administration of President Barack Obama, for his global LGBTQ+ advocacy. The Legend of the Underground premiered at the 2021 Tribeca Film Festival and was released on HBO and HBO Max on Tuesday, June 29, 2021. A&U corresponded with Micheal Ighodaro about his life and his activism.

photos by HBO Documentary Films

n 2013, the government of Nigeria enacted the “Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Bill,” a vehemently anti-LGBTQ law that, under current president, Muhammadu Buhari, who took office on May 29, 2015, has been used to harass, imprison, and extort members of the LGBTQ community and has given rise to unconscionable acts of violence against the community. In one egregious example from 2018, fifty-seven young men attended a private party of friends in Lagos. The police, alerted to the party, raided the private home and arrested all of the men present, charging them with being homosexuals. The Legend of the Underground, a new HBO documentary directed by Nneka Onuorah and Giselle Bailey, and executive produced by Mike Jackson, John Legend, Ty Stiklorius and Austyn Biggers of Get Lifted Film Co., takes an unflinching look at the lives of young LGBTQ people in Nigeria. One stand-out in the film is James Brown, a flamboyant gender-nonconforming dancer and performer who was among those fifty-seven arrested at a private party and turned his arrest into cause celeb activism. The documentary gives us a glimpse of a new Nigerian generation that uses social media, underground radio, and any other resources at their disposal to fight for their rights of personal expression, hoping to spark a cultural revolution to challenge the ideas of gender, conformity, and civil rights. The other main focus of the documentary is Micheal Ighodaro, an HIV-positive Nigerian expat and activist who now lives in New York City. Micheal’s parents forced him out of their house when he came out at age fourteen. (His father: “We can’t have someone who’s gay living in the house.”) Like many young LGBTQ folks who are forced out of their homes and onto the streets, Micheal turned to sex work to survive. The sex work led to Micheal’s diagnosis with HIV. In 2012, after delivering an address at the International AIDS Society biannual conference, an article in the Washington Post carried a story about his address; the story was picked up by Nigerian press, distorted and used as a weapon against Micheal. He endured a savage beating shortly after the article appeared. Out of self-preservation,

Hank Trout: You wrote in The Body in 2015 that “I knew I was gay when I was seven years old.” Knowing that, what was it like growing up in Nigeria? Before coming out, did you have other gay friends in school? Micheal Ighodaro: My parents were both very conservative, so I didn’t have so much fun as a kid. I spent most of my time at school or at home in my room. But the little time I had with my grandma was the best part of my time at home. At school, we didn’t really know if we were gay or not; we were just really interested in playing in girl’s clothes and having girls as our friends. When you asked your mother the definition of “gay,” she said, “It means evil” and began taking you to church elders and witch doctors to “cure” you. Can you describe that experience? How did these church elders and witch doctors try to cure you? How did you resist? How did those experiences shape your later life of activism? What did you learn from those experiences that • SEPTEMBER 2021

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made you a better activist? I feel I am still very traumatized by the experience I had undergoing what is now known as conversion therapy. I fasted for days at church, prayed and even cried for God to just help me. I was a kid who did not understand what was going on. The experience I had undergoing those humanly degrading experiences shaped the rest of my teenage years, as it turned out to just be the beginning. If anything is evil, it is conversation therapy. It is like asking you to rip off the color of your skin, to change the color of your blood, or to decide how you get into this world. So yes, it was and it is an evil experience that human beings should not be made to go through. And anyone who does that to someone else should not only be condemned but also criminalized. When you were fourteen, your father said, “We can’t have someone who’s gay living in the house” and forced you to leave home.

When did you receive your HIV diagnosis? What led you to get tested at that time? Whom did you turn to for help in coping with the diagnosis? How did the HIV/AIDS organizations in Africa help you? I got tested because I was scared of dying. I did not want to end up just like many of my friends. I was working as an HIV counselor at an LGBTQI clinic in Nigeria; I was counseling gay men who had just found out they were HIV-positive. That was always more devastating for them than being outed as a gay man. Most of them had lost everything, and all that they had left was the gay community. Being HIV-positive was highly and still is very stigmatized in most African countries, and across the globe. I was afraid initially, but I found a way to get over my fear and confirm what I had already thought was a possibility. It changed my activism. I was no longer just fighting to be safe; I was now fighting to stay alive and make sure my friends understood what they could do to protect themselves from getting infected. That drive led me to AVAC, where I currently work as a Program Manager. AVAC is an HIV prevention advocacy organization. AVAC advocates to end AIDS by working to accelerate the ethical development and global delivery of HIV prevention options as part of a comprehensive and integrated response to the epidemic. When the Washington Post wrote about your speech at the 2012 International AIDS Society’s conference, Nigerian newspapers also picked up the story but distorted it, which led to your being savagely beaten and your decision to move to the U.S. and seek asylum. Can you describe that period in your life, before coming to the U.S., working with HIV/AIDS organizations around Africa while still living in fear? Did your activism increase the danger you faced? I had been an activist since even before I knew what the word “activist” meant. I guess you can say I have been in danger all my life just because of who I am and just because I am fighting to be able to live as I am.

Can you describe that period in your life? Did you receive any assistance from social service organizations? I was actually very happy when I was asked to leave, although that was stupid of me. But I felt “free”; mentally to be truly me, to leave on my own terms. The only problem was that I was just a kid who had no money and who should’ve been in school, not making drastic life decisions. There were no organizations at that time that provided social services for teenagers. I ended up in the streets where I found my true family.

