Dec 1 is World AIDS Day, an opportunity for people to unite their focus, hope and strength in an attempt to improve the lives of the estimated 33.2 million people worldwide who are living with HIV, to ensure that everyone around the globe is receiving HIV/AIDS education and to support all those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS. It is also an opportunity to remind people to find out their own HIV status by getting tested and to reinforce the reality that there is no cure or vaccine for HIV/AIDS (but thanks to modern medicine there are drugs that prolong the lives of people who are HIV positive).
For me World AIDS day is also a day to remember that while HIV/AIDS is a universal concern, we as a community must not forget that it is also a relevant and uniquely gay issue. Many people, gay men included, attempt to de-gay HIV/AIDS. This creates a false sense of safety and a type of apathy that leads to misinformed choices and irreversible consequences.
Statistics released in 2006 show that men who have sex with men (MSM)—a blanket term that includes gay men, bisexual men and men who engage in homo sex acts but do not identify as gay or bi—account for 51 per cent of new HIV infections in Canada, up from 45 per cent the previous year and compared to 27 per cent of those who engage in hetro sex acts and 17 per cent of those who use drugs intravenously. While rates among intravenous drug users have gone down in the past four years, rates among MSM have gone up. Both are stigmatized groups.
Gay men are still living and dying with HIV. We are still infecting each other. In Alberta the numbers are going up, as are rates of the other Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs). We are ignoring safer sex campaigns and we are still not receiving comprehensive, gay-friendly sex education in school. In many respects we are still stigmatized for being gay and we are still often choosing to have anonymous underground sex, not because it is hot but because of low self esteem and societal pressures that make us feel we have to in order to stay closeted.
Pre-1982, before the term AIDS was created, HIV / AIDS was called the Gay Plague, the Gay Cancer and GRID (Gay-Related Immunodeficiency Disease) because it was thought to be primarily killing gay men. Friends, lovers, fuck buddies and brothers began dying in the gay meccas of the Castro in San Fransisco and Greenwich in New York. Once enclaves of promiscuity and freedom, these homohoods became city blocks of ghosts and protests. In the beginning, long before Bono or Oprah, it was gay men, lesbians and allies that cared for the sick, educated the masses and helped prevent scores of others from becoming infected. No one else was doing the work. The mainstream media was afraid and politicians for the most part chose not to be proactive.
Even in our own city gay men were dying, sometimes in empty far-flung hospital rooms unattended by nurses that were too afraid to make contact. The Imperial Sovereign Court started raising money for what was then called the AIDS Network of Edmonton (now HIV Edmonton) and in its early years Loud and Queer was filled with pieces about loved ones passing away.
Gone was the sense of utopia that Stonewall ‘69 had afforded the gay community; in its place was fear and questions. “What is killing us?” and “Why is no one doing anything about it?” quickly and necessarily evolved into “Where should we meet?” and “What can I do?” Drag queens added activism to their talents and himbos became nurses. Bathhouses became political and condoms suddenly became something gay people had to deal with.
HIV/AIDS made space and a reason for men to come out of the closet and taught us new ways to be intimate. It shone a light on systemic homophobia and created divisions within gay communities. It added to the stigma of homosexuality and politicized as well as radicalized many gay men. Gay leaders emerged in the face of it and many gay artists found their voice because of it. It created allies and enemies within governments and global organizations. It inspired conversation and self-reflection about what is it to be gay and what it is to be alive.
HIV has taken away countless lives and in their place left us imagining all of the unknown creations, inventions, understandings, works of art, friendships and ways of being that they took with them. It has also hugely impacted gay sexuality and culture while leaving us with an opportunity to know ourselves better in its wake.
HIV/AIDS is a gay issue. It is part of our queer history and how we continue to live and die with HIV/AIDS is part of queer legacy.
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