Robert Garofalo, MD, provides care and HIV prevention.
FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH
(CLINIC) COURTESY OF LURIE CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL/JANICE TERRY; (FRED) TODD WINTERS; (ARREST) COURTESY OF P0ETER STALEY; (GOSLING) GETTY IMAGES/JAY WEST
Chicago’s Center for Gender, Sexuality and HIV Prevention is movin’ on up.
The Uptown neighborhood of Chicago is the new home of the Center for Gender, Sexuality and HIV Prevention. “Our focus is on children, adolescents and young adults [including] gender non-conforming kids as young as 3,” says Robert Garofalo, MD, director of the center, which is part of Lurie Children’s Hospital. “We want to provide transgender children and adolescents with care early on so that [they will] not have the same high-risk profile that we’ve come to associate with transgender women when they’re young adults.” The new locale is nearer its underserved populations and offers them an environment less intimidating than a hospital or an LGBT center (some clients, especially the parents, may not be ready to embrace an LGBT identity). Though it’s not a full medical clinic—Garofalo offers clients care at nearby outpatient facilities—he describes the center as “a sort of connector hub” that offers testing for HIV and other
NATIONAL HIV COMING OUT DAY? In his op-ed on POZ.com, Michael Kaplan, the CEO and president of AIDS United, proposed a National HIV Coming Out Day “to create a movement of people living with HIV that changes the national discourse.” Putting familiar faces to the virus, he says, will help combat stigma and raise awareness. Kaplan also acknowledges “the unfortunate reality for some will be that it’s just not possible [to disclose]. It may jeopardize their jobs, their relationships and so much more. But where we can, we must.” Where do you stand? Turn to page 9 for further discussion, then visit POZ.com and let us know whether you’re in or out.
sexually transmitted infections, linkage to care, walk-in counseling, case managers and private interview rooms. It’s also home to the Gender Identity Clinic and is the base of several HIV intervention research projects, including the Life Skills trial, which was written by young transgender women for young transgender women. “If I have a young gay man in my practice or a young transgender woman who is HIV negative by the age of 18, that’s ’s a success story we need to nurture. It’s important to o focus our primary prevention efforts on younger and younger age groups, so that’s what we do.”
GO BIG FRED!
Incidentally, Garofalo is the proud papa of Fred, the adorable Yorkshire terrier from the Fred Says campaign—now with coffee mugs, plush toys and $1 e-cards!—that raises money for teens s living with HIV. Visit fredsays.org for more info.
TO BE CONTINUED
AIDS documentary How to Survive a Plague might return as an ABC miniseries. Although nominated, How to Survive a Plague didn’t take home an Oscar this year, but an Emmy might be in its future. ABC Studios bought rights to the film, according to The Hollywood Reporter, with the possibility of expanding it into a miniseries. Cowritten and directed by David France, the doc recounts how activists in ACT UP and the Treatment Action Group (TAG) fought for HIV meds and research, leading to today’s lifesaving antiretrovirals. France, who was drawn to ABC because of its historical 1977 miniseries Roots, says an expanded Plague would delve into the larger civil rights movements associated with AIDS. We nominate Ryan Gosling to play activist Peter Staley!
Hot Dates / June 8: Caribbean American HIV/AIDS Awareness Day/ June 27: National HIV Testing Day
Ryan Gosling as Peter Staley?
poz.com JUNE 2013 POZ 17