With the help of Housing Works in New York City, you applied for and were granted asylum in the U.S. in just a few months. As you know, the asylum process usually takes a year or more to complete. Why, do you think, was your asylum process so shortened? Do you have any advice for other HIV-positive asylum seekers? My case was at the time all across major media outlets; that made it a bit easier. The process shouldn’t be as complicated and difficult as it is right now. We need a major reform in terms of how America welcomes and accepts LGBTQI asylum seekers. My advice for anyone coming to the U.S. as a refugee or asylum seeker is to research how the process works and to get help as early as possible. There are several organizations that offer support to LGBTQI asylum seekers like Housing Works, Immigration Equality, GBGMC [Global Black Gay Men Connect], etc. You told The Independent in 2017, “In Nigeria I was attacked because I’m gay, here I’m scared because I’m black. I never thought I was black until I moved to the U.S. My skin colour never occurred to me. It was a cultural shock that being gay wasn’t the issue anymore.” Four years have passed since then. Have things changed for you? Gotten better, or worse? How has systemic racism in the U.S. affected your HIV/AIDS advocacy work? • SEPTEMBER 2021

I wish it has gotten better. If anything, it is that it is no longer a cultural shock, because I am now part of the culture. I am a Black man in America in 2021. I am also part of the first generation of African LGBTQI immigrants to the U.S. I am not just Black, I am gay. So I live in a country where I am made to know that this country doesn’t belong to me or my brothers and sisters who were stolen from their homes and who built this country from the ground, but that It belongs to white people who stole the land. So, yes, I am learning every day. James Brown, one of the fifty-seven men arrested at a private party in 2018, used his arrest to become more active and vocal in the LGBTQ community. Have you kept in touch with him? Is he still in Nigeria? Has he continued his activism? James is a close friend of mine. I love them so much. They have so much to be proud of and I cannot wait for the world to see them for who they really are. James will always shine bright in my heart. You wrote in The Body, for International Human Rights Day in 2015, “As an openly gay man coming from a country like mine, I can tell you first-hand that without addressing human rights we cannot address HIV.” Please elaborate. How do human rights violations impact our HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment work? SEPTEMBER 2021 •

We cannot end AIDS without addressing structural barriers. We have enough data to show us that the reason why people are still getting infected and dying from HIV today is because of structural and social issues. So, until we address those issues and fully fund communities who know best how to address these issues, we will not end AIDS. Finally, why did you agree to participate in this HBO documentary? What do you hope the documentary will accomplish? I wanted to tell my story. I believe in the power of storytelling. We have so much more to tell. This is just the beginning. I hope people see this and get inspired and get angry and act. We have created an emergency response program for anyone who feels moved and wants to donate to the movement in Nigeria. Please donate here: https://bit.ly/3rqK1gV. Also, I hope that we can tell more of our stories not just in Nigeria but from across the continent of Africa. We want our own POSE, etc. We want to begin to shape our own narrative. The Legend of the Underground can be viewed on HBO MAX. You can View the trailer here: https://www.hbo.com/documentaries/the-legend-of-the-underground). For more information on AVAC, log on to www.avac.org. Senior Editor Hank Trout interviewed writer Brian Malloy for the August issue.

IMPACTFUL

words Steven Reigns Discusses Why He Needed to Write A Quilt for David and Try to Reverse a Wrong for a Maligned Dentist by Chael Needle

Photographed Exclusively for A&U by Tommy Wu

• SEPTEMBER 2021 • AUGUST 2021

SEPTEMBER JULY 2021 • 2021 •

mix of supposition and stereotype quickly cemented into fact. Kimberly Bergalis and seven other patients accused dentist David Acer of infecting them with HIV through in-office procedures in the mid to late eighties. They offered no substantial evidence and yet they were able to convince others that their claims were sound, based primarily on the fact that they did not fit the dominant HIV transmission narrative. Dr. Acer was a gay man and living with HIV; his body vulnerable to OIs, including Kaposi sarcoma. These few details were enough for the news media that descended on the doctor’s and patients’ small conservative Flordia town. Enough for attorneys, insurers, and even Congress to become involved. They listened without ever investigating what happened with any impartiality. Bergalis died a hero; Dr. David Acer died a scapegoat, a villain, a monster. In his new book-length poem, A Quilt for David (City Lights Publishers), writer and educator Steven Reigns seeks to return to David his dignity and explore the social constructs that allowed him to be stigmatized: straight female “innocence” is lauded while gay men are worthy of punishment as “vectors of disease.” In one poem, Reigns writes:

David said hiding his diagnosis was “lonely and isolating.” He used an alias at doctor’s offices hours away from his home. Kimberly, secretly sexually active, points her finger at David.

In the preface to A Quilt for David, Reigns explains his use of the medium of poetry: “I decided to tell David’s story as a way to counter the treachery of his end of life. Poetry wasn’t just my beloved form of writing; it felt the best way to assemble the sparse information that existed without adding speculative details. The discrediting facts about the dental infection story were overridden by public emotions elicited by Kimberly’s narrative. Poetry and poetic language compel our emotions. What if, through poetry, I could offer an equally empathetic and compassionate view of David?” Reigns, who has a private practice as a psychotherapist, and knows much about the balancing of feelings and facts, offers a compelling counternarrative. A Quilt for David itself is assiduously researched (the book includes pages of citations), yet the writing showcases small, human moments and poses questions that try to get to the heart of the matter. It is a testimonial that the public needs to hear because accusations are often louder and longer-lasting than the truth. Consider this fact included in the poem: “There have been no other / documented cases of / dentist to patient transmission.” Reigns has often turned to writing as a way to build community and it’s no wonder he was appointed the first Poet Laureate of West Hollywood. He developed and runs the first-ever autobiographical poetry workshop for LGBT seniors and edited an anthology of their work, titled My Life Is Poetry. He is the author of a dozen chapbooks and the collections Inheritance and Your Dead Body is My Welcome Mat. He also started The Gay Rub, and the first and last pages of A Quilt for David feature a rubbing of David Acer’s grave. Asked to

