SGN June 24, 2011 - Section 3 - AIDS

Section 3 Issue 25, Volume 39, June 24, 2011

Seattle Gay News

30 Years of AIDS

ACTUAL FRONT PAGE OF SGN – USED AS GRAPHIC FOR THIS SPECIAL SECTION: “30 YEARS OF AIDS”

White House issues statement marking 30 years of fighting AIDS Courtesy of the Office of National AIDS Policy Thirty years ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention first reported on the condition that would eventually become known as human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection. Over the past three decades, HIV has emerged as a potent global pandemic, and today more than 33 million people around the world are living with HIV and more than two million die from Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) annually. Even today, more than 50,000 people in the United States are infected with HIV. “We pause to mark the 30 years we have been fighting HIV/AIDS,” said President Barack Obama. “As we

remember people in our own lives we have lost and stand by those living with HIV/ AIDS, we must also rededicate ourselves to finally ending this pandemic – in this country and around the world.”

“This battle is not over,” said Secretary for Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius. “As long as the AIDS virus threatens the health and lives of people here and around the globe, our work will continue to connect people to treatment, educate them about how to protect themselves, battle discrimination, and keep the country focused on our collective fight against this pandemic.”

While America has made great strides in the fight against HIV/AIDS in recent years, the Obama administration has made it a priority to re-focus national attention on a domestic epidemic that is still in play. Building on a growing body of evidence and

lessons learned, the administration released last year and is now implementing a comprehensive National HIV/AIDS Strategy that provides a roadmap for reducing new infections, improving care and health outcomes for people living with HIV/AIDS, and reducing the health disparities that have characterized this epidemic.

The president is also deeply committed to expanding access to HIV/AIDS prevention and care for more Americans and to supporting a robust research agenda to ensure that we make steady progress toward ending the pandemic. Under the president’s leadership, the administration has increased domestic HIV/AIDS funding to support the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program and HIV prevention. On the global stage, the Obama Administration’s Global Health Initiative has built on the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR)

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The White House

by expanding access to treatment, prevention, and care for those in need around the world, and further enhanced our impact by providing increased support for maternal-child health and by supporting the efforts of governments and communities in the developing world to build their capacity to fight this epidemic and meet the other health challenges they face. The administration will continue to use its leadership to call upon other countries to honor their commitments to defeat a pandemic that demands the attention of the entire world.

On the domestic front and international stage, the administration continues to work closely with the American people who, on this day, should stand proud of what they have done, at home and abroad, to ignite our collective commitment to this worthy cause.

To view an interactive timeline of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and read more information, including upcoming events, please go to aids.gov/thirtyyears-of-aids.

Celebrating 38 Years!

Paul Kawata talks about AIDS and 30 years of activism

by Anthony Greer SGN Staff Writer

courtesy metro wee kly

Paul Kawata

gets harder as you get older, it seems. It doesn’t really get easier.

Greer: How do you view the current state of the AIDS epidemic? Do you feel as if we’re going in the right direction fast enough?

Kawata: No. No, clearly I don’t.

People are still dying of AIDS, and it is still a really expensive, longterm commitment to take care of someone who is living with the virus, and I wish there were fewer people getting sick and, ultimately, and this is new for me, I’m hoping for a cure. This is the first time in the epidemic that we’re openly starting to talk about the possibility of a cure and for those of us who are fighting this epidemic, the cure is the holy grail of our work.

It is that which we all hope for and it is that which could save the lives of millions of people who are infected all across the world.

Greer: Why do you say that you’ve only recently begun to hope for a cure?

Kawata: Because there wasn’t a lot of research or energy expended on looking for a cure. A lot of the research energy was spent looking for a vaccine, which would prevent getting infected, but for those who were infected it wouldn’t help them. Well, now we are for the first time in a long time having open discussions about whether we can cure courtesy

bilerico

project

hope for a cure to a virus that has been around for 30 years this month and curIn June of 1981, the CDC’s Morbidity rently afflicts at least 30 and Mortality Weekly Report publicized million people across the the first records of AIDS symptoms. Dur- globe. ing what can arguably be considered the darkest and most horrific time in Queer Anthony Greer: What history, Paul Kawata left his hometown was it like to be a Gay man of Seattle in 1986 to spearhead the fight in the 1980s during the adagainst the AIDS epidemic in Washing- vent of the AIDS crisis? ton, D.C. Twenty-five years later, as the exPaul Kawata: When ecutive director of the National Minority I look back on it, I think AIDS Council, he is still fighting strong. about how naïve and how During the first few years of the epi- young we were both as a demic, no one knew how the virus was movement and as a comtransmitted, and without the drugs that munity. It was we have today people would develop sy m p t o m s, find out they had AIDS, and often die just months later. Kawata, along with many others in his generation, found themselves watching their friends and loved ones die in hospital rooms and attended funerals on a weekly basis.

Due to homophobia and AIDS phobia, it took the American Public Health Association (APHA) five years before they held a workshop to discuss the virus in a public setting, and when they did, no people of color were invited. During that workshop, Craig Harris – a Gay black man living with AIDS – rushed the stage, took ata Paul Kaw the microphone away from San Francisco Health Commissioner really scary – and I Dr. Merv Silverman, and mean really scary during the beginning of yelled, “I will be heard!” the AIDS epidemic. From 1981 to ’85 were In response to that first APHA work- the scariest years of my life. shop, the National Minority AIDS CounGreer: How has it affected you emotioncil (NMAC) was formed – and along with ally? it, the trajectory of Kawata’s life was deKawata: Oh, I’m pretty fucked up. I think cided. that if you talked to any Gay man who lived “Being an AIDS director wasn’t an op- during that period, they’re gonna tell you a tion when I was coming out,” Kawata said, similar story. The story is that I’ve lost more but after losing so many loved ones, in- friends than I remember, that I am alive but cluding his best friend, he realized that he there are moments when I feel very alone couldn’t stay silent any longer. because the people who were with me when In 1989, Kawata became NMAC’s ex- I grew up are no longer here. Many of them ecutive director, with a staff of four. Since I had to sit with as they died, and I held their then the staff has increased more than ten- hands as they left this world, and it is almost fold and has played an instrumental role in impossible to describe the enormity of it most pieces of legislation that have gone to when it happens once, but when it happens Washington, D.C., to support HIV/AIDS, hundreds of times, it can really play games including but not limited to how health with your mind. care is provided, how new drugs are apGreer: As a Gay man who saw all of this proved, advocacy for change, prevention happen with his own eyes, has it gotten easand education, discouragement of ho- ier for you personally to deal with the AIDS mophobia, HIV testing, culturally sensi- crisis? tive community outreach, and increased Kawata: No, I think it’s actually gotten funding for HIV research. NMAC also harder. As I’ve gotten older, there are more serves more than 3,000 community-based ghosts in my life. As I walk down BroadAIDS organizations. way, I remember being this young kid with Earlier this week, Kawata spoke with a group of friends who had dreams. We SGN about the emotional impact of the had dreams about how we would change AIDS crisis, new treatments, the impor- the world. We had dreams about a life with tance of value and self-worth within the dignity and respect and so many of the folks Queer community, and, ultimately, his who are supposed to be here aren’t, and it

HIV. Greer: Do you believe that the AIDS epidemic is still in the public eye as much as it should be? If not, how can that be changed?

