Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Activist Basics for Fighting for HIV Justice in the Trump Era

Credit: JD Davids
November 23, 2016



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Regardless of where we sit or where we toss and turn during these long nights since the United States presidential election, many of us are wondering what we can do to take care of ourselves and each other, and how we can even hold our gains in the HIV epidemic, much less prevent the loss of significant ground.
 
Given the platform of the Trump/Pence campaign and the leadership of Congress, there is not a lot of promise that we'll get closer to the end of the HIV epidemic for all. In fact, there will likely be significant changes in programs serving people with HIV or seeking to prevent new HIV cases, and members of communities with high rates of HIV are facing threats to our health, our relationships and our families, to say the least.

A lot is already emerging in terms of ways to respond, such as this clearinghouse of tools and alerts for those concerned with the Trump agenda. In fact, there's too much in some ways; in keeping with our time of information overload, the sheer volume of resources or ways to contribute can itself be an overwhelming impediment to action.

Yet, as the HIV community, we have a robust history of resistance, resilience and victories that calls us to the forefront of where we need to go today.

Within hours after the election results came in, HIV leaders joined with others to form the Activist-Led Emergency Response Team (ALERT), a growing activist network for sharing information and ideas -- you're invited to join us, via this webform.

And I'm working with Jennifer Johnson Avril, a contributor to TheBody.com, on a new effort called #ActivistBasics, which draws from the rich history and present-day efforts of HIV and other activist movements to provide tools, information and inspiration for our present and coming struggles. Find us on Facebook and Twitter, with more coming soon.


A Movement Born in a Moment of Challenges

The HIV community was born in the Reagan era, a time that may hold the closest parallel to today in terms of political conservatism and policies that impede an effective response to the epidemic. Today brings additional challenges, including a weary and polarized population that has in many cases seen its standard of living decline as a direct result of the very policies Reagan unleashed.
People with HIV stood up and claimed their voices, bolstered by their lovers and allies, and the world has never been the same. And along the way, the HIV movement both benefitted from and contributed to activist organizing traditions that have paved the way to justice and can help us find our footing today.

As a young adult, I was raised in the HIV movement beginning in the presidency of the first George Bush, and I know that it has much to offer those who are looking for the way.

I have learned that our time, energy and passion are precious resources, and that drives my urgency to ensure that we're using them in the best possible ways to further justice and to help sustain our efforts, rather than exhausting ourselves without hope of success.

Having effective movement strategies doesn't always mean we win or that all of us can or will survive. But it makes it even more imperative that we are able to choose the activities that will not only work to save the incredible, lifesaving advances we've made against HIV, but also sustain us as individuals and members of communities facing health and social challenges.

Working on key HIV issues, as well as being a part of broader movements concerned with our moment today, gives us the opportunity to combat HIV stigma, as we -- people with HIV and their friends, families, and communities -- stand shoulder to shoulder with old and new allies who come to learn and appreciate the issues that affect our lives.

Here's some ideas that we're talking about in our #ActivistBasics effort:


Going With What We Know: Ourselves

Just as I have reached out to comrades and loved ones, asking, "what are we doing, what should I do," others have reached out to me. It is an honor for us to hold each other in this moment, valuing each other's hearts and minds and spirits, and sitting in uncertainty together. And in this uncertainty, I encourage us to go with what we know: ourselves.

In this moment, what do you know about your strengths, your skills, your drive? In what areas do you feel confident, and how can you bring that together with the areas in which you hope to grow? Make a list of your skills and qualities, your areas of interest and those about which you are curious, and bring that self-knowledge to take your seat in our coming efforts for HIV justice.

There's going to be a lot to do, and no one person can do it all, so go with what feels productive and important to you. Make a list of what current initiatives and groups appeal to you. Then put them into a 2x2 grid. There are four boxes in a 2x2 grid, as I explain in this #Activist Basics video: one for efforts that are easier for you and may have the most impact, one for those that are easy but may have less impact, plus one each for harder efforts that have more or less impact. That can help you decide where you start first -- probably with something in the box of easier to do with a greater possible impact.




And you don't have to go it alone. I also encourage people to start an "affinity group," a cluster of two to eight people you already know and trust who are dedicated to supporting each other. Whether you all work on different efforts and come together to replenish at a weekly potluck dinner, or whether you all decide to join a group and work together to make sure you can get to the meetings and events, you'll have this base to come home to in the long struggle ahead.

Feeling Scared, Moving Forward

I've been an HIV journalist and activist since the pre-antiretroviral era, and I'm a Jewish queer and trans survivor of abuse and gender violence. I would say it's been a roller coaster of fear and panic for a few weeks now -- but it's mostly been the downhill plunge part.

I'm also a white, middle class, U.S. citizen with tremendous privilege and a good job living in a relatively amazing bubble of robust solidarity and safety, in a city that has vowed to resist the Trump agenda of deportation, registries and divisiveness, as well as deep and sweeping funding cuts and redistribution of public resources.

Pulling together #ActivistBasics isn't just a way for me to feel or be useful. It's the result of me going through the very process I've just recommended -- looking at my skills, resources, realities and passions to determine what will help me connect with my past, calm my breath in the present and get ready to face the future. As always, it is an honor to work in the HIV community, and I welcome your ideas, your strategies and your collaboration.

JD Davids is the managing editor for TheBody.com and TheBodyPRO.com. He is the co-producer of #ActivistBasics and a board member of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice (JFREJ).
Follow JD on Twitter: @JDAtTheBody.