• SEPTEMBER 2021

describe The Gay Rub, Reigns responded: ”The Gay Rub is an art project I started eight years ago that is a collection of rubbings from LGBTQ plaques and markers from all over the world. There are 350 rubbings that have been exhibited at universities and galleries across the country and it was the subject of an award-winning short documentary by Michael Saul. The exhibition’s purpose is to educate and give attention to historic commemorative markers. The name is a bit cheeky and attention-grabbing. Rub can mean social friction, truth, and short for rubbing. It can also mean erased, like so many LGBTQ events and people have been rubbed out of history.” In addition to writing and teaching, Reigns has also worked in the HIV field for a decade as an HIV Test Counselor and Educator, certified in both Florida and California. He started in Florida where he conducted testing across multiple sites, including bars, clubs, and detention centers. Later, he ran a program for high-risk youth. In California, he coordinated a rapid testing program for a community clinic. He has also presented at national conferences. A&U corresponded with Steven Reigns about writing A Quilt for David. Chael Needle: Congratulations on the book. I couldn’t put it down. How does it feel to finally be able to share it with the world? Steven Reigns: This project has always felt important and urgent to me. The research and writing took ten years and throughout that time I felt the pressure to get the story right. News from then was riddled with AIDSphobia and homophobia. It was a time where widespread support and sympathy were given to those with “acceptable” modes of transmission. There is still quite a bit of shame and stigma but it was significantly worse then and combined with lack of information. I’m pleased to hear you liked it. This book appropriately humanizes David Acer. That hasn’t been done before. Could you talk a little bit about your process over the ten years? How did the book evolve over time? This project started when I remembered [coming home from school] in the eighth grade and seeing a young woman on A Current Affair and Inside Edition. She said she was a virgin and got HIV from her dentist. [To fill in the memory] I started Googling to find out what happened. I wasn’t encountering balanced information and kept diving into more research to get answers. I ended up traveled numerous times to Florida to interview people, pull court records, do research at the local library. During the first part of research and throughout it, I would write poetry and prose about what I was discovering and feeling. Writing in this documentary poetry style was thrilling and I was also propelled by knowing the work was a reinvestigation that might get to a greater truth about what happened. It is easy to see how research informed the poems—with facts about Acer and Bergalis, for example, prompting ruminations and imagery. How did you confront the challenge presented by the fact that there is more documented information about Bergalis? The media made a monster out

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of David Acer and every detail given was turned and twisted into something spurious. Friends and family found it painful to think back on that time and were cautious about talking to someone again. Thankfully some did talk with me and I learned about him giving patients theater tickets, discounting dental work for someone on hard times, playing tennis with friends, and one friend told a touching story of how David took the underprivileged kids she worked with out on his boat for a day. One of the sad stories I encountered was how David tried to treat his Kaposi sarcoma himself by using a painful electrocautery on the roof of his mouth. Thankfully there was enough scraps of information in my yards of research to help assemble these patchwork poems into a quilt that honors him. It’s interesting to read articles from that time and the favoritism the media had for Bergalis. Lisa Shoemaker was one of Acer’s accusers and did not receive the same airtime or treatment as Bergalis. Shoemaker was given a disparaging moniker making fun of her past employment. At the time she came forward she gained weight due to meds. She wasn’t as “camera ready” as Bergalis and she also wasn’t claiming to be a virgin. She did not receive the exorbitant financial compensation Bergalis or Barbara Webb [another accuser] received. She’s still living and does HIV education in schools. Her volunteering to do educational HIV work, in my mind, makes her more worthy of having a beach named after her. As opposed to Kimberly who lobbied for discriminatory legislation that would demand HIV-positive healthcare workers disclose to their patients. This would have impacted the livelihood of HIV-positive people in helping professions. As you write, Lisa Shoemaker “offered her truth, not a mythology” and so she didn’t receive the ready-made adulation a large part of our society reserves for the “right” advocates, sorted (in an HIV/ AIDS-related context) into what one might call “compassion categories,” with “innocent” and “pure” at the top of his hierarchy. You write about the public support that Bergalis and Barbara Webb received: “As gay men died alone in hospices, hospitals, and homes across the country, people wanted to save these two women.” Did not the claims by Bergalis and others draw the attention of AIDS activists or a more balanced response from the LGBTQ+ media? I found almost nothing that challenged claims or offered a more balanced approach. As I state in the book, the buffering lan-

guage of “alleged” was not used by Bergalis’s lawyer or others. It was stated as a fact. In 1991, there was a strong tabloid magazine culture and trash talk shows. The public was getting fed terrible reporting and messaging. In such a hysterical and heightened state, it must have been hard to look critically at the situation. Those who did were clearly not in the press or in power. I think it’s helpful to have someone within the gay community, like myself, to examine what happened. There is a book whose entire premise is that David was a serial killer. The author proposes this because David had a “double life” of traveling to other cities to be social. This is what closeted gay men living in small cities did to survive. Even if there were out gay friends to defend David at that time, they would have been subjected to the onslaught of public opinion. An employee who worked for David told me there were news vans parked outside her house for weeks. David’s parents moved into his home to care for him and stayed there after he died. A friend of theirs told me how he had dinner with them one evening and would hear the harassing messages as they came in on the answering machine. He said David’s mom once showed him the pile of disparaging letters she received that week. Speaking of Bergalis’ push to legislate disclosure of healthcare workers living with HIV and your books' mention of Jesse Helms’ urge to have people like Acer horsewhipped reminds me we still live with stigmatizing HIV criminalization laws based on outdated science and ideas about the rights of people living with HIV/ AIDS (though thankfully activists are steadily changing these). What is your sense of this societal need to stigmatize and punish those constructed as Others? Is it still as intense or have we made any progress to lessen this animus? In the mid-eighties we had the public disclosures of Ryan White, the Ray brothers, and Arthur Ashe. All of these transmissions were from blood transfusions, and this helped soften the public’s perception but mainstream empathy did not extend beyond these “innocent” transmissions. There is so much hostility to differentness. Americans have a hard time sitting with uncomfortable feelings. We want quick answers, easy narratives, and categories of good or bad. It’s harder to sit with the unknown or difficult. Instead, the easier option of villainizing happens. The story at the time was a diseased gay man ruined the life of an innocent virgin, a grandma, and some other people. “It’s harder to sit with the unknown or difficult”——that makes a lot of sense. The form you chose——a book-length poem——allows the reader to “sit with the unknown or difficult.” In the introduction to this interview, I quoted your reason for choosing poetry, but, once you did decide on the medium, why did it make sense to you to compose shorter prose poems and free verse? In terms of form, I’ve never been a poet that plays around with the topography of a poem. I don’t use extended spaces or moving margins. A line break in a poem is to give a pause. I used this end-stop to allow an emotional experience to set in. Not to rush to the next word or sentiment. We are left with that one line, standing on its own for our full attention. However, some pieces felt more suited for prose poetry, to be without line breaks, so the form resembles traditional reportage. In terms of subject matter, the public reaction and unquestioned accusations of Acer’s accusers seemed fueled only by emotions. What if, through these patchwork poems, I help elicit emotions for David and tell a bigger story. Poetry is the language of our emotions. I’m in hopes that, through the poems and prose poetry, I give an understanding and empathic view into the life of David Acer and this horrible situation. There were no features on David or personal interviews from his family or loved ones. I hope this book humanizes him and has readers recontinues on page 43 SEPTEMBER 2021 •

DOCTOR’S ORDERS

Spirited Physician Jack O'Brien Prescribes a Point-Blank Approach for HIV Prevention by Dann Dulin

Photo by Craig Macleod

Dr.

