“A Trump appointee walks into an AIDS conference” sounds like the beginning of a terrible joke, doesn’t it? Just wait until you hear the punchline. It’ll kill you. The sight of the Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar standing before more than 4,000 public health and community-based providers of HIV services is shocking [...]
The musty gym bag stays in my closet, ironically enough. Inside, a crumpled black wig fights for space with a sequined dress, heels, a string of fake pearls and a bag of make-up. After more than twenty years since performing with the Armorettes, this is all that remains of Ms. Anita Mann. That is, until [...]
Richard King and Emil Matzner, 1982 My brother Richard smiles a lot. He has an easy laugh. But there was a time, years ago, when he held a poisonous drink in his hands and begged his dying lover not to swallow it. A time when Richard held the concoction they had prepared together [...]
Remembering the moment in March of 1985 when I learned I was HIV positive is difficult. I speak and write about it often, but the actual emotions aren’t easy to access. I know it was horrific because my brain tells me it was, but putting myself back into the mind of my 24-year-old self and [...]
"Sing Your Song" follows the awakening of a young man living with HIV in Mississippi. Stop what you’re doing. An exhilarating new short film produced especially for people living with HIV (PLHIV) is about to grab your heart and make you stand up and cheer. To commemorate World AIDS Day 2018, the Sero [...]
The number might be a little low. Over the course of my “phone fantasy” career in the 1980s, I spoke to as many as ten customers in a given day, numbering in the many thousands over the years. That’s a lot of heavy breathing. It began when I was a struggling actor in Los Angeles [...]
Mary Bowman performing at the opening of the 20th Anniversary Community Summit. The team behind the 20th Anniversary Community Summit, being held in Atlanta this weekend and sponsored by ViiV Healthcare, knew how to open the event today on exactly the right foot. The first words attendees heard were the poetry of Mary [...]
Benjamin Schatz of The Kinsey Sicks at the 2018 United States Conference on AIDS. The Kinsey Sicks have been at this a long time. The acapella singing group of gay men in drag are celebrating 25 years of performing shows that are equal parts camp comedy and very of-the-moment political humor. Benjamin Schatz [...]
Original ACT UP activists Mark Harrington, Peter Staley, Gregg Gonsalves, and Ann Northrup at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health on October 11, 2018. The AIDS activists who regularly stormed the homes, offices and even churches of the powerful beginning in the late 1980’s weren’t the only ones who were scared [...]
Lesley was my closest friend to become sick in the 1980's, and he fought bravely until his death from AIDS. Today, there are little rituals I have to honor his memory, and I often write about him, the first of many friends lost to the epidemic. But there's something I will not do. I will [...]