Read more articles from The Body, here.

 

San Francisco's Official Response To The Trump Election

Both San Francisco and New York City have spoken against
Trump. (photo: spoilednyc.com)





We as households can support or try to deny the election of Trump, but that may stop at our doorstep or at the sign on the lawn.  We can talk and argue until we are blue in the face, but will that change anything?  

But what if you are a government within a government?  What if you are one of the major cities of the United States?  Where does your hot air for or against the president-elect end?  How far can you go to protect your political beliefs that may not be the same as your nation's new president?  It looks like San Francisco and New York City are going to find out.

The San Francisco Board of Supervisors recently passed a resolution, introduced by Board President London Breed, in response to the election of Donald Trump. The resolution reads as follows:
WHEREAS, On November 8, 2016, Donald Trump was elected to become the 45th President of the United States; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, That no matter the threats made by President-elect Trump, San Francisco will remain a Sanctuary City. We will not turn our back on the men and women from other countries who help make this city great, and who represent over one third of our population. This is the Golden Gate—we build bridges, not walls; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That we will never back down on women’s rights, whether in healthcare, the workplace, or any other area threatened by a man who treats women as obstacles to be demeaned or objects to be assaulted. And just as important, we will ensure our young girls grow up with role models who show them they can be or do anything; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That there will be no conversion therapy, no withdrawal of rights in San Francisco. We began hosting gay weddings twelve years ago, and we are not stopping now. And to all the LGBTQ people all over the country who feel scared, bullied, or alone: You matter. You are seen; you are loved; and San Francisco will never stop fighting for you; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That we still believe in this nation’s founding principle of religious freedom. We do not ban people for their faith. And the only lists we keep are on invitations to come pray together; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That Black Lives Matter in San Francisco, even if they may not in the White House. And guided by President Obama’s Task Force on 21st Century Policing, we will continue reforming our police department and rebuilding trust between police and communities of color so all citizens feel safe in their neighborhoods; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That climate change is not a hoax, or a plot by the Chinese. In this city, surrounded by water on three sides, science matters. And we will continue our work on CleanPower, Zero Waste, and everything else we are doing to protect future generations; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That we have been providing universal health care in this city for nearly a decade, and if the new administration follows through on its callous promise to revoke health insurance from 20 million people, San Franciscans will be protected; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That we are the birthplace of the United Nations, a city made stronger by the thousands of international visitors we welcome every day. We will remain committed to internationalism and to our friends and allies around the world—whether the administration in Washington is or not; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That San Francisco will remain a Transit First city and will continue building Muni and BART systems we can all rely upon, whether this administration follows through on its platform to eliminate federal transit funding or not; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That California is the sixth largest economy in the world. The Bay Area is the innovation capital of the country. We will not be bullied by threats to revoke our federal funding, nor will we sacrifice our values or members of our community for your dollar; and, be it
FURTHER RESOLVED, That we condemn all hate crimes and hate speech perpetrated in this election’s wake. That although the United States will soon have a President who has demonstrated a lack of respect for the values we hold in the highest regard in San Francisco, it cannot change who we are, and it will never change our values. We argue, we campaign, we debate vigorously within San Francisco, but on these points we are 100 percent united. We will fight discrimination and recklessness in all its forms. We are one City. And we will move forward together. - sfbaytimes.com

Will it come to blows between city and national practices, policies, and law? 

Will cities and states push even harder now for states rights?

Here is a clip from pix11.com "‘We will not comply’: NYC mayor defies potential Trump policies in campaign-like speech" showing New York City Mayor Bill De Blasio's response to the Trump election and how New York City will remain #alwaysnewyork.



 



What do you think?  Are these statements treasonous?

Do you think there will be conflict in the future with Trump policies crossing the cities' "lines in the sand" statements?

Will we see cities pledge their allegiance to Trump?

What city will be next?

Mike Pence Wanted to Use HIV/AIDS Money to Fund Conversion Therapy


by Sean Mandell
July 15, 2016


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Mike Pence, Indiana Governor and Donald Trump’s running mate, said in 2000 that he was in favor of sending money allocated to care for people with HIV/AIDS to organizations that provide conversion therapy.

Pence advocated for that position on his campaign website from that time, as BuzzFeed’s Andrew Kaczynski reports: 

During his first successful run for Congress in 2000, now-Indiana Gov. Mike Pence wrote on his website in a section on LGBT issues that money from a program to help those with HIV/AIDS should go to organizations “which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.”

That section on LGBT issues was called, “Strengthening the American Family.” It read:
  • Congress should oppose any effort to put gay and lesbian relationships on an equal legal status with heterosexual marriage. 
  • Congress should oppose any effort to recognize homosexual’s as a “discreet and insular minority” entitled to the protection of anti-discrimination laws similar to those extended to women and ethnic minorities. 
  • Congress should support the reauthorization of the Ryan White Care Act only after completion of an audit to ensure that federal dollars were no longer being given to organizations that celebrate and encourage the types of behaviors that facilitate the spreading of the HIV virus. Resources should be directed toward those institutions which provide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior.
Though the section does not explicitly mention conversion therapy by name, the context along with the focus on changing one’s sexual behavior both strongly indicate that conversion therapy is what was being indicated.

For reference, here’s what the Ryan White Care Act does according to the Department of Health and Human Services:  

The Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program (RWHAP) provides a comprehensive system of care that includes primary medical care and essential support services for people living with HIV who are uninsured or underinsured. The Program works with cities, states and local community-based organizations to provide HIV care and treatment services to more than 512,000 each year, reaching approximately 52% of all those diagnosed with HIV in the United States.