Jack O’Brien was born on the same day as the Virgin Mary, 8th September. But the year was 18 BCE and Dr. O’Brien wasn’t born until 1989 CE. “We share nothing except the same day of birth,” wisecracks the medical doctor. The similarities stop there. Well…kind of.

If you regard the Virgin Mary as a humanitarian (her son certainly) then the parallel continues. Dr. O’Brien, an attending physician specializing in HIV, is also a researcher, and a bit of a trendsetter. While in residency he oftimes became a “social worker,” setting up patients with free care and housing. During this time he set up a PrEP Program at Jersey City’s Christ Hospital, and implemented initiatives for other medical students, including how to counsel their patients living with HIV. As president of the LGBTQ+ Medical Club while attending SUNY Binghamton, Jack organized HIV clinical training, and promoted and pioneered medical health for the gay community. On World AIDS Day 2017, O’Brien was the Keynote Speaker in Jersey City, NJ, where he stridently proclaimed, “Together…condoms + PrEP work!” On that day he continued: “Within the past few years, the adoption and widespread use of PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis, amongst those who are most at risk, is now aiding in another barrier against those who are negative with staying negative. I would like to proudly before all of you state that I am taking PrEP myself, and I firmly believe that it is the key to making the U.S.A. AIDS-free. “….Healthcare is a human right, and I am dedicated to treating everyone equally regardless of their socioeconomic status, gender identity, sexual orientation, race, or religion.… It is my goal as a primary care provider to ensure that these patients have proper prevention of diseases that are indeed preventable, which now includes HIV. However, the key to staying HIV and AIDS free is right here, right in my hands. Let’s make America AIDS free, one pill at a time.” With that, Jack then stepped down from the podium and gleefully popped a PrEP pill in front of the whole crowd. The Jersey City assembly was a victory and he felt honored to be there, explaining to the audience that HIV is being squashed in their area, due in large part to their advocacy. Board-certified in Family Medicine, Jack graduated in 2016

from New York Institute of Technology (NYIT, or commonly known as New York Tech), located in Old Westbury, Long Island, with a Doctor of Osteopath (DO) degree. This professional integrates his practice with a holistic approach, treating the person as a whole being——blending Eastern with Western philosophy, if you will. Jack was raised in Onondaga County, New York in the wee town of Lafayette, a suburb of Syracuse. With a population of 4,000, it has one McDonald's and one traffic light. “A po-dunk town,” he flippantly states then adds, “It was a shotgun-in-theback-window with a Confederate flag on your pickup-truck kind of place.” Though one might think he’s of Irish ancestry, Jack boasts that he’s an “American Mutt,” with strong Italian bloodlines. He is the first person in his family to enter the medical profession. Jack, who’s extremely close to his family and credits them for creating the successful person he’s become, came out to them at sixteen——and was fully supported. They straight away told him they loved him. But, mom and dad had one fear, Jack contracting the virus that causes AIDS. In 2003, their reaction was not surprising, especially hailing from a rural area. “Any STI seemed quite foreign and intangible to them,” Jack points out. Even for himself, Jack only knew about HIV and AIDS in an abstract context from books, and he surely never encountered anyone else who was openly gay in his tiny habitat. It wasn’t until he was seventeen that condoms were even mentioned and that was spoken strictly in terms of pregnancy. Given those facts, his parents’ only knowledge of the epidemic was that if you’re gay, you die. In his youth he was a Level 10 Junior Olympic Gymnast. (In 2011 when Jack moved to New York City, he began to coach recreational gymnastics full time, his students ranging in age from twelve months to fifty-five years.) From ages eleven to sixteen, a close family member sexually abused Jack. In summer 2019, before he moved out to the West Coast for a new position, he revealed this secret to his parents. He then learned that his dad was also sexually abused as a child. Unfortunately, Jack’s first boyfriend was also abusive. Thanks to therapy, he’s worked through the pain and healed it into a strong sense of empathy for his patients going through similar horrors. “No one deserves this type of treatment, ever,” he exclaims. O’Brien has supported the global nonprofit Survive To Thrive, helping those who’ve suffered abuse, and, with his father, the McMahon Ryan Project that specifically provides aid to children who have survived abuse. O’Brien’s attractiveness goes beyond his leading man • SEPTEMBER 2021

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looks. His bright, brimming personality and sharp humor is seductive, which towers over a childlike mischievousness that is adventure driven. Jack’s playful nature encompasses donning drag as “Cher Whoreowitz” for an office Halloween party, to purchasing an airline ticket to Puerto Vallarta two hours before boarding, to cooking bacon and eggs in the morning completely naked, but then regretting it the second a few splats of grease flies onto his body! The guy possesses a morsel of wicked humor and is deliriously up for fun and frivolity, which certainly provides bedrock to a taxing physician’s schedule. When out for a rousing evening with friends, they may refer to him as “Porsche Authority,” a cool drag name he invented. Deriving joy from spontaneity, on a recent whim Jack braved the wild blue yonder and went skydiving. And yet another adventure he had his heart set on was riding in AIDS/LifeCycle, but COVID halted that ambition...for