Kawata: It’s not even in the LGBT community’s eye anymore! It is the largest killer of Gay men, period. And yet it is almost invisible on the political agenda for most of our national LGBT organizations and that makes me profoundly sad. I look at it and I have to ask myself as this epidemic becomes more and more an epidemic of communities of color if that’s part of the reason why HIV is no longer seen as such a critical issue because the constituency that supports a lot of LGBT organizations has access to health care, and now we’re talking about a disease that predominantly affects poor people.

Greer: What was NMAC’s role, as well as your own, in bringing the AIDS discussion out in the open?

Kawata: Well, I think that, for me, it was about being an out and proud Gay man and about being proud of who I am and proud of the community that I live and work for and the people who I know and love. I think that I am part of that first generation of Gay men who could live their lives completely out of the closet.

Now it’s pretty commonplace to find Gay people or LGBT people who live completely out of the closet but in the early ’80s it wasn’t that typical and so I became part of that generation of men and women who stood up and said I’m not gonna live my life in the closet. I’m not gonna live my life married to someone of the opposite sex. I am going to live my life being who I am and be out and proud about it.

Greer: What is NMAC’s primary focus today, if anything in particular?

Kawata: Well, right now I think the biggest thing – and I think it’s gonna be a game changer for our entire movement – is treatment as prevention. There was a study that just happened both in Africa and the United States where they took groups of couples, where one person was positive and one person was negative. Half of the group went on HIV drugs immediately. The other half did not. In the group who did the HIV drugs, they stopped the transmission from the positive person to the negative person by 92%, which is almost unheard of. So what it showed was that if we can get people who are HIVpositive onto treatment that we could potentially lower the viral load for the entire community and then maybe it will reduce the number of new infections. If you look at the curve from 1996, the number of people who are HIV-positive has remained pretty consistent and the number for Gay men has increased.

Greer: What is this treatment called?

Kawata: Anti-retroviral treatment or anti-retroviral therapy. It’s the same treatment that anyone living with HIV or AIDS gets as part of the drug therapy that prolongs their life. It’s not a cure, and it’s really important to say that it’s not a cure, and people will need to know that they will have to take these drugs for the rest of their lives,

[AIDS] is the largest killer of Gay men, period. And yet it is almost invisible on the political agenda for most of our national LGBT organizations and that makes me profoundly sad.

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care for these tiny infants. Still, no one addressed the needs of the affected children.

The founder of Rise n’ Shine, Janet Courtesy of Trinkaus, became concerned that hundreds Rise n’ Shine of affected children would be swept up into this disease as more and more women were Though prejudice against people with diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. Her pleas for acHIV/AIDS continues in America, we’ve tion fell on deaf ears as AIDS agencies were come a long way since the ’80s. Now, challenged to keep up with the increashowever, societal apathy has been added to the mix.

Remembering the ’80s and how it was at that time for children adds a chilling dimension to the history of HIV/AIDS. We remember the Ray family, who lived in Florida and had three hemophiliac and HIV-positive sons. During 1986, the family was told their sons could not attend school. In 1987, they moved to Alabama, and once again they were refused entry to school. Threats against the family grew louder and more frequent. On August 28, 1987, their home was doused with gasoline and torched.

On December 1, 1987, the first World AIDS Day took place with WHO (the World Health Organization) asking everyone to “Join the Worldwide Effort.”

HISTORY In the 1980s, children “affected” by HIV/AIDS were not on the national AIDS agenda – these included children who lived with infected parents or the children orphaned by the death of their parents. Their needs were overlooked and forgotten as the disease spread across the country.

At that time the news headlines were filled with stories of “boarder babies” – babies born with HIV/AIDS and abandoned, orphaned, or removed from their parents’ care because of drug use, neglect, or abuse. These newborns often lived in hospitals, boarding, because they had nowhere to go. Foster parents fearful of the disease turned their backs on requests to

ing number of infections and deaths in the adult population.

Janet would not be deterred from speaking out or from creating a support system for these children.

Her passion remained strong, and against many odds and personal and financial sacrifice, she continued to bring her vision into reality.

In 1988, she created Rise n’ Shine. This was the first agency in the nation to provide synergistic emotional support programming for affected children. In 1995, Yale University Press published The Forgotten Children of the AIDS Epidemic. With the publication of this important book, the tide turned for the affected children of AIDS. Communities began to create services to support their needs, often modeling those programs after Rise n’ Shine.

Financial support for affected children was minimal as traditional funding sources turned their backs on AIDS – fear was overriding. Not so in the Gay community. The first fundraiser for Rise n’ Shine was “Kings

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& Queens for Kids,” held at the Stage Stop in Everett. The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, drag queens, and members of the various courts made the trek to Everett to raise money for the children. Today, the Gay community continues their incredible fundraising efforts and support of affected children.

Rise n’ Shine

looks back

tors themselves.

Gifts are donated during the holidays as children delight in receiving both wishes and needs. Grade-appropriate back-toschool supplies and backpacks are donated to Rise n’ Shine for each child. The annual holiday party and birthday picnic bring children and their parents together.

These two events are one great big gigantic family reunion.

As the demographics of AIDS change, with more mixed-race and African American families needing services, Rise n’ Shine continues to advocate and speak out about the needs of their children. Give a staff member a podium and they will passionately try to dissipate the apathy that currently exists for AIDS. They will tell stories of the children who are still overlooked. They will bring tears to your eyes.

CURRENT CONTRIBUTIONS Rise n’ Shine continues to serve the needs of affected children and teens in the Puget Sound area.

Rise n’ Shine is family. It is family for the children and the incredible volunteers who step up to become mentors, camp counselors, facilitators, drivers, and special event staff.

PLANS FOR THE FUTURE Mentors (or big budJanet Trinkaus is trying to learn how to dies) are the core and the foundation of the agen- retire. Michael Dunlop and Rick North, cy’s programs. They executive associate directors, are also are like a favorite aunt on a learning curve, as they take Rise n’ Shine into the future. Both men are experienced, competent, and have passion for the ch i ld r en .

Their success is assured.

More and more time and energy is needed to raise the dollars necessary to balance the trimmeddown budget.

In the future, plan to see more events on Capitol Hill.

Rise n’ Shine will continue to host international AIDS visitors to provide them with a broader understanding of the or uncle – someone emotional needs who understands you and knows what you are going through. A mentor is someone to of the affected children and ways to meet those needs in the various cultures around look up to and play with.