In essence, Mike Pence was in favor of taking money away from organizations that achieve the above goals if they ‘celebrate and encourage’ homosexual sex and sending money to groups that endorse the belief that you can pray away the gay.

Watch a video on the Ryan White Care Act, which turned 25 last year, below.



25th Anniversary of Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program

Published on Aug 19, 2015
 
The Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program plays a critical role in the United States’ public health response to HIV and is the largest Federal program exclusively providing services to people living with the disease. On its 25th anniversary, health care providers and patients talk about how the Ryan White HIV AIDS program has benefited them and their communities.


Read more articles from Towleroad, here.

The reinvention of radical protest: life on the frontline of the Aids epidemic


As reports of a mysterious plague swept through the gay community in the 1980s, activists developed shock tactics to get the support they desperately needed.




Tuesday 29 November 2016

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The experience of death, which had bound them together a quarter of a century ago, unexpectedly reunited them on an unseasonably warm January afternoon in 2013. They made their way down East 32nd Street in Manhattan just after two o’clock, wending sedately towards the stark black doorway of the Cutting Room, a performance space hosting the memorial service for Spencer Cox, one of the country’s most recognisable Aids activists. Long before the glass doors swung open, a line stretched down the block. Taxis deposited luminaries from the worlds of science and medicine, of theatre, advertising, media, of activism, art, and academia, people from all over the United States, from Europe and Africa. Many of them were hollow-cheeked and balanced on canes or on one another, slowed by age or disease or a reluctance to re-enter the community of the grieving. Even the nimble among them wore haunted expressions. If you knew what to look for, you saw in their faces the burden of a shared past, the years and years of similar services. This was what survivors of the plague looked like. 

The crowd swelled to 500. Some among them were adorned in mementos: faded protest buttons or T-shirts with militant slogans. This was the generation that fought Aids from the dawn of the global pandemic. Most had been members or supporters of the Aids Coalition to Unleash Power, or Act Up – the radical protest organisation that started in New York City but went on to count 148 chapters in 19 countries, with perhaps 10,000 members at its peak. The movement collapsed in the mid-1990s, when the advent of effective medicine finally staunched much of the dying. In the decades since then, it had seemed that the menace had receded, at least in America. But death convoked them one more time.

Few people personified the epidemic’s long history in America more than Cox. A college dropout, he was just 20 years old when he received his grim diagnosis. Given only a few months to live, he threw himself into Act Up, becoming a central player in the movement’s treatment and data committee, where patients and their advocates puzzled through the science of virology, chemistry, and immunology. Their insights won them audiences with researchers in the deepest corridors of science – audiences, then respect, then working partnerships; it was the first time patients had joined in the search for their own salvation.

Cox, a consummate networker, illustrated the developing science by submitting his own health complications to the scrutiny of reporters. In his drive to give the disease a face, he kept no aspect of his life with HIV offstage – not his rapid viral mutations, his enlarging lymph nodes, the humiliating and painful diarrhoea that regularly sidelined him, or the cruel complication that turned his left eye cloudy and useless.


"Cox looked like a teenager, not able to grow a beard. But he displayed a researcher’s grasp of his own cellular tapestry"


That was how I first met him. In the winter of 1988, I was reporting for the Village Voice. He brought me his latest laboratory results to help describe how certain experimental drugs were thought to work, and how, in fact, they uniformly failed. We met in a dark coffee shop late in the morning. Short and smooth faced with dark eyes and floppy black hair, he arrived Brando-style in industrial work boots, jeans tight as a sunburn, and a black leather bomber jacket over a white T-shirt – the uniform of Act Up. His youth disarmed me. He looked like a teenager, not yet able to grow a beard. But he displayed a researcher’s grasp of his own cellular tapestry and a facility for rendering complex immunological principles into everyday language. He was anything but self-pitying. Reaching into a canvas army surplus bag, he spun a sheaf of his own lab results across the table towards me, accompanied by a line from Bette Davis that was lost on me. Until shortly before then, Cox had learned much of what he knew from the movies, especially those of the 1940s and 50s, or the theatre, which had been the subject of his aborted education.

Over the ensuing years, he became a principal source for much of my Aids reporting for New York magazine, the New York Times, GQ, Newsweek, among others, and among the most effective treatment advocates in the field. But his seminal achievement came in the area of biostatistics. It was Cox who conceived the drug trial innovations that in record time helped to bring to market the therapies that stopped HIV from being an automatic death sentence. He claimed no credit for this, and until shortly before his death only a few insiders were aware that a self-taught person with Aids had made this history-changing contribution.

As movements go, the one Act Up spearheaded against HIV was unique. The virus made its traumatic appearance at different times across the globe – perhaps as early as 1920 in what is now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo. After sporadic cases through the 1970s, the viral epidemic was first reported in New York City and California. On 3 July 1981, Centers for Disease control released a report stating that symptoms now known to be typical Aids-related illnesses had been exhibited by 26 gay men. That same day, the New York Times reported 41 cases of Kaposi’s sarcoma – “a rare and often rapidly fatal form of cancer” – affecting 41 gay men in New York and California. Health authorities in the United Kingdom acknowledged the first cases there later that year, and outbreaks reached a handful of European and African nations in 1982. Today, no country has been spared, and 35 million are infected.