substantial section diving into his relationships that were wholly maintained around the “need to stay monogamous for fear of acquiring HIV.” Another COVID offshoot is in the therapeutic and meditative realm. Jack made a 180-degree shift from his original linear plan and delineated trajectory into a more fluid journey. His motto nowadays, “‘I’m living as large as I can’ …as Big Ang [Mob Wives star] would say——of course according to C.D.C. recommended guidelines——because I could drop dead tomorrow.” Jack is now living life with greater conviction. It’s mid-evening and Jack appears on my computer screen dressed down in a chocolate brown Aeropostale hoodie, postured on a dark navy blue sofa with two tasseled pillows, one mustard colored and the other eggshell, planted directly behind him. My instant focus gravitates to the man’s radiant skin and his natural rosy cheeks that could have been brushed by Renoir himself. Jack sports close-cropped whiskers and ‘stache. One swiftly learns by conversing with Jack that he’s totally transparent, his life an open book. Jack’s dedication to his own health and vibrancy is a superior indication of practicing what he preaches. He has the down home charm of Marcus Welby, MD, the titular character of a classic sixties TV series, played by the incomparable Robert Young, and the stalwart take-charge attitude of Dr. Max Goodwin, played by the striking Ryan Eggold on the current medical series, New Amsterdam. Dr. Jack has had a chock-full schedule today, but remains cheery, calm, collected, and at times, cheeky. Dann Dulin: I like your off-the-cuff manner, Jack, and I’m keen on your drag name, “Porsche Authority!” So you’ve donned female attire a few times, what does it do for you? Jack O’Brien, DO: Drag is pure escapism. It allows you to access all of the things that you want to actually do without any of the emotional weight of it being attached to your “true” self. It’s fun, carefree, and helps you live how you truly want to live. Oh I get it. When I did drag it always made me better understand women. I guess sort of the story arc of the film Tootsie, though I think a gay man has unquestionably one leg up more than a straight man like Dustin Hoffman when it comes to this. [He nods, his coffee-colored eyes locked into mine.] Jack, how did you first hear about the AIDS epidemic? I think I was around ten when I first heard about it in sex ed class. They explained that HIV/AIDS was acquired through sharing needles, unprotected sex, and blood transfusions and that it could be prevented through condom use. However, they only talked about it in terms of heterosexual intercourse——penis into vagina——so I was very confused as to how this largely affected gay men since they never mentioned anal intercourse once. (He grimaces and then laments] I guess it was blasphemous to use those words!

Jack having fun as analter ego, Cher Whoreowitz now. In a word, the doctor paints himself as, “Bold.” Freshly transplanted to the West Coast in 2019, Jack filled a position at a medical team in Beverly Hills. During lockdowns, he stayed pretty much in his West Hollywood digs. Last year he was unable to see his Canadian beau due to COVID restrictions and somehow that has now faded into the background. He also was in an intense polyamorous relationship with a male couple in Los Angeles; however that too has subsided. Currently, Jack is in the monogamous throes with a serious boyfriend. Being in isolation last year propelled him to start penning his memoir, My Mostly Horizontal Gay Life——a working title for now. Chapters include issues on sexuality, polyamory, domestic abuse (physical and emotional), and eating disorders. He hopes to deliver these hot-button issues in a witty timbre. There will also be a

At the turn of the century you were just coming of age. Hormones raging, horny as hell, as any typical teen! Even though the cocktails were around and HIV was no longer as deadly, it still was a dangerous virus. How did it all play out for you? Unsurprisingly it was hard for me to really “kick back and fuck” with the constant fear of HIV. Even while in medical school, they made all these “cocktails” sound super toxic and completely untolerated. Looking back on the majority of my relationships, I had been so fiercely monogamous not for personal attachment reasons, but for the fear that I was going to get HIV. I get your drift! Prior to 2012 I was convinced that every new sexual encounter was an opportunity to contract HIV. [He clicks his tongue.] I also hated condoms, but to make sure you did not get HIV and also not use condoms was to only have sex with one person. I know...how boring. [Jack casts his inquisitive puppy-dog eyes to a side-glance, lifting his brows.] Probably many peers of yours felt the same. • SEPTEMBER 2021

[With a moment’s contemplation, he swiftly moves forward, bolstering a hand under his neck, resting a finger on his full lips.] PrEP was not even on the horizon when I was fourteen in 2004. Back then everyone was a condom Nazi, including myself, unless I was in a relationship. As I had largely been in long-term relationships, I never used condoms and used this “monogamy” as a crutch to not use them. [He breaks.] In retrospect, this is idiotic, but again that underdeveloped teenage prefrontal cortex really will trick you into any situation that will get the dopamine flowing.

gay issues; HIV, polyamory, drug use, terminology and gendering used in the gay community so that they could more adequately and less awkwardly treat future LGBTG+ patients. [He takes a steady inhale.] We even held a mock simulation where we had to deliver the news that a patient was HIV-positive and what the next steps would be in their treatment and the resources that would be at their disposal locally. It was really a great experience to be able to educate them about something that normally only gets two hours of teaching time. We did a good job!

Ahh, those teen years, yikes. Tough. How old were you when you first got tested? I first got tested when I was seventeen and a freshman in college. I marched my ass down to the free clinic in downtown Binghamton. I was terrified! My family doctor in Syracuse knew I was gay, and never ever spoke to me about condom use or sex…ever. Some angry disgruntled and definitely undersexed sixty-five year old nurse judged me up and down for not using condoms with any of my boyfriends, and offered me a rapid HIV test, and a gonorrhea and chlamydia test just for my urine. They all came back negative.

You are undeniably “on it” rallying around others when needed. Where does that altruistic attitude derive, Jack? From my parents and my grandmother. I know, super cheesy! Whenever we would be doing something remotely “nice” my grandmother would always say something along the lines of, “I wonder what the poor people are doing?”