The Magic Circle peer support groups, the world.

It has been a great long journey from which were initially designed to help children through the grief and loss process, 1988 to 2011 for those who have served now also address other needs as well: AIDS the AIDS community and for those who education, how to cope with a long-term so- continue living with the disease. We have cially isolating disease, family dysfunction, climbed mountains together and stumbled understanding puberty, keeping safe, and together, but we have been successful.

As Orison Swett Marden stated, “Sucother emotional support topics.

Our residential summer camp brings all cess is not measured by what you acthe children and teens together and provides complish, but by the opposition you have a place away from the ever-present face of encountered, and the courage with which AIDS. Many children who grew up in Rise you have maintained the struggle against n’ Shine return to give back and become overwhelming odds.” That courage is camp counselors. A few have become men- within all of us.

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by David Webb SGN Contributing Writer Three decades into the HIV/AIDS epidemic, more is known about the disease than ever before, but the future looks as uncertain as ever in terms of how it will be managed in coming decades.

Treatments for HIV infections have radically evolved since the early days, when medications like AZT prolonged the lives of some HIV-infected individuals but failed to help others because side effects like nausea and pain caused the patients to quit taking the drugs.

Now, HIV-infected people often live longer and healthier lives thanks to the devel-

opment of anti-retroviral drugs in the 1990s.

Although healthy appearances often belie the massive, complicated regimens of multiple, often-changing medications to sustain patients, there is no doubt HIV-infected people are enjoying a better quality of life.

Ongoing research by scientists around the world gives hope to the possibility there will someday be a vaccine to protect against HIV, and possibly even eradicate it after infection. Just recently, it was reported that a man suffering from both leukemia and HIV who received a bone marrow stem cell transplant in Germany in 2007 is now HIV-negative. His bone marrow transplant reportedly came from a donor who was immune to HIV, an immunity that some scien-

courtesy david webb

30 years – the future of HIV treatment

tists believe exists in about 1 percent of the Caucasian population.

The downside of all this is the enormous cost of HIV treatments when they eventually become available to the public. The bone marrow transplant treatment is incredibly painful, dangerous, and expensive, so its widespread use is unlikely.

Billions are already being spent on the delivery of anti-HIV drug cocktails, and those costs are expected to spiral in the next decade to astronomical amounts. At the same time, all of the major countries in the world are struggling to remain solvent during the worst financial crisis in more than a halfcentury.

Regardless of what medical treatments become available, the majority of people may not be able to afford them. Millions of people in the U.S. are unemployed and uninsured for health problems they face. The states and the federal government have long provided health care and other resources for HIV/AIDS patients, but crashing budgets are already placing limits on those proDavid Webb

grams, and it’s only going to get worse as governments struggle to make ends meet.

Insurance premiums are rising so quickly in tandem with the rising cost of health care that many companies are struggling to provide benefits for their employees. A decade ago, it was common for companies to pay 100% of employees’ health insurance costs, but now it is more common for employers to require 20% payments of premiums by employees.

In addition to government cuts, the amounts of money HIV service organizations have been able to raise from the charitable public is almost certainly going to decrease, as well. People just don’t have as much income to share with charities.

For older Americans looking to retire and anticipating the end of their job-connected health insurance, the availability of medical care through the federal Medicare program is going to be more problematic, as it will be for younger people contracting new HIV infections.

And even if an older American has abundant financial resources to access whatever medical care is available, the truth is that the drug cocktails that have prolonged the lives of younger people just don’t work as well for those over 50, according to scientific studies.

It’s hard to believe that the 30th anniversary of the HIV epidemic observed this month was accompanied by a United Nations report that 30 million people have died from the disease, and that 7,000 new infections occur globally every day. What’s more, a study from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was released earlier in the month which reported that LGBT students are more likely than their heterosexual classmates to engage in risky behavior like alcohol and drug use, which presumably could lead to unprotected sexual activity. It is believed that an estimated 40,000 new infections occur yearly in the U.S., often in people who are unaware of their HIV-positive status.

Three decades into the HIV epidemic, we find ourselves pretty much where we were in the beginning, back in 1981 when we realized it was likely a blood-borne, sexually transmitted disease in most cases. No matter how rich someone is or how old they are, an HIV infection is unaffordable in every way imaginable. Prevention of an infection is still the best answer for everyone.

David Webb is a veteran journalist who has covered LGBT issues for the mainstream and alternative media for three decades. Email him at davidwaynewebb@ yahoo.com.

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An online community for the HIV+ urbanite

by Brad Crelia Courtesy of Hivster Hivster – n. slang [hiv-stur] A subculture of LGBTQ men and women and their allies who look toward independent thinking and progressive politics. HIV awareness, prevention, and education are of high value, with an emphasis on community involvement and inclusiveness. Hivsters are often sexy, gritty, push boundaries, and are current with music, culture, fashion, and style.

In October of 2010, I was diagnosed with HIV. I knew I wasn’t going to die tomorrow; the disease might not even be the cause of my death. But the diagnosis hit me hard and went straight to the core of my body. The minute I heard my doctor read off the positive results, I knew my life would be changed forever. You’re devastated; a pariah, a bottom-feeder in a community built up of so many class systems in which HIV-positive men lurk at the bottom, a stigma attached to us, sitting stagnantly waiting for change.

My good friend and editor of Hivster.com, Mario, was with me on the day I found out I was positive and saw firsthand how destructively powerful this disease can be. Another close friend, Jesse, came to Seattle to help in my time of need, and we blew through the internet trying to find a site that spoke to us as young, urban hipsters.

But we couldn’t find a thing. We decided we needed to make something, do something – not only for us, but for other people we knew were going through similar struggles around us and across the country.

I started writing again and was published in BUTT magazine. The response from that article was tremendous, and from that day on, we knew what to do: Create a site that gives voice to anyone living with or affected

by HIV who understands living life to the fullest is essential to everyone, especially those who are HIV-positive.

By bringing together health, fashion, art, culture, and social issues, we speak to young, forward-thinking, hip/alternative men and women who unfortunately make up a huge portion of new diagnoses, yet have little online that’s geared toward them besides health websites and pharmaceutical advertisements. As the site progressed, we started sharing personal stories about HIV/ AIDS, celebrity interviews, and picked up Ian Awesome (for a very opinionated weekly column) and Nick, who’s become a close friend, writer, and co-author of a recent interview with Edmund White.

As we move closer to our one-year anniversary, all of us at Hivster hope that we’re making a difference in the lives of those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS, and as we grow, we trust that the rise in infections won’t grow with us.

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Celebrating 38 Years!

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reuters

Thirty years later, so little – yet so much – has changed

by Michael Raitt SGN Contributing Writer

For 30 years now, HIV/AIDS has been an integral part of our community. It moved us into a spotlight where people who already hated us pathologized us even more. This forced us to evaluate who we are and how we want to be seen and treated in our society. It has been painful over the years to deal personally with loss after loss, but we have generated a movement that goes beyond any illness. What has changed?