But throughout the plague years – when no effective treatment existed, and death was quite nearly guaranteed – New York City remained the epicentre of the disease, and America the main obstacle to research and treatment. It took two years for the city’s mayor, Ed Koch, to acknowledge its existence publicly. President Ronald Reagan waited six. But their words were hollow. Both continued to practise obfuscation, budgetary strangulation, and aggressive apathy even as the number of dead Americans passed 20,000, and 1.5 million more were believed to be infected. By the end of 1986, the city’s gay ghetto was a tinderbox. Along Christopher Street you could see the dazed look of the doomed, skeletons and their caregivers alike. There was not even a false-hope pill for doctors to prescribe. The estimates we heard were that half the gay men in New York were already infected, and for the rest of us it was simply a matter of time.

Then one morning in December, bus shelters and bank windows in a large part of Manhattan were covered with large, ominous posters, featuring a pink triangle floating against a black background. This was a potent reminder, not at all an obscure one, of how gays were marked by the Nazis in the camps. The global LGBT movement had long ago reclaimed the pink triangle to signify liberty. It was the symbol used for gay pride marches, on the covers of gay magazines, on T-shirts from gay cruises. But on the mysterious poster, the triangle had been inverted – no longer pointing downward like a yield sign, it was depicted there as a pyramid, invoking cosmic power and strength.

Beneath this image was an arresting message in blocky white letters: SILENCE=DEATH.

Three thousand of these posters went up, from the East River to the Hudson and stretching north from the Village through Chelsea to Hell’s Kitchen and the Upper West Side, and as far south as SoHo – not just in the gay ghetto but in the outposts of the arts communities where allies might find meaning in the message. For a long time, those posters, produced by an anonymous collective, were all anybody talked about. Who was behind them? What did they mean? It was obvious that the posters were addressing those of us living inside the plague. Part of the message was easily discerned: on the current course, we were surely doomed. Less clear was what these posters were asking us to do. The slogan suggested a corollary. We knew what the opposite of death was. But what kind of non-silence was being called for?

The fuse was lit, and in early 1987 Act Up was formed following a fiery town meeting at Bailey House, a residence at the far end of the West Village where Christopher Street met the Hudson River. Conceived as a place for homeless people with Aids to live out their last days, it became the city’s LGBT community centre.

  Calling itself “a diverse group of individuals united in anger and committed to direct action to end the Aids crisis,” Act Up adopted a deceptively simple demand: drugs into bodies. The New York group grew to several hundred members, drawn by word of mouth, and chapters quickly proliferated, including in London. Though most were people who were new to political action, the leaders of Act Up were shrewd and relentless, attacking the government and the pharmaceutical industry in mass demonstrations. It took them little time to realise the scientific problem would require leadership: which drugs into bodies? Even six years into the plague, nobody had a theory for beating Aids.


 
The Aids campaigner Spencer Cox. Photograph: Walter Kurtz


Spencer Cox joined a small committee to take on the science, hoping that by arming themselves with its language, they could engage scientists in meaningful dialogue. They passed among themselves used textbooks on immunology and virology, cellular biology and medical statistics (they also read Derrida, Foucault, and Genet). And with the gathering armies of Act Up activists standing outside the doors, they marched into the halls of science as unwanted – then begrudgingly accepted, then admired – collaborators. They called this their “inside/outside” strategy.



Act Up redrew the blueprint for activism in a media-saturated world, providing inspiration for groups such as Black Lives Matter, pro-democracy activists in Moscow, and even a new generation of Americans mounting daily protests against Donald Trump.

It revolutionised everything from the way drugs are researched to the way doctors interact with patients. Ultimately it played a key role in catalysing the development of the frontline drugs that, following a major breakthrough in 1996, are now keeping 16 million people alive worldwide, returning to them the promise of a near-normal lifespan. Some had been just breaths away from their own deaths. But after a few weeks on treatment they rose from their hospital beds and, against all reasonable expectations, went home to resume an ordinary life. So dramatic was their resurrection that stupefied doctors began calling it the Lazarus effect.

And yet the pharmaceutical marvels Cox fought so hard to bring into existence failed him in the end. His infection proved to be resistant to many drug combinations. The country’s best doctors tinkered with “salvage” regimens specifically for him, accomplishing numerous barely-in-time rescues. For more than half his life Cox careened from one medical trauma to another, maintaining his trademark cheery facade, though over time he had grown weary. The last time I saw him he spoke of feeling run down. When he checked into the hospital a few weeks later, his immune system was severely compromised, putting him at risk of a host of fatal infections. Doctors diagnosed hypoglycemia and severe pneumonia. By the following Tuesday, at 44 years old but wracked and worn as an ageing guerrilla soldier, he died from complications of Aids.

So went the global Aids pandemic in its fourth decade. A precise number of deaths cannot be fixed, as the majority have occured in areas of sub-Saharan Africa seldom visited by doctors or census takers. At the time of Cox’s death, the body count was as high as 40 million – nearly twice the devastation of the bubonic plague that threatened humankind in the 14th century. In the US, the official count was 658,507 dead by the end of 2012 – an approximate figure, despite its ring of precision. In the early years especially, many people were declared dead from other causes, in order to spare the relatives from stigma, or because doctors mistook the symptoms. Some deceased went down as suicide statistics, having chosen pills or bullets or the high-rise window.