What prompted the test? I got tested because I didn’t trust my boyfriend at the time and all I remember feeling was fear waiting for the results. It was the most anxiety I had ever felt in my life. This is the same anxiety I felt every time I went to get tested, which again fueled my being super-monogamous even though I really did not want to be. Thank god for PrEP helping quash that anxiety now! What kinds of patients does your practice consist of today? I work every day with HIV-positive patients. Some of them were the very people who helped form ACT UP, or lived in New York City during the Stonewall riots. Every one of them has such an interesting story to tell. I feel so indebted to every patient above the age of sixty that I get to treat because they are the people who have allowed me to walk around in a wig and heels and not be assaulted. I just want to say “Thank you” to every patient that participated in the research studies we did at Pacific Oaks Medical Group (POMG) in the eighties and nineties to help establish the “cocktails” so that we now live in a day and age where being undetectable means you cannot pass the virus on to another person. What a wonderful time to be alive! I only have one to two patients who have AIDS as it’s defined now and I have hundreds of patients on PrEP. Our practice [other team doctors] does a lot of outreach and education here in Los Angeles. I know you are a great advocate of free healthcare for all. There’s zero reason that anyone in the U.S.A. should not have free and ample access to HIV medications and treatment. I spent so much time in Residency setting up patients with access to free doctors and clinics and housing and I understand that there are hurdles in getting this type of help, but once you have it (Jack clears his throat) you are more than capable of never having the diagnosis of AIDS. Case in point, the PrEP Program you established at Christ Hospital in Jersey City. Christ Hospital has this amazing service called “Charity Care” where they offer hospital based insurance to those who do not have traditional insurance for whatever reason. Maybe they are here without proper documentation from another country, or do not make enough money to pay for traditional insurance or do not qualify for Medicaid. I somehow convinced the hospital administration to get Truvada covered under the hospital formulary for these patients. I made pamphlets and gave talks to the residents to teach them how to prescribe PrEP, and all of the appropriate follow up that needed to take place. Whoa. You grabbed the torch and forged. When you attended New York Tech in Old Westbury, New York, you were LGBTQ+ president. I want to hear more about the initiatives you implemented for other medical students about learning how to counsel those with HIV. We held monthly lunch meetings to help educate the other medical students on SEPTEMBER 2021 •

Oh, Jack…. My sis and I were raised the same way. My dad would say the exact same phrase! [He flashes a pleased-as-punch smile which turns promptly somber.] My grandmother grew up quite poor and worked her way to being middle class despite her husband dying when my mom was eleven. She had no degree or training, and did not even graduate from high school. [Jack takes a complete breath.] My parents were always very giving with family and friends, and I could clearly see that the more you gave, the more that came back to you. Outstanding point. Many of us are too shy or proud to ask for help. Who do you deem a hero in the epidemic? Anyone who provides humane and compassionate care for those who would normally not be considered “heroes.” I think anyone that is working to their ultimate capacity while still giving compassionate care is a hero. This goes for all of the grocery store employees, delivery people, taxi drivers, my front desk staff, and etcetera. It really takes a village to get through this shit! Truly. Where will we land in ten years with the AIDS epidemic? I think that the developed world will be doing much better, as we continue a strong decline of new HIV-positive patients and AIDS-related deaths over the past five years. I think that we will eventually have a cure, similar to how we have one for hepatitis C that will really be a game changer. However, unless we really apply funding and effort to combat HIV in Africa, we will probably not be much different than we are today. How did you get into the comprehensive integrative aspect of medicine? Some people seem to have this false notion that Osteopathic Physicians learn to practice Western medicine. We still practice largely, almost wholly, Eastern and Allopathic medicine. We heavily rely on the body’s innate ability to heal itself and focus more on primary care. We always stress the importance of the mind-body connection, and how physical limitations are often products of some other issue that needs to be fixed without medicine but with meaningful simple changes to diet, exercise, and mindfulness. It’s wise to treat the “whole” person and not just the symptom! I do often find that the majority of patients’ issues are at their core, a lack of personal responsibility and ownership over their lives. They want to “outsource” their problems like they outsource cleaning their apartments with a maid, or sending out their laundry to get washed and folded for them. I practice radical honesty with my patients, and do not sugarcoat what I see in them. I feel that this helps them face their problems, whatever they be, with the full truth. I like your laser-sharp approach and your simpatico bedside manner, Jack. [The physician contemplates, not sure if he’s heard me. His breezy tone becomes lower as he concludes] Ultimately, as a healer, I only exist to guide people to make better decisions, and those decisions are always their own. It’s just a matter of doing… exactly what they already know has to be done. Dann Dulin is a Senior Editor of A&U.

ACCESS TO CARE

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by Hank Trout

HEALTHCARE ON TRACK

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 &

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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EMERGING FROM THE FOG

Preparing Your Budget for Reopening

aylor is a forty-year-old New York City resident who, like many, is trying to successfully navigate the many changes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Taylor had been working as an assistant manager in a successful restaurant chain. The company provided them with insurance, a 401(k), and a growth plan that would allow them the opportunity to advance. Unfortunately, their plans were dashed when COVID-19 struck, annihilating the restaurant industry. Taylor was temporarily forced onto unemployment. Thinking quickly, Taylor started reaching out to contacts and learned through a friend that a local company was hiring for a position in their Medical Records department. Taylor jumped at the opportunity, and after a successful interview, secured the position. Fortunately, Taylor’s tango with unemployment was brief and the health insurance, which they couple with a co-pay program for medications, at their new job went into effect very quickly. By being proactive and utilizing their network, they were able to avoid having the kind of lapse in coverage that would impact their healthcare needs. Taylor did take a small pay cut and had to wait for their first paycheck, which resulted in falling behind on rent by one month which they’re currently working on

catching up. Additionally, Taylor has student loans that have been in forbearance, no savings, and their current company’s 401(k) will be an available benefit to them on their one-year anniversary which is in November. As life begins to return to normal for the first time in a year and a half many Americans are left to repair the carnage that has been wreaked on their financial lives. In Taylor’s case this means paying very close attention to their budget. The 50/30/20 budget popularized by Elizabeth Warren is an effective system. Taylor’s fixed expenses such as rent, utilities, and other necessities with fixed costs should comprise no more than 50% of their budget. Lifestyle or flexible spending should consume no more than 30%, leaving 20% for goals. Currently, Taylor has several financial priorities to balance. First, they need to become current with their landlord. Taylor has been in communication with their landlord and has arranged to make the regular payment plus an agreed upon amount beyond that each month until it is caught up. Remember, it pays to be proactive. Many landlords are willing to work with tenants, and the first step is to communicate, and make sure that any agreement that is made is one that is realistic given the current state of your finances.

