Tyshawn Gooden and Greg Piccirilli in Jerker. (Tyler Ogburn Photography) (Readers: Please join me when I host a virtual screening of this play on April 28th, including a talk-back with the cast and crew. Details below.) When the monumentally important play Jerker begins screening online as the latest virtual offering of Out Front [...]
If you are a person living with HIV, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and your local health department probably already have your HIV genetic profile. They have been examining it and comparing it to a genetic analysis of other people. People in your community. People you might know. You probably never knew [...]
Kiara St James, Ben Plumley, Jose Romero, and Mark S. King Two broadcasts this week took a look at the words we use as people living with HIV - and the words others use to describe us. Those words can be hurtful or weaponized, even among ourselves. As a participant in both conversations, [...]
