The fact that sex worker Jacen Zhu is a fiercely intelligent and community-minded young man shouldn’t really come as a surprise, despite our habit of keeping porn stars in their porny boxes. The advent of online opportunities like "Just for Fans" pages on Twitter, which make oodles of money for sex workers while giving us [...]
The Queer Angel paying respects at the Atlanta AIDS Walk. (Photo by Russ Bowen-Youngblood) When the photo appeared on social media only hours after the Atlanta AIDS Walk last week, it produced gasps and tears. There, standing pensively among the panels of the NAMES Project Quilt display, is a gloriously dressed man in [...]
“I’m sorry to objectify you,” I said sheepishly to bodybuilder Raif Derrazi. For our videotaped interview, Raif was naked down to the nether regions of his sculpted abs, at my request. “Not at all!” Raif happily responded. “There’s a time and place for everything, and this is it.” Raif’s sunny disposition is disarming, because as [...]
AIDS United, the national HIV/AIDS policy, lobbying, and funding consortium of organizational leaders, has issued an apology and promised to review their policies and procedures after the posting of my (can I say bombshell? Humble bloggers never get to use that word, so please) article last week, “Gilead Duped Me into Being Their Mouthpiece. Here’s [...]
Local Gay Bar is a super cute comic strip drawn by an artist known as Adam. The strip is usually filled with colorful go-go boys, handsome bartenders and the kind of bulges we usually only find in the work of a generous illustrator. I was surprised, then, that the strip tagged me in a recent [...]
This is the story of the insidious influence of Big Pharma on our HIV/AIDS leadership and policy-making, and how an experienced activist like me was tricked into delivering messages for the HIV pharma giant Gilead Sciences. I was bamboozled because I didn’t do my homework, and I acknowledge this. I relied upon institutions I trusted [...]
Okay, I will admit I had no idea who Gareth Thomas was, beyond hearing on Saturday that a major rugby star in the United Kingdom had disclosed his HIV status. But anyone living with HIV could relate to the heart-breaking video he released announcing he is HIV positive. His apprehension is palpable, and he makes [...]
A choral performance during Plenary II of the USCA. (Photo: Luke Hammerman) A picture, and sometimes a video clip, can tell a thousand words. Sometimes they shout those words, or even sing them to you. In these amazing pictures and video clips from the 2019 United States Conference on AIDS (USCA), the activists, advocates, and [...]
Jade Elektra at USCA (Photo: Scott Henrichsen) Toronto drag personality Jade Elektra captivated the Saturday plenary of the United States Conference on AIDS (USCA) with her live rendition of “Undetectable,” part of a program devoted entirely to the “Undetectable Equals Untransmittable” (U=U) movement. Jade Elektra is the stage name of Alphonso King, Jr. [...]
Activists disrupt the USCA opening plenary. (Photo: Derrick Mapp) Dr. Robert Redfield, the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) surely saw it coming. Protests are part of the DNA of the United States Conference on AIDS (USCA), and conference organizers have never shied from welcoming dissent from activists. In [...]