In the early years of the epidemic, a diagnosis of HIV meant a diagnosis of AIDS, and it was emotionally devastating news.

For all intents and purposes, it was a death sentence, and people who were diagnosed saw their worlds ripped apart. Hopes and dreams of a long life were crushed. Patients were isolated from human contact in isolation units, families abandoned them, politicians blocked funding for care while

vilifying dying men, women, and children.

Friends disappeared, and only those who were lucky had a small cadre of loving, compassionate people – who were sometimes strangers – surrounding them in their final days. There was so much loss and so much hurt and so much fear! The shame and isolation was palpable.

Fear and shame evolved into righteous rage! People in the community began to get outraged, and they expressed their outrage publicly. There were protests against the treatment and shame being cast by people who hated us while displays of the toll taken in our communities (such as the AIDS Quilt) popped up around the country.

The community pulled together and things started to change. Friends and family were still dying but they were being cared for in more respectful ways. Funding was granted, research began, and treatments evolved.

As better treatments became available, we began to lose fewer and fewer of our loved

ones.

As people became healthier and HIV/ AIDS transitioned more into a chronic disease, the boiling outrage of earlier years was reduced to a tepid simmer within the general population, and even within the LGBTQ community. Public perceptions and private experiences ran side-by-side. However, an interesting split happened here.

In the eyes of the general public, it appears as though the crisis is over. People are alive and treatments are available. There is no longer the same sense of urgency, and in the public arena, we don’t see HIV-positive people being treated poorly. On the news, people aren’t seeing demonstrations by members of ACT-UP or sick AIDS patients dying alone in isolation units.

However, the impact on individuals is not much different today than it was 30 years ago. Young men and women who are now diagnosed with HIV still look their mortality squarely in the face and feel as though their lives have been truncated significantly.

What was once a public outrage that life was being cut short for our young men and women is now a private whisper between HIV-positive people and their close friends and therapists. The uncertainty of the future and the fear of dying early and alone are just as palpable today. The feeling of isolation still exists because HIV-positive people continue to experience rejection from within the community and from society in general. They still feel like somewhat damaged goods. They still face questions such as, “Will I get HIV if I drink out of the same glass as you or kiss you?” The big, supportive energy of earlier years is hardly heard, and many young HIV-positive people feel as though they are walking this journey alone.

For many, their HIV status is between them and their physicians and therapists. They don’t disclose to family or friends.

What’s changed? We have new treatments for HIV/AIDS which have prolonged the quality and length of life. The status of LG-

BTQ people in society has ever-so-slowly improved. In my opinion, this is partially due to the AIDS crisis. Some people were touched by what they saw and began to see us as the humans we are and not some sordid sex act inflicted by some scourge cast down by a vengeful god. They saw how we, as a community, came together to support our loved ones. Parents realized that it was more important to love their children than hate them. Some people chose to not take part in the inhumanity of ignorant hatred.

Yet some things remain unchanged on a very individual level. Shame still exists. Ignorance is still experienced and, for some, facing life’s deepest questions comes far too early. What has changed and what has stayed the same has created a peculiar period.

It’s Pride around the country. A time when we celebrate who we are and take our place in society. A time to feel good about ourselves as individuals and as a collective, and to show our pride through celebrations.

Until there is a cure, HIV/AIDS will continue to be a part of our community, and we can take pride in how we support and love the men and women who have HIV/AIDS. We can take pride in knowing we are still a loving, compassionate community that is collectively strong and stands against what is fundamentally wrong and fights a long, hard battle for what is right! The urgency and anger about HIV/AIDS is no longer there, yet the need is just as great as it was 30 years ago. Let us not forget. Let us continue to embrace, support, fight, and love well. Let us live what we are most proud of – the qualities that emerged when we stood up during a time of crisis.

Michael Raitt, MA LMHC, is a therapist and a contributing writer to the SGN. If you would like to comment on this column, ask a question, or suggest a topic of interest, email askingmichael@comcast.net.

HIV testing: We’ve come a long way, baby.

by Dr. Joanne Stekler SGN Contributing Writer

topics for Gay/Bisexual men and Transgender individuals in Seattle and King County.

Joanne Stekler, M.D., MPH, is deputy director of community services for the HIV/ STD Program at Public Health – Seattle & King County. She is also an internal medicine and infectious disease physician at Harborview Medical Center, and assistant professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of Washington.

This article is part of a series focusing on HIV and other STD prevention and care

Thirty years ago, doctors around the world started to see a new, deadly disease impacting Gay and Bi men. This disease, first known as Gay-Related Immune Deficiency (GRID) and later as Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), was quickly found to be caused by the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

A lot has happened since AIDS was identified. Presidents have come and gone. There

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have been medical, cultural, and social advances, even if they’ve come slower than we would have liked. But, unfortunately, HIV is going to be with us for a while longer. Today, I want to tell you about what’s gone on in HIV testing – one day, I hope I’ll write about a cure.

HIV testing remains one of the most important tools in the fight against AIDS, and there’s been lots of progress over the last 30 years to make tests quicker, easier, and more convenient. When the first HIV test came out in 1985, it could take up to six months after someone got infected before the test would reliably detect antibodies to HIV. Our antibody tests have gotten better, and newer tests are pretty accurate about four to six weeks after someone gets infected. We still have that wait because most tests rely on the body to make antibodies to HIV. However, if you get tested at the STD Clinic, Gay City, or the baths, RNA tests can detect the actual virus about two weeks after infection.

In the 1980s, people waited nervously for weeks before going back to the clinic to get results. Rapid tests now give results in 10-20 minutes. There’s a new rapid test that takes only 60 seconds. And there’s an even newer rapid test that we’re studying at the STD Clinic and Gay City that both gives results in minutes and can detect HIV before antibodies develop.

We’re trying to make testing easier so people will do it more often. For those of you who don’t like getting your blood drawn, rapid tests use finger sticks or even mouth swabs. Sometime soon you may be able to buy an HIV test at a drugstore and test yourself at home. The iTest study, going on through the University of Washington, is looking to see how this will work.

Despite the fact that testing has gotten easier and quicker, about 15% of HIV-positive Gay and Bi guys in Seattle still don’t know they’re infected. How do we know this? Because people like you have participated in the PITCH study, which will be going on again this summer. This study is important because it helps us direct future testing and other resources to where they’re needed most. So if you see the Public Health RV, and the study staff ask you to participate, please agree to help.

If you’re Gay or Bi and sexually active, you should get tested for HIV and other STDs at least once a year. You should get tested every three months if you: • Use meth or poppers • Had anal sex in the last year with someone who was a different HIV status than you or whose status you didn’t know • Had sex with more than 10 people in the last year (that’s any kind of sex!), or • Had chlamydia, gonorrhea, or syphilis recently.