Though so much has changed, so much is still the same. Around the globe, two million people still die from Aids every year because the cost of the effective medicines – under a dollar a day – is prohibitive. In America, where the price is 50 times higher, a federal law has provided the treatment to indigent patients since 1987. This policy was adopted after intense lobbying by leaders of the gay community, but access to the drugs was still spotty, because a prescription was required and many patients could not afford the initial payment necessary to visit a doctor. The year Cox died, 13,711 other Americans died of Aids. As in 1981 – the epidemic’s very first year – most belonged to communities that were stigmatised, marginalised, feared, or hated. Cox had begun his journey through the plague as a gay man at a time when most Americans supported laws criminalising homosexuality. He finished his life entirely dependent upon social services for his day-to-day living, on probation for a criminal conviction after a descent into drug addiction.


Few of his old colleagues knew about Cox’s last days. The members of Act Up had drifted far apart. Even Cox’s old HIV-positive support group, the members of which had relied upon one another at the height of the crisis and vowed to be at one another’s side when the time came, scattered once Aids became a condition that could for the most part be managed. “When we realised we weren’t going to die,” said David Barr, who convened the support group, “we all got sick of each other.”


 
Act-Up protesters at the Gay and Lesbian Pride march in New York City, in 1988. Photograph: The New York Historical Society/Getty Images



That could not have been foreseen at the support group’s height. In the epic struggle for survival that consumed the plague years, these men – Barr, an attorney by training; Peter Staley, a former bond trader; Gregg Bordowitz, an experimental filmmaker; Derek Link, a former bookstore clerk; Mark Harrington, a film archivist – were among the recognised generals, the architects and administrators of the movement’s public health strategy. Successive presidential administrations sought their insights, and Nobel prize-winners adopted their critiques. Global pharmaceutical companies succumbed to their demands, at first out of fear of guerrilla protests, later out of respect for their minds. Embracing their reputations for arrogance and insolence, and their high profile, they had jokingly called themselves “the HIVIPs”. That anyone with HIV had a chance for an ordinary life was thanks to the work these men did.

Yet their extraordinary journeys had rendered them mostly unprepared for an ordinary life. In countless ways, survival proved as hard to adjust to as the plague itself. Many in the at-risk communities shared this paradox, whether or not they had been infected themselves. Nobody left those years untouched by what they had witnessed, not only the mass deaths – 100,000 lost in New York City alone – but also the foul truths that a microscopic virus had revealed about American culture: politicians who welcomed the plague as proof of God’s will, doctors who refused the victims medical care, ministers and often even parents who withheld all but the barest shudder of grief. Such betrayals would be impossible to forget.

The burden of memory was something Cox spoke about with deep insight. Sensing its toll on the mental health of survivors, he formed a new organisation to bring attention to these unanticipated problems. In our “hour of victory”, depression and isolation were growing. So was a syndrome labelled “survivor’s guilt”, an idea that bound the survivors more to the dead than to the living. Add to this the unrecognised health consequences common among those diagnosed in the 1980s – including rapid ageing issues, and an onslaught of end-of-life cancers and conditions. Cox saw all of this coming. He issued white papers and penned op-eds, but despite those efforts, he was unable to spark the interest of researchers or funders, much less of the generation of gay people who never experienced the plague. His new organisation withered, and he sank deep into his own depression and isolation.


"Cox felt erased, his suffering – which had enlightened the public and challenged science – suddenly insignificant"


I remained closer to him than most of his friends over his final year. In our last conversation, he bitterly complained that the community that inherited the advances he helped make, who lived integrated lives as gay Americans, who went on to fight for marriage equality and against discrimination in the military, whether or not they had been infected, had abandoned his generation and forgotten the events that had shaped them. He felt erased, his suffering – which in the past had enlightened the public and challenged science – suddenly insignificant. His new policy was to talk as little about his personal health as possible.

It wasn’t until after he died that I learned that Cox, a regular poster on the website Gawker, used the nom de plume “Shanghai Lil” to describe his agony in those final months. “Some days, I’m fine, and get around with no problem,” he wrote. “Other days, I’m curled in [the] foetal position in bed the whole day (and more often, several days), racked with pain the whole time. Some days I’m on the subway getting the stink-eye from some old or pregnant lady who clearly wants my seat, and can’t tell just by looking at me that I’m sitting because I’m on my way home from a doctor’s appointment, and if I stand for one more minute, I’m going to fall on the ground.”

When grieving friends were packing away Cox’s possessions after his death, they found a shelf of unopened medicine bottles and a drawer full of unfilled prescriptions. Apparently Cox had stopped taking his hard-won medicine, which accounted for his rapid demise. Angry speculation about this consumed his friends, but most agreed that it signalled a post-trauma syndrome unique to survivors. Many of the 500 people waiting outside the Cutting Room for Cox’s memorial service recognised that they shared the symptoms. In the tradition of the movement, people in line accorded it an irreverent name – Aids survivor syndrome, or Ass – and took it very seriously.

The doors of the Cutting Room swung open at precisely 2.30. The mood inside was mostly sombre and reflective, despite the efforts of the pair of drag queens – done up as Joan Crawford and Cox’s totem, Bette Davis – greeting mourners. A video played campy scenes from the old films that always ran through Cox’s mind and frequently spilled from his lips. The camp sensibility was lost on almost nobody except perhaps for Cox’s mother, Beverly, who had travelled up from Atlanta. She steadied herself on the arm of Nick Cox, Spencer’s only sibling, who is also gay. They took seats in the first row, alongside friends of the family. A mother’s grief was a thick wall around them.