Next, Taylor needs to prepare for student loan payments to resume. Federal student loans have been in forbearance due to the pandemic since March of 2020, but that relief provision is set to expire on January 31, 2022. It is imperative that Taylor make room in the goals section of their budget for these payments. Once their student loans and extra payments to their landlord are accounted for, Taylor needs to begin setting aside a little money each month for an emergency savings. Without an emergency savings, it’s entirely too easy to lean on a credit card or fall behind on bills when something unexpected occurs. While building their emergency fund, Taylor can also begin contributing to the company 401(k) once they become eligible. Again, this comes from the goals category of the budget, which is dedicated to saving for the future and

eliminating debt. While Taylor is actively working to reorganize their financial life, they should also consider rolling over the 401(k) from their old company. Many Americans leave 401(k) plans scattered among companies they no longer work for because it simply is not in the forefront of their mind, but it is important to take your retirement funds with you. In order to avoid taxes and penalties, these funds must be rolled over. This can be performed easily at any discount brokerage firm, and in doing so you will have much more control over how the funds are invested. Like many people, Taylor spent very little on entertainment and lifestyle related expenses during the pandemic. One of the beautiful things about the lifestyle category of the budget is its flexibility. Anyone wanting to accelerate their progress on financial goals like making up a missing rent payment or beefing up an emergency savings could easily do so by continuing to spend minimally in the lifestyle category. After just a few short months, plan to reevaluate the security of your financial position. If your budget and goals are in order, you’ll be able to enjoy the reopening and emerge from the fog with some newfound freedom. Alacias Enger is a performing artist, writer, and educator. She lives with her partner in New York City, and is the founder of blogs “Sense with Cents” and “Travel Cents.” Follow her on Twitter @sense_w_cents. • SEPTEMBER 2021

Steven Reigns continued from page 35

examine what they thought they knew. Even though the work was poetry, I chose not to take poetic license or fictionalize details. Every detail is from my research. This is a story already saturated with so much misinformation and I did not want to add to it. What do you think needs to be done to dismantle HIV stigma? HIV transmission education has helped dismantle stigma but hasn’t eradicated it. I don’t have one answer to your question. Sadly, most modes of HIV transmission have religious or societal judgment such as anal sex or IV drug use. COVID does not have this since transmission happens from breathing. I think a component to the stigma might also be discomfort around illness which is ultimately a fear of death. Everyone you know will die, you will die, it is the one thing we can be sure of yet it’s rarely talked about. Seeing people sick or in the dying process can remind one of the inconvenient and uncomfortable fact that it will be us too. Distancing by othering or blaming the sick can be a defense mechanism against facing our own mortality. Do you think this story shares a similarity with that of “Patient Zero”? Gay men and especially HIV-positive gay men have a history of being scapegoated. This seems especially true when monetary gain is involved. Randy Shilts created a compelling story in 1987 for his book And The Band Played On. He purposefully disclosed the name Gaëtan Dugas as “Patient Zero” knowing that it’d help sell his book. This misinformation of a French-Canadian flight attendant being the first super-spreader has persisted. It was thirty years later that Richard McKay’s book Patient Zero and the Making of the AIDS Epidemic debunked the myth Shilts capitalized on and popularized. A Quilt for David is coming out thirty years after the first allegations against David Acer and I hope it also quashes the narrative that was created then. The discourses surrounding Dugas were predominantly sex-negative. Throughout the book, you are purposeful to include a thread of sex-positivity. Bergalis indeed “did nothing wrong”: “She didn’t do anything wrong. / She did with that man, with other men, / what lovers do, she explored the /pleasures of the body.” And further on, you collect all of those living with HIV, David included: “If sex were the act that infected them, each one separately, did they ever call out His name in gratitude? Thankful for that moment, lost in the pleasure of their bodies.” Why did you make sure to include a sex-positive message? Sex positivity should be the norm, not the exception. Bergalis stated on the Congressional floor that she “did nothing wrong.” I agree with her and also think no one involved did anything “wrong” or deserved their infection. To think any other way SEPTEMBER 2021 •

would shame or blame someone for being positive. So many risks were being taken unknowingly by everyone at that time. I have tremendous empathy for all involved. Sarah Schulman [A&U, August 2021] said my book reveals “how hypocrisy coheres communities by relying on cliches of femininity, bias, and repressive loyalties.” Without HIV stigma, I suspect Kimberly would have had a different response to her positive result. Do you feel the book has been a departure from your past projects in any way? This desire to inform, illuminate, and honor has been present in everything I’ve done. It’s there in my first two collections of poetry, to The Gay Rub, to the My Life is Poetry autobiographical writing workshop for LGBTQ seniors I’ve taught for the past seventeen years. You can also see how it pertains to A Quilt for David. I wrote this so readers can inhabit this time, empathize for David, and see how the media created a monster. It also shows how gayness was treated then, the inequity of care and concern for those with sexual or IV modes of seroconverson, and how one person can change the way we are remembered. For more information about Steven Reigns, log on to: stevenreigns.com. For more information about photographer Tommy Wu, log on to: tommywuphotography.com. Makeup by Shannon Marie; Instagram @makeupbyshannonmarie Chael Needle is Managing Editor of A&U. Alongside his journalism, he writes fiction and poetry. Follow him on Twitter @ChaelNeedle.

FI LM FILM

After 82 Comes to America

An AIDS vigil at Trafalgar Square London, UK, late eighties

• SEPTEMBER 2021

photos courtesy After 82

fter 82, the 2018 documentary that charts the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s in London, England, is available for the first time for viewing in the U.S. and around the world. Filmmakers Steven Keeble and Ben Lord spent five years compiling deeply personal first-hand accounts from long-term survivors who lived at the epicenter of the AIDS crisis in London. The film was initially envisioned as a short documentary film (of the kind Keeble and Lord had made before) in which a friend of Ben’s father agreed to talk on camera about living with HIV. As word spread and enthusiasm for the project built, many significant figures came forward and asked if they could take part in the film, wanting to be heard, including Jonathan Grimshaw, Garry Brough, actor Dominic West (who also narrates the film), Jonathan Blake, and Peter Tatchell. Lord Fowler and Dr Rupert Whitaker who agreed to take part in the film to recall their stories exclusively for the production. In an interview with A&U published in July 2018, Ben Lord said, “Word about our short spread like wild fire and people came forward wanting to share their stories. We decided to turn the film from a short to a feature length. It was like we had unearthed a secret society when people came to us and wanted to talk openly with us about living with HIV. We spent months getting to know these people, building up trust before filming their stories. We shared tears and ACT UP London, during a protest at Pentonville prison against laughter; we became part of their lives and in some sense a family. the ban on condoms in the prison (1989) We are so proud of them all.” Reflecting on the documentary’s importance, Steve Keeble said, “Over of these people share their stories on camera. Thankfully, this moment in the years, I had pushed the horror of what I personally went through to the history, which was destined to be buried forever, is now ready to be told to back of my mind until I started working on the film. Never again will some generations to come.” The film’s power lies in its simple, straightforward, unvarnished truth-telling. A large portion of royalties from the film will be donated to the AIDS Memorial & Education Centre to build a lasting memorial and education center for those in the U.K. lost to AIDS. For more information about the documentary, log on to https://www.after82movie.com/about. To pre-book the film before its July 30, 2021 release, go to https://applecartarts.ticketsolve. com/shows/1173612526. —Hank Trout