If you get tested for STDs at your doctor’s office, be sure to get a complete screen – that means your mouth, your butt, and your penis. And make sure that you get tested for syphilis, since syphilis is on the rise.

Whether or not you go to the Pride Parade this weekend or to any of the AIDS@30 events this month, take a second to think about the last 30 years. Keep your eyes peeled for commemorative artwork on the red wall at the Capitol Hill light rail construction site on Broadway. You can submit thoughts and memories to www.hiv-30.org.

And if you do go to PrideFest on Sunday, look for me. I’ll be wearing a fabulous condom dress.

If you’re a guy who has sex with other guys, you can get tested for HIV and other STDs at Public Health’s STD Clinic, at Gay City, or at your doctor’s office. For hours and locations, call 206-296-4649 or go to www.kingcounty.gov/health/hiv.

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June 24, 2011

Celebrating 38 Years!

Long-term AIDS survivor Rick Hatley remembers

by Mike Andrew SGN Staff Writer Rick Hatley left his home in Bremerton when he was 15. Like many other teenagers, he wanted a freer life, and like many others, he ended up on the streets of Seattle in the early ’80s.

He is a survivor of almost 30 years with HIV/AIDS. “I have PML [progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy],” he told SGN recently. “It’s a virus in the brain – and it slowly deteriorates your brain. It gives me grand mal seizures and memory loss. And mood swings – sometimes I’m so nice, and sometimes I’m really angry and mean.

“My understanding is that it’s permanent.

There’s no cure. It’s going to continue to get worse.

“I wanted to get my story out before it’s too late.”

Hatley tells SGN he was born and grew up in Bremerton. When he was in junior high school, his mother married his school principal.

“I felt like I couldn’t get away from them,” he remembers. “But I felt like I had to get away, though, if my mom’s marriage was going to survive. Her husband – he was not very good with Gay people. So I stayed away from home a lot. I took the ferry over to Seattle and just spent the night.

“Sometimes I’d stay at my sister’s house, sometimes I’d just be out on the street.”

In Seattle, Hatley naturally sought out other Gay boys, but like many of them, he never had money or a place to stay.

“I was seeing this friend of mine, who was a male prostitute,” he said. “And he said to me ‘Why don’t you do what I do?’ and I said ‘What do you do?’ and he told me he was a prostitute. So I became a prostitute.

“I started hanging out on Penney’s corner

– this was back in the early ’80s – back when the Monastery was up and going. George Freeman – you might remember him – he ran the Monastery.”

Old-time Seattleites will remember the JC Penney’s at 2nd and Pike, where the Newmark condos and Pike Plaza retail development are now. In the ’80s it was a popular hangout for Gay boys and sex workers of all ages and genders. It closed in 1982.

The Monastery, at Boren and Stewart, was a former church converted into an all-ages after-hours club.

Monastery owner George Freeman maintained it was a Universal Life Church. Police said it was a center of drug dealing and prostitution, but it is often remembered fondly by people who hung out there when they were young.

Freeman sold the place to an actual church after police filed abatement orders against him in 1985. It is now a parking lot.

“So I’d take the ferry over from Bremerton,” Hatley recalled, “and I’d hook in the evenings, then I’d go to the Monastery, then I’d go to a bathhouse to sleep.

“Then I got into the drug scene. You remember MDMA was big then. And coke.

“So I started hanging around with this guy who was slamming coke, and one time he took my arm and shot me up. Well, that made me feel so good. It was like an orgasm.

So I spent the next several years doing that.”

“You remember Tugs, don’t you?” Hatley exclaimed. “Not the one they had on the Hill, the one at 1st and Bell. David Hecker ran it. My best friend was his lover.”

The old Belltown Tugs was a popular bar in a period when Capitol Hill was not yet established as the “Gay neighborhood.” It closed in 1985 after a 10-year run, and later reopened at Belmont and E. Pine. Hecker died in March of 2009.

At this point, Hatley decided he wanted a

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job, and this led him to another old Seattle landmark – Ivar’s.

“I got a job at Ivar’s Acres of Clams as a busboy. So I’d party, hook, work, and I traveled back and forth to Bremerton.

“So being down at the waterfront, I met people who worked on the ferries, and I wanted to be a ferry worker.

“One of my friends said, ‘You have to start in the galleys, then you work your way up, and you get certified as a mate.’ And that’s what I did.

“There was a restaurant under the ferry terminal – it’s a McDonald’s now, but it didn’t used to be – and the manager kind of took me under his wing.

“I liked the status associated with being employed. It made me look so good with my family. I felt like I could hide my private life if I was employed.

“I led all these different lives!”

Hatley was diagnosed with AIDS in 1985.

“I was on the streets at 15. I turned 45 in May, so I’ve had it my entire adult life,” he said.

Hatley remembers the generalized fear of the early days of the AIDS epidemic.

“I had these really weird bumps on my arms,” he said. “All my friends I knew from the street were dying. So my sis said, ‘Get those bumps checked out.’

“I was absolutely one of the first [to be diagnosed],” he recalls. “They didn’t even call it AIDS then. They called it something else – I don’t remember what it was.”

In the media, the term GRID (Gay-Related Immune Deficiency) was the common name for the disease in the early ’80s. It was also called the 4H disease, after the most at-risk populations – Haitians, homosexuals, hemophiliacs, and heroin users.

The term AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) was introduced at a CDC meeting in July 1982, and eventually became the standard term for the disease.

“Now I have full-blown AIDS,” Hatley continued. “But with my new medications it’s under control. In those days there were medications, but they were very tough on your body. I never took them and I think that’s the reason I have the longevity I have.

“I used to live in my own house, but one day I was cooking – I had a gas stove – and I had a seizure and set the house on fire. Now I’m in a home….”

Hatley continues to have a close relationship with his sister, and his sister’s children, but while he talks to his mother, the two are not close. He credits his sister with helping him overcome addiction to multiple drugs.

“My sis was so upset about [my addiction],” he said. “She told me she wouldn’t have anything more to do with me – and my love for her – well, I just did it.”

“My mother was really against homosexuality – it was the worst of the worst, as far as she was concerned. … She’s not one to forgive.

“My niece and nephew are openly Gay,” he chuckled. “It’s funny. [My mother] was so against it, and now her grandchildren are both Gay.” Hatley still comes to Seattle for medical treatment at Madison Clinic, and he admits he is astonished at the changes he sees in the neighborhoods he grew up in.

“Isn’t that somethin’,” he said. “I’m surprised at the changes. You know, we paved the way for a lot of what the Seattle Gay scene became.”