When Larry Kramer arrived, one of the organisers took him by the arm. “Follow me, I have a seat for you,” he said, leading him through the crowd to the second row. Among the activists, Kramer alone was accorded this special treatment. No individual was more responsible for galvanising the Aids movement than Kramer. His plays, books, and op-ed pieces over the years pushed the gay community to demand that the world take notice. Now 77, he stayed as busy as ever, though Aids had slowed him noticeably and he too felt a touch of the survivor’s syndrome. That morning he had seriously considered not coming. What finally motivated him to take a cab uptown was a need to stand with his fellow survivors, for whom his emotions were boundless. “Love was always love, anytime and anyplace,” Gabriel García Márquez wrote, “but it was more solid the closer it came to death.”

Chip Duckett, a professional party planner who had organised the affair, walked to the stage to begin the service. “If there was ever any question that Spencer Cox would stop at absolutely nothing to be at the centre of attention” – he broke for over-eager laughter – “this is it.”


He passed the microphone to a succession of speakers, eventually introducing Mike Isbell, Cox’s partner for more than eight years. After their breakup, they had remained friends for many years, but as he had with so many people, Cox pushed Isbell away as his troubles grew. They had not spoken in some time. “Spencer often didn’t make it easy for people who loved him,” Isbell began. “The Aids epidemic traumatised Spencer, and I imagine this trauma stayed with him until the end. 
I recall being at dinner parties – some of you were probably there – or out to meals with friends, where someone would talk about ‘living with Aids’ and Spencer would immediately reply, ‘I’m not living with Aids, I’m dying of Aids!’ He’d say this in a tone of defiance, but I knew he was scared to death.”

Isbell spoke of how ironic it was that Spencer lost his way after the treatments came and the lifesaving mission came to an end. “He desperately wanted another life outside of Aids,” he said, looking around the overflowing room. “It seemed that in the ‘treatment era’, he was always in search of something but not finding it.”



The author, Aids campaigner and gay rights activist Larry Kramer, founder of Act Up. Photograph: New York Times Co./Getty Images


Peter Staley was the last to speak. He had been unable to sleep the previous few nights, struggling to find the words to make sense of Cox’s death and life. Staley was among a small group of people who had raced to Cox’s side when they had learned about the final hospitalisation. By the time he arrived, Cox was already in steep decline: he had gone into cardiac arrest three times, and his kidneys had failed. Staley stood outside the hospital door as medical personnel rushed in and out. Staley could hear the defibrillator lifting Cox’s chest off the table again and again. When Cox was stabilised, Staley and Tim Horn, another activist, were allowed inside briefly. Minutes later came another heart attack and another brutal resuscitation.

From his telephone, Staley posted a note to a private Facebook message group where he had been coordinating support for Cox. It landed in my phone with a vibration and a jingle, as I stood in the cold morning sun on Sixth Avenue, a mile and a half away: Spencer had died. I slumped, lightheaded and bereft, against a plate glass window.

The four weeks between then and the memorial service had done little to dim Staley’s pain. He placed the pages of his planned eulogy on the small lectern, squinting into the harsh stage lighting to study the faces before him.

He said: “I first met Spencer when he started showing up at Act Up meetings in the fall of 88. We were all so young. I was younger than most. But he was seven years my junior.”

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He caught his breath, remembering.

“It was a wonder watching him wow the FDA, and in meetings with the biggest names in Aids research, like Anthony Fauci. He earned the respect and the love of his fellow science geeks and those of us lower down the learning curve … Eight million on standardised regimens. Eight million lives saved. It’s a stunning legacy, and so bittersweet. How could that young gay man, confronted with his own demise, respond with a level of genius that affected millions of lives but failed to save his own?”

Staley spoke of Cox’s last failed burst of activism, and called on the weathered activists to snatch meaning from his death. “He spoke out forcefully about the depression and PTSD that the surviving generation of gay men from the plague years often suffered from, regardless of HIV status. While many of us, through luck or circumstance, have landed on our feet, all of us, in some way, have unprocessed grief, or guilt, or an overwhelming sense of abandonment from a community that turned its back on us and increasingly stigmatised us, all in an attempt to pretend that Aids wasn’t a problem any more.”

He scanned the vacuum-quiet room. “That is Spencer’s call to action,” he said, “and we should take it on.”

This is an edited extract from How to Survive a Plague, published by Picador on 1 December. 
There will be a special screening on Thursday 1 December of David France’s film How to Survive a Plague at the Cinema Museum, London SE11, at 7pm; it will be introduced by Peter Staley.

Follow the Long Read on Twitter at @gdnlongread, or sign up to the long read weekly email here.

Read more articles from The Gaurdian, here.

Community comes together for World AIDS Day events










Thursday marks World AIDS Day, and multiple Alamance organizations have partnered to host free testing, a dinner and speakers at Elon University.

From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Alamance Cares, in collaboration with the Red Ribbon Society of Burlington, will conduct free HIV and Hepatitis C testing at Moseley Center.


Billy Willis, founder and president of the Red Ribbon Society, says there’s been a big push to have baby boomers — those born from 1946 to 1964 — tested for Hepatitis C since they’re five times as likely to contract the disease than other adults.

The cause of the high rate of infection in that age group isn’t clear, but it’s believed that many boomers contracted Hepatitis C from the 1960s to the 1980s, when transmission was at its peak, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

No registration is required for testing. For those waiting in line, there will be information booths where students, staff and members of the community can learn about AIDS and prevention methods.

There will also be an AIDS quilt for people to sign with a fabric pen. Jason Greene, program director for Alamance Cares, says the quilt will be a dedication to fallen loved ones, and will offer support to those still fighting. Alamance Cares will keep the quilt afterward to use for future events.