BO OKS BOOKS

Better Davis and Other Stories by Philip Dean Walker Squares & Rebels

ne of the most powerful tools used by an author is their imagination and knowing how to effectively apply it to their writing. They bring characters and worlds to life with their words. Even more challenging is bringing a famous character to life, as we already know the framework of their lives and legends in our own imagination. In this follow up to his well received collections, At Danceteria and Other Stories and Read by Strangers, Philip Dean Walker accomplishes this feat with wit, color, and great skill. These characters and the early eighties are brought to life by Walker with a deft hand and an uncanny perception of these public figures’ temperaments and inner lives that make it seem, at times, as if you’re reading factual accounts. The central themes to Walker's book are the famous and infamous and how they, and our communities in general, dealt with the nascent scourge of AIDS, long before it had that name. Walker deals with the disease’s earliest onslaught aptly and with great sensitivity: still managing to render wry and witty stories with his signature storytelling skills making this a highly readable collection. Many famous characters take a bow in these works. What gay man of the period can forget Jim J. Bullock and his star turn as Monroe Ficus in the period’s popular sitcom, Too Close for Comfort? As a young teen, I was transfixed by that performance, it being a role brought to life by a gay man. Bullock is just receiving his HIV diagnosis in this story and is overwhelmed by the certainty that his young life and early success as an actor will be cut short. Natalie Wood and Elizabeth Taylor take their bows as well as legendary drinker Maureen Stapleton. Stapleton and Taylor descend on a drag bar after an evening on stage where they encounter the book’s eponymous character, Better Davis, performing her comedy routine in a nod to the classic drag queens of the past. They don’t make them like that anymore, certainly. I have rarely read short stories after college and so I feel fortunate to review the work of some of its newest and most talented purveyors. Walker has taught me a new appreciation for its art. He is able to construct a world that is both believable and compelling, breathing life into characters both known and unknown to history and popular culture. At the top of my list, he’s a talent to watch and a joy to read. —John Francis Leonard Hank Trout writes the For the Long Run column for A&U. John Francis Leonard writes the Bright Lights, Small City column for A&U. SEPTEMBER 2021 •

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A Calendar of Events

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SYNChronicity 2021, the 8th Annual National HIV, HCV, STI, and

LGBTQ Health Conference, will occur virtually again this year on September 21–22, 2021. Each year, SYNChronicity brings together diverse networks of providers, professionals, organizations, and communities to sync on innovation across HIV, HCV, STI, and LGBTQ-related health care. The theme of SYNC 2021 is “SYNCing to End Epidemics,” bringing people and ideas together to end the HIV, STI, HCV, and opioid epidemics. Sponsored by HealthHIV and partially funded by Janssen, the two-day conference will be headlined by six plenary sessions featuring experts and thought leaders, numerous cross-cutting interdisciplinary SYNC sessions, and innovative poster sessions. After the keynote address and opening plenary, five more plenary sessions will address “SYNCing to End the Epidemics through…” government, service providers, science, health department, and communities. The additional SYNC sessions will cover a far-reaching range of discussions about the latest in research, science, and public health practice. The Conference’s poster hall will feature multimedia poster presentations from abstracts submitted on a broad range of topics and will focus on well-defined original research and/or new and ongoing best practices, programs, and interventions that “sync” approaches, systems, or topics. For healthcare professionals and providers, SYNC 2021 offers continuing education credits. Registration for SYNC 2021 is open at https://bit.ly/3i76fkR. If you have questions, please contact Kelly Mayor, Director of Conferences and Meetings, at by e-mail at SYNCinfo@healthhiv.org or by phone at (202) 507-4735 with any questions. Visit https://sync2021.org for more information.

SEPTEMBER 2021 •

POETRY

Zoe Leonard at the Whitney Zoe Leonard mends oranges for her friends underground, who drink the nectar of the dead, who haze the newbies and crack up routinely about their shriveled assholes. We brunch for the end of AIDS, giggling our mimosas. It’s cute to care in our jumpsuits, measuring the walls so the art hangs straight, so someone with clout will unclench fistfuls of tax deductions. Under the memorial Walt Whitman talks in circles on the ground. An artist can be a nurse and a nurse a poet. I want to lay magnolia petals here where each hospital bed lay, now a park where svelte men stretch on towels, one leg draped over the other’s, mouth-to-mouth, living. I want to pick a magnolia and eat it like ice cream. —Shari Caplan

Shari Caplan (she/her) is the siren behind Advice from a Siren (Dancing Girl Press). Her poems have swum into Gulf Coast, Painted Bride Quarterly, Angime, Drunk Monkeys, and elsewhere. Shari’s work has earned her a scholarship to The Home School, a fellowship to The Vermont Studio Center, nominations for a Bettering American Poetry Award, and a Pushcart Prize. She works on the Development team of AIDS Action, where those living with HIV can access holistic services and where Getting to Zero is a top priority.

• SEPTEMBER 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

TWO WAYS TREATMENT CAN HELP STOP HIV.

Starting HIV treatment as soon as possible and sticking with it every day helps you get to and stay undetectable. That means there is so little virus in the blood that a test can’t measure it. And that’s a good thing, because:

BEING UNDETECTABLE HELPS STOP THE DAMAGE HIV CAUSES.

CURRENT RESEARCH SHOWS GETTING TO AND STAYING UNDETECTABLE PREVENTS THE SPREAD OF HIV THROUGH SEX.

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