You must know this, because it matters. Because it has already changed your life, no matter who you are, and you may not even realize it. It was 1983. Just a year prior, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) became the fearful nameplate for the murderer of gay...
The HIV Cruise Retreat, which has brought tropical fun and a sense of community to people living with HIV, their families and allies for the last twenty years, will sail to the Caribbean this fall. The fact the cruise is happening after the passing of organizer Paul...
There must have been something in the water at those New York City ACT UP meetings back in the day. There had to be. The band of ferocious, cheeky AIDS activists (immortalized in the Oscar-nominated documentary, How to Survive a Plague) has produced scientists,...
Any LGBTQ writer who has endured the gauntlet of getting their book to a reading audience knows what a frustrating, fitfully satisfying process it can be. God only knows how many queer masterworks are trapped in laptops because the writer has no idea how to navigate...
(I tested HIV positive 38 years ago today. My 2017 POZ Magazine essay still rings true.) The young woman sitting across from me on the bus is in her mid-20s. She turns to her companion and her voice grows serious. “I know someone who died,” she says in the hushed tone...
‘Tis the season, y’all. And you know how much I love a nice holiday video. Okay, maybe a naughty one, too. The folks at Mistr, the telehealth platform that provides free PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) and STI testing, sure do have my number. They’ve just released a...
(I will never explain the early days of AIDS better then this, so I post this essay to commemorate World AIDS Day every year.) 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...
After scrapping the in-person USCHA conference for two years due to COVID, and efforts to locate the event in San Juan, Puerto Rico being threatened by two hurricanes – including Ian only weeks ago – it would seem the industrious folks at NMAC (which produces USCHA)...
Damon Jacobs is moving around his hotel room, setting up a tripod and attaching his camera, all the while chatting away enthusiastically about nothing in particular. His sunny attitude is disarming given the circumstances, and maybe that’s the point, because I’m...
The first AIDS joke I ever heard in the early 1980s, back when the threat seemed remote and I was young and insensitive enough to laugh at misfortune, was about who got AIDS. At the time, it was a disease that primarily affected gay men, intravenous drug users, and...
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