AFTER TESTING, Alamance Pride and the Elon Gender and LGBTQIA Center are hosting a free dinner at 5:30 p.m. in the Moseley Center.

At 6 p.m., Burlington Mayor Ian Baltutis will lead a series of speakers that will include Carolyn McAllaster, a clinical law professor at Duke University and director of the HIV/AIDS Policy Clinic. She will speak about HIV and surrounding legal issues. Alamance NAACP President Barrett Brown also will speak. There will also be prize giveaways.

Willis says educating the community is an important part of prevention and awareness, especially in the South.


“North Carolina and the South in particular have the highest rates [of HIV] in the country, and I’m personally HIV positive, and before I was HIV positive, no one talked to me about it, so I think it’s important that people be informed. … HIV really affects a lot of younger people these days. I think 13 to 25 [has the highest] rate of new infections, but by 2020, 50 percent or more will be 50 or older, also, so the AIDS population is aging instead of dying younger like it used to be,” he said.

Alamance Cares conducts free HIV testing in the community and at Elon and Alamance Community College. The office is at 3025 S. Church St., Burlington.

The Red Ribbon Society of Burlington aims to provide a safe environment for HIV/AIDS-affected persons by combating the stigma through knowledge and promoting safer sexual practices.

To learn more about HIV and AIDS, visit https://www.aids.gov/hiv-aids-basics/.

Reporter Jessica Williams can be reached at jessica.williams@thetimesnews.com or at 336-506-3046. Follow her on Twitter at @jessicawtn.

Read more articles from The Times News, here.

Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Pence Calls Gays To Voluntarily Quit Jobs With God-Fearing Employers “So We Can Avoid Laws That Reject Them”

(Photo Credit: Flicker)
Written by November 13th 2016


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Digging up Mike Pence’s past political work has become a sport in the brief time since he was named Donald Trump’s running mate. The most recent finding is that Pence penned strong anti-LGBT letters in the 1990s during his time as head of the Indiana Policy Review. In 1993, he attacked gay leadership in the military, claiming: “Homosexuals are not as a group able bodied. They are known to carry extremely high rates of disease brought on because of the nature of their sexual practices and the promiscuity, which is a hallmark of their lifestyle.”

Given his long history of calling to violence against members of the LGBT population, it’s no surprise that Pence can’t go long without going back to his hateful ways. In a recent interview with Fox News, following the results of the presidential election in which his running mate Donald Trump triumphed over Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Pence issued a call to homosexuals throughout the United States to “voluntarily quit any jobs they might have with God-fearing employers” for the purposes of “avoiding laws that reject gay people from working in such jobs.” 

Whether his latest rant has something to do with Donald Trump’s already transforming post-election rhetoric, in which he revealed that he now plans to scrap only parts of Obamacare, and not the whole program, as previously announced on multiple occasions, is still unclear. What is a lot more clear is that Pence, along with the president-elect, has started toning down his political views, perhaps in an effort to appease the protests that have been raging on in cities throughout the country ever since election night, part of which could be urging gay people to quit their jobs voluntarily instead of getting themselves in a position where they will get fired thanks to the latest nation-wide legislation that allows conservative employers to do so.

“There has to be more balance between members of the LGBT population and conservative Americans, we have to find a solution that’s going to be a sustainable one,” Pence said in his interview. “During President Obama’s term, gay people in particular have gotten a significant bump in their ‘rights’ and ‘liberties.’ Unfortunately, those rights and liberties were created at the expense of the rights and liberties of other people, most notably, conservative citizens. And while we recognize that both of those categories should exist, we also feel that the structure needs to be re-budgeted to make it more equal.”

“However, since we have more pressing issues at the moment, given the delicate political situation in the country, it’s less time-consuming for me to simply appeal gay people to resign from their conservative jobs themselves instead of exercising the law upon them. Think of it as the government’s way of being gentle and considerate, mind you, in a situation where we could very easily use a sledgehammer instead of this here scalpel,” Pence added. “We’d prefer gay people to answer this call while they can, because the situation will undoubtedly change in the future. Especially for them.” 

Read more articles from NEWSLO, here.

Social Justice Is a Christian Tradition — Not a Liberal Agenda



08-11-2015



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Many Christians are wary of participating in social justice because of a deep-rooted fear of being labeled “liberal,” “progressive,” or “secular.” They don’t want to be associated with “secular” movements, and are uncomfortable delving into issues that go beyond their cultural comfort zones.

But the Bible tells us that Jesus cared deeply about the social causes around him.


Instead of saying all lives matter, Jesus said, “Samaritan lives matter.”
Instead of saying all lives matter, Jesus said, “Children’s lives matter.”
Instead of saying all lives matter, Jesus said, “Gentile lives matter.”
Instead of saying all lives matter, Jesus said, “Jewish lives matter.”
Instead of saying all lives matter, Jesus said, “Women’s lives matter.”
Instead of saying all lives matter, Jesus said, “Lepers’ lives matter.”


Even though Jesus loves everyone, even to the point of dying for their sins, he went out of his way to intentionally help specific groups of people — the alienated, mistreated, and those facing injustice.

So saying “Black Lives Matter” and participating in a movement seeking justice, positive reform, and empowerment is one of the most Christ-like things we can do.

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Christians must recognize that our society is filled with numerous groups and communities facing systemic oppression, and we must act. We must be willing to admit and address the complex realities within our world that create such problems, and avoid the spiritual laziness that tempts us to rely on generic excuses and solutions.