June 24, 2011

Seattle Gay News 15

Lifelong AIDS Alliance strives to help people living with HIV/AIDS

Courtesy of Lifelong AIDS Alliance On June 5, 1981, the Center for Disease Control’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report published the first mention of what later was determined to be HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), the virus that causes AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). The report mentioned five cases of pneumocystis carinii pneumonia in young men. The report prompted reporting from New York, San Francisco, and other

cities of similar cases.

Thirty years later, the illness is a pandemic, an incurable disease that has infected and killed nearly 30 million people around the world.

In the early years, those affected had nowhere to turn. Not the government, not the public, not their employers, and in far too many cases, not even family members or friends. The HIV/AIDS epidemic of the early ’80s launched many grassroots activist movements around the country. It was at this time that a small group of activists

gathered in Seattle’s Volunteer Park to pass around a soup can. They ended up collecting $42 to help those with HIV. This group formed what would become the Northwest AIDS Foundation in 1983. Lifelong AIDS Alliance was formed in 2001 from a merger of the Chicken Soup Brigade and the Northwest AIDS Foundation, and has since grown into one of the largest AIDS services organizations in the Northwest.

Today there are more than 10,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in Washington state, and of those, over 65% live in King County. Lifelong AIDS Alliance works to fulfill our mission of serving those affected in a variety of ways. We offer innovative programs in education and prevention, food services, case management, housing, insurance continuation, medical nutrition therapy, treatment adherence, and other types of assistance for people whose lives are affected by HIV/AIDS and other chronic diseases. We also address the poverty and stigma that often accompany those illnesses. Last year, with the generous support of our community, Lifelong’s dedicated staff and volunteers helped more than

3,500 clients and reached another 21,000 individuals through our diverse education and prevention programs.

“Lifelong is a multi-service agency,” said David Emerson, director of marketing and volunteer programs. “We are a health and social services agency, but by necessity, we are also a poverty agency, a hunger agency, a housing agency, an insurance agency, and an important advocate for basic human rights in Washington state.”

Lifelong’s Chicken Soup Brigade nutrition program combines healthy food and nutrition counseling to assist low-income people who are chronically ill.

“Looking after the basic needs of people is the right thing to do, and it addresses a major public health concern,” said Paul Getzel, care services supervisor. Over time, the program has evolved from a palliative care program to a comprehensive nutrition therapy resource producing measurable results in nutritional health and self-sufficiency for low-income individuals living with HIV/AIDS. Lifelong’s housing case managers help clients maintain their health by working with them to create plans that encourage long-term housing stability. Our housing case managers assist in housing applications, intervene in housing-related crises, advocate with landlords, and locate new affordable housing options. “When people face a health or housing crisis, we need to help them get through the crisis,” said Marcee Kerr, manager of housing and case management. “The goal of Lifelong’s case managers is to screen people into our programs, not screen them out.”

Since our humble beginnings in the early years of this crisis, we have remained committed to making sure local and national communities never forget that HIV/AIDS still exists, and we will continually strive to help those affected until there is a cure.

As the community reflects on the past three decades, and dreams of a future without HIV/AIDS, please plan to join Lifelong and thousands of supporters on Saturday, September 24, 2011, for the 25th anniversary Seattle AIDS Walk. Walk with us as we honor 25 years of memories and 25 years of hope. Please visit www.seattleaidswalk.org to learn more.

In addition to being a year of anniversaries, remembrances, and reflection, 2011 is also a year of new beginnings. It was in early 2010 that Lifelong’s Board of Directors set out to find a new leader; one with the vision and depth of experience necessary to address the increasing complexities of serving those living with HIV/AIDS. On Tuesday, June 14, 2011, Lifelong’s Board of Directors announced the appointment of Randall H. Russell as chief executive officer, effective July 1, 2011.

“It is with a strong commitment to the Seattle community that I made the choice to be involved with an organization so dedicated to reduce the number of annual new HIV infections, advocate for the rights of the chronically ill, and provide support services for those whose lives are affected by HIV and AIDS,” Russell said.

For more information about Lifelong and to read more about the appointment of Randall H. Russell as CEO, please visit us at www.llaa.org.

We have remained committed to making sure local and national communities never forget that HIV/AIDS still exists, and we will continually strive to help those affected until there is a cure.

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Seattle Gay News 17

Gay City reflects on prevention work, readies new approaches

by Jeff Rinderle, communications director for Gay City Courtesy of Gay City Health Project As the HIV/AIDS epidemic begins its fourth decade this month, Gay City Health Project recognizes this important anniversary by reflecting on its own HIV prevention work and collaborating on a new commu-

nity effort, the HIV30: Take Action Seattle collective.

“It was 30 years ago this month that the Centers for Disease Control published an article reporting the first known cases of what we now call AIDS,” said Fred Swanson, executive director at Gay City Health Project.

“Unlike more remote areas of the country, Seattle was almost immediately impacted, with our first official case reported in 1982.”

The local community was quick to respond to the growing crisis. Seattle Gay Clinic, Seattle Counseling Service for Sexual Minorities and Seattle AIDS Action Committee hosted forums to educate and mobilize community members.

Their efforts gave rise to new organizations like the Northwest AIDS Foundation and the Chicken Soup Brigade, which became Lifelong AIDS Alliance via merger in 2001..

By 1993, it was clear that Gay and Bisexual men were still disproportionately affected

by HIV. A group of local AIDS educators and activists formed the MSM (Men who have Sex with Men) HIV/AIDS Prevention Task Force. The group charged itself with assessing AIDS education efforts targeted at the Gay community. At that time, MSM accounted for 90% of all new infections in

the Seattle area. However, only 20% of locally distributed HIV prevention funds were targeted toward their needs. The Task Force concluded that health officials, educators, and activists must work harder to reach those most at risk for HIV infection. Their work, along with a grant from Public Health Seattle & King County, eventually led to the formation of Gay City Health Project in 1995.

“Now in our 16th year, Gay City has been around for more than half of the HIV epidemic,” said Swanson. “I think our longevity is a result of adapting to the changing needs of Gay and Bisexual men, staying current with successful prevention strategies, and having an amazing amount of community s up port from

volunteers and donors.” Gay City’s early programs included community forums and edgy, award-winning media campaigns designed to address the complicated issues surrounding HIV prevention, including sexuality, drug and alcohol use, masculinity, survivor guilt, relationships, growing older, and the politics of HIV/AIDS. In 2004, the organization opened its Wellness Center, providing HIV testing in a welcoming, peer-based environment. The service continues today, with more than 2,000 men tested annually.

Gay City continues to offer programs that touch community members in profound ways. The organization builds on its experience with programs like Gay City University, which allows volunteers from within the community to share the benefits of their knowledge and expertise with their peers.

Gay City’s work with the SHIFT Peer Recovery Network provides resources and events for LGBT people in recovery from

addiction. Gay City fosters communication through the arts, with such programs as Gay City Anthologies, soon to be in its fourth edition, and the Seattle premiere of The Infection Monologues, an experimental performance piece breaking new ground on the way we understand new HIV infections among Gay men.

“While Gay City continues to excel in our primary mission of serving Gay, Bi, and Trans men,” said Swanson, “we also recognize that a healthy Gay community is about more than Gay men caring for Gay men – it’s about Gay men serving the broader community, as well. As we continue to grow, we continue to challenge the notion of who the Gay community is, and who the Gay community cares about.”

In this spirit, Gay City joined with other local HIV/AIDS service organizations to create HIV30: Take Action Seattle.

The collective’s efforts can be found online at www.HIV-30.org, a web resource for photos, memories, and information related to all of our experiences with HIV/ AIDS in Seattle over the last three decades. Community members are invited to participate by submitting their own contributions to this online retrospective.

The HIV30 group will also display a collaborative art installation on the Sound Transit “Red Wall” along Broadway on Capitol Hill. Organizers are working together to create an art installation that both reflects and commemorates our unique, individual, and community experiences in regard to the epidemic that changed the landscape of the world. Installed in three sections over the next six months, the project will initially depict a graphic timeline of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. The second section will showcase imagery representing people’s experiences with HIV/AIDS in Seattle. The third installation will highlight ways to stay involved and demonstrate continued commitment to fighting HIV/AIDS. “Gay City is excited to participate in this project,” said Swanson. “It’s this kind of collaboration that helps organizations stay relevant to the communities they serve. We’ll continue working together until HIV/AIDS is over.”

To find out more about the community art project or HIV30: Take Action Seattle, visit www.hiv-30.org.

HIV30: Take Action Seattle website launched

by Shaun Knittel SGN Associate Editor A new website, HIV30: Take Action Seattle (www.hiv-30.org), is a collaboration of Seattle agencies, organizations, and people working together to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Gay City Health Project, Seattle HIV Vaccine Trials Unit, AIDS Clinical Trials Unit, Seattle Area Support Groups, Rosehedge Multifaith Works, BABES Network – YWCA, Lifelong AIDS Alliance, MOMS Pharmacy, TheSeattleLesbian.com, Pride Foundation, and Public Health – Seattle &

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King County make up the organizations who are lending their support to HIV30.

The website is a resource for photos, memories, and information related to all of our experiences over the last three decades.

Although the website is new, it has been quite active. Visitors to the site have uploaded photos of Cal Anderson, Washington state’s first openly Gay legislator, old Seattle Gay News articles earlySeattle days of the Onfrom Lakethe Union, HIV/AIDS epidemic, and much more.

Want to get involved? Send your stories, photos, and anything else you feel should be commemorated regarding HIV/AIDS in Seattle to Robert at Robert@gaycity.org.

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June 24, 2011

Seattle Gay News 19

but they’ve been able to show that there are short-term benefits to taking the drugs early, but we’re gonna need more studies. I don’t know if it matters if someone starts the drugs as soon as they become HIV-positive or if they wait until their T-cell count goes down to below 500 or below 300, and that’s the kind of big quagmire that we’re trying to figure out right now. There’s also a huge expense related to it. Anti-retroviral therapy runs between $10,000-$15,000 a year. Supposedly there are about 230,000 Americans who don’t know that they’re HIV-positive.

Even if we were to identify all of them, we’re talking about an addition $2.3 billion a year, and that’s just for the cost of drugs.

Greer: That’s a lot of money!

Kawata: It is. You should note, though, that if we’re able to stop new infections we actually will save money in the long term.

Supposedly the CDC just did a study where they showed between 1996 and 2011 that they’ve averted 330,000 potential infections. That’s $125 billion they saved. It’s much cheaper, I think, if we pay to provide treatment and care for folks than it will be if

we had to take care of them because they’re sick.

Greer: Is there any particular region in the U.S. or in the world that needs help the most right now?

Kawata: Well, as you know, there are obviously parts of Africa that are just deplorable. They have some access to drugs, but it’s still not equivalent to Europe or the United States, and so it’s still very, very difficult there. However, I think it should be noted that Washington, D.C., the nation’s capital, has a 3% infection rate of the general population. That is higher than most sub-Saharan African countries.

Greer: Why is the infection rate so high in Washington, D.C.?

Kawata: The reality is that we haven’t had a good government response to this epidemic and that we have some very real challenges in terms of the D.C. government’s ability to administer programs.

Greer: Is NMAC doing anything right now to spread more awareness in D.C.?

Kawata: Oh yeah, yeah. Typically we try to not get involved in local community politics … however because of the challenges in D.C., several of us have joined several different local planning groups to kind of be a little bit more forceful because even though

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June 24, 2011

kawata

continued from page 3

we don’t necessarily fight the epidemic directly in D.C., we live in D.C. and this is our home and this is our neighborhood.

Greer: Statistically speaking, who is being affected the most by the AIDS epidemic?

Kawata: You know, it’s very frightening.

The latest data just came out from the CDC, and as of the end of 2009, there were 1.74 million Americans living with HIV or AIDS … 75% of them are men. So we’ve seen a huge shift in this epidemic and the people that are now predominately affected are men, and of that 75% of men, 65% of them are Gay men. It’s an epidemic within the Gay male community (or for men who have sex with men) and I think that it is a tragedy that we look and see what’s happening right now to the Gay male community and feel that because there are drugs, we don’t need to worry about it as much. What people forget is that, yeah, there are drugs and they do prolong your life, but you have to be on those drugs for the rest of your life. These aren’t drugs that you can take for a couple of weeks, feel better, and then go back to living your life. This is a commitment for the rest of your life, and if you don’t follow through with this commitment, you will die.

Greer: Don’t most of those drugs come with their own set of side effects?

Kawata: I will say that the side-effects profile has gotten much better as new drugs have been discovered and brought to market, but with that said, we don’t know what the long-term effects are of taking anti-retrovirals, and there are clear signs for what we call the rapid onset of aging for people who are living with the virus. In other words, people who are 50 years old are showing diseases that would typically happen in people who are 65 and older. We’re seeing a lot more heart-related illness. We’re seeing a lot more cancer. That rapid onset of aging is also a real problem right now, so it’s by no means a cakewalk to take the drug, but it is obviously much better than when we didn’t have the drug.

Greer: Have these statistics of people who get infected changed in the last 30 years? If so, how?

Kawata: These statistics have changed a lot. We’ve had two really big successes so far in this epidemic. The first is that we’ve stopped the transition from mother to infant so we’ve basically gotten rid of pediatric AIDS in the United States and the developed world. Even to a large extent in Africa and in India we’ve been able to get rid of a large percentage of the pediatric AIDS cases. So the first thing is that you’re not seeing as many children with AIDS as you used to.

The second thing that we’ve been very successful at is – and I’m not clear if it’s our success or if it’s changing behaviors – but [the number of] people who shared needles during the start of the epidemic was huge, but now it’s almost gone. It’s something that we should acknowledge and be proud of.

Greer: Are there other statistics that we should be aware of?

Kawata: HIV/AIDS infection rates are particularly high in the African-American Gay community. It’s not that young black Gay men have more sex than other people, but the viral load in their community is so much higher that when they have sex in their community, they’re unfortunately much

more likely to have sex with someone who is HIV-positive, and that’s why you see such a disproportionate impact of this epidemic on African-American Gay men or men who have sex with men because even though they are not the majority of the LGBT community or of any community, they are the majority of the HIV/AIDS community. … I guess that’s what makes me so excited about treatment as prevention. It provides an opportunity not just to stop the spread of the virus by lowering viral load, but it can lower the entire community’s viral load and as a result make the transition of HIV not as frequent as it currently is.

Greer: Despite the fact that the AIDS epidemic has been publicized and talked about quite a bit in our nation, people who have been educated about the disease – both Gay and straight– are still contracting the virus.

Why do you think that is?

Kawata: I was recently reading a paper about what it means to be young, Gay, and black in America and about the internalized homophobia, the internalized AIDS phobia, and the internalized sense that your life has no value, and when in all of your life you get a message that your life has no value, why use a condom? Part of fighting the AIDS epidemic involves fighting the social stigma attached to HIV, and in order to solve the stigma attached to HIV, we have to directly address homophobia. Until we can address and respond to the homophobia that is out there, I think it’s going to be very hard to tell an 18-year-old poor black kid who is just coming out that their life has value and that they should use a condom when all around them the world is telling them the exact opposite.

Greer: How do we as a community remind my generation about how absolutely catastrophic it was to be a Gay man or loved one in the 1980s?

Kawata: I’m not sure that you can. I was talking recently to a young Gay man and he said to me that sometimes I sound like I lived through World War I and you’re one of those old veterans who talks like “We’re in the war.” … Talking about what happened in the old days is not necessarily going to change someone’s behavior. What’s going to do it is the discussion as we address homophobia in our society and as we address value and self-worth. If you believe that your life has value, then you’re probably more likely to use a condom. If all of the messages that you’ve gotten from the world that’s supposed to love you say, “Because you’re Queer you’re not OK,” then why use a condom? A lot of folks who went through four years of high school had the shit beat out of them because they were Gay and not necessarily butch, so they felt like they weren’t good enough. A lot of time they have to work through a lot to get to a point where they feel like their life is worth something and, fuck you, you have to use a condom.

Greer: What would you say to people who aren’t too worried about the virus because they can still live for quite a long time even after contracting HIV? Kawata: I think that the story for young Gay men has to be that there is a value placed on being negative. For me, that value is that you don’t have to take a drug every day for the rest of your life in order to stay alive, and that’s really kind of the bottom line. You don’t have to deal with the issues of taking a drug every day for the rest of your life, like the rapid onset of aging, like the cost associated with HIV care, like the discrimination either directly or indirectly that people with HIV/AIDS have to face in this country, and so it is a tough discussion because I think for a lot of folks, when people started to die, it really changed their behavior, but now that people aren’t dying and are just becoming sick for the rest of their lives, they’re going back to old behaviors and a lot of those old behaviors, I think, are rooted in that sense of value or self-worth within the LGBT community.

Greer: As an active member of the Gay community here in Seattle, I’ve discovered

Celebrating 38 Years!

while talking to many Gay men that some – more commonly older Gay men than younger ones – have an “I don’t care” attitude about whether or not they contract the virus.

What are your thoughts on this, and what would you say to someone who approached you with this mindset?

Kawata: I think that there are a lot of Gay men who are coming out of this epidemic who have some serious issues that they have to work out in their lives. Collectively, they went through a lot of loss. … The collective death that they went through … has really shaped how they see the world and I think that for a lot of older Gay men who have come out of this generation, life isn’t what they thought it was going to be because they lost so much in this process and so they’ve given up. Older Gay men have had a very different experience about what it means to be Gay than the Gay men in your generation. We saw a large number of people die and had to go to funerals every week. … For Gay men in their 40s, 50s, and 60s, that was a pretty typical experience about what it was like to be Gay. Greer: What advice do you have for someone who has contracted HIV? Kawata: That it isn’t the end of the world.

There are absolutely treatments. You can live a long, normal life, but you also have a responsibility, and that responsibility is that you have to be in the care of a good doctor who can help keep you alive. You also have a responsibility to have safe sex. You have a responsibility to not pass the virus on to other people. Lastly, you have to be happy. You get to be here when so many others aren’t.

You still get to have hopes and dreams, just like everybody else.

Greer: The AIDS virus has now been around for 30 years. What can we do to ensure that it won’t be around for another 30?

Kawata: We’ve got to spend money to find a cure. We’ve got to find a cure. We can do all of the structural things that we want to do and provide the best care in the world, but at the end of the day, if we don’t find a cure we’re never going to solve this epidemic. There are too many people affected with this epidemic. A vaccine will help prevent new people from getting this epidemic, but it won’t help the 30 million who are already infected.

Greer: Are we any closer to finding a vaccine or cure for the AIDS virus?

Kawata: We’re no closer to a vaccine or a cure at this time. It is my dream, it is my holy grail that sometime during my lifetime, we will find a cure. I have to believe that we will, or else I don’t know how much longer I can continue doing this work.

This weekend in Seattle we’re going to celebrate Pride, and we should. It is our right, and we’ve been fighting long and hard for it. We’ve accomplished a lot since a drag queen stood up in Stonewall in 1969 with a brick in hand and spoke menacing words to a police officer who threatened to turn Judy Garland off of the jukebox after she had passed away. We can walk freely hand-inhand with members of the same sex down Broadway, and no one thinks twice about it.

In 10 countries, same-sex marriage is completely legal, and although it’s still an uphill battle in the United States, if history has taught us anything it’s that it is only a matter of time before we are granted the same rights as our heterosexual brethren.

Despite this, we cannot forget about the other battles that we have not yet won.

AIDS is still the number-one killer of Gay men, and while the anti-retrovirus treatment is likely to reduce the number of new infections, people will still contract the virus. We cannot allow the discussion of HIV/AIDS to disappear from LGBT political agendas just because the initial shock of the advent of the disease has died away; not as long as there are still people afflicted with it.

Thirty years ago, a young Paul Kawata walked down Broadway with his friends.

They discussed their hopes, ambitions, and dreams, and yet many of them did not live long enough to accomplish them. We know now how to avoid contracting the virus – a virus which still has no vaccine or cure. Thus, while we celebrate our accomplishments as a community this weekend, we must also be safe and remember that while we are able to celebrate being Queer or Queer allies, there are many people who aren’t alive today to celebrate with us.

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June 24, 2011

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SafeSchools Coalition stands with gender expansive children and LGBTQ youth.

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22 Seattle Gay News

June 24, 2011

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Seattle Gay News 23