Christians do a disservice to the gospel message by removing the cultural context from Jesus’s ministry and watering down his message to one of religious platitudes. We like to generalize the words of Jesus and transform his life into a one-size-fits-all model that can apply to all of humanity.

Throughout the New Testament Jesus was more complex than we give him credit for.

He intentionally, purposefully, and passionately addressed very specific causes. He radically addressed the diverse and complicated conflicts of the time and shattered the status quo.

Jesus wasn’t just preaching a universal salvation message for the world, but he was also addressing specific political, social, and racial issues. He was helping those who were being abused, violated, and oppressed.

Involving ourselves within these issues — serving those who need justice — is an example of following Jesus that today’s Christians must adhere to, because throughout the world there are millions of people who are suffering. But many Christians remain simply apathetic, ignorant, or refuse to admit any problems exist.

They’re uncomfortable facing the complex and controversial issues surrounding race, ethnicity, history, and culture.

To avoid such discomfort, many Christians assume that equality and justice looks like a total dismissal — and rejection of — any cultural, ethnic, or distinguishing form of identity. They believe our very humanity should supersede all other labels or descriptions, and that a love of Christ wipes away any “superficial” characteristic such as skin color, heritage, or other cultural identifier.
They see verses such as Galatians 3:28 that states, “ There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (NIV) to mean that nothing else matters beyond our faith in Christ.

Ironically, verses like this show that these things — race, ethnicity, culture — DO matter to God, because God is recognizing the very public fact that there are various laws, expectations, practices, and opinions regarding each distinction mentioned.

Paul is validating all of the cultural issues associated with Jews, Gentiles, slaves, the free, men, and women rather than disregarding them. He’s stating that Jesus is relevant to these differences, and is working throughout their lives by understanding and recognizing the unique pros and cons they’re dealing with — the privileges, disadvantages, stereotypes, assumptions, treatment, rights, social value, and expectations they face on a daily basis.

Participating in social justice is a Christian tradition inspired by Jesus, not liberal causes, populist agendas, media platforms, lawmakers, or mainstream fads. It’s a deeply spiritual practice.

Instead of being motivated by political affiliations, financial gain, power, pride, control, or our own secular motivations, we should be active participants for the sake of following Jesus — for the purpose of glorifying God by through acts of justice, empowerment, and love.


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Because everyone is created in the image of God and loved by God, we are responsible for identifying with the victimized — not rejecting their existence.

That’s why the New Testament goes into great depth detailing the newfound worth given to the Gentiles, slaves, and women. These countercultural instructions to believers were radically progressive, to the point where the gospel writers had to put them in writing to make sure they were implemented within the newly formed church.

While God does love everyone and all believers are united in Christ, this doesn’t negate the fact that we have a unique cultural identity and upbringing and are called to recognize the marginalized, help the oppressed, and avoid rejecting their significance by denying their identity or ignoring their plight.

By acknowledging and actively participating in the #blacklivesmatter movement, addressing racism, immigration, gender equality, and a litany of other issues, you are following in the steps of Jesus.

It’s not a matter of pitting social causes against the gospel message of Christ; it’s a matter of realizing that these causes ARE actually an important part of that gospel message.

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 Stephen Mattson
Stephen Mattson is a writer who currently resides in the Twin Cities, Minn. You can follow him on Twitter (@mikta) or on Facebook.




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Read more articles from Sojourners, here.  

Trump’s Pick to Lead HHS Already Wrote a Plan to Replace Obamacare

U.S. Representative Tom Price of Georgia District Office of Tom Price / CC-BY-SA-3.0

Here’s how Tom Price’s health care legislation would affect people with preexisiting conditions. 

November 29, 2016



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U.S. Representative Tom Price (R–Ga.) is President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). As NPR reports, Price has repeatedly introduced legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA, or Obamacare).

If the Senate confirms Price to head HHS, he will oversee the ACA as well as Medicaid, Medicare and the The Children’s Health Insurance Program. He would also hold sway over the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration.

Price, an orthopedic surgeon, is a conservative who opposes the right to abortion; in fact, he voted for a bill that would have granted the “unborn” equal protection under the 14th Amendment. According to NPR, he has also supported a constitutional amendment defining marriage as between one man and one woman, and he is against legislation that prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation.

As Vox reports, Trump’s pick of Price signals that his administration is very serious about abolishing the ACA. Price authored the Empowering Patients First Act, which is a detailed proposal to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Price’s plan, according to Vox, benefits the young, healthy and rich while disadvantaging the poor, sick and elderly. It also includes a full repeal of Medicaid expansion, which covers millions of low-income people.

His plan doesn’t ban discrimination against people with preexisting conditions; instead, it allows insurers to charge sick people more money if they don’t maintain “continuous coverage.” Vox describes it this way:

If a cancer patient goes straight from insurance at work to her own policy, her insurer has to charge her a standard rate — it can’t take the cost of her condition into account.

But if she had a lapse in coverage — perhaps she couldn’t afford a new plan between jobs — and went to the individual market under Empowering Patients, insurers could charge her up to 150 percent of the standard premium for her first two years of coverage (you can read this section on page 151 of the bill).

A patient can once again qualify for the standard rate if she maintains 18 months of continuous coverage — although that would likely be with premiums set at the higher rate.

Empowering Patients does have a safety net for people like this: It would invest $3 billion over three years in a high-risk pool to cover those with preexisting conditions who are unable to afford coverage on the marketplace.

Read more articles from POZ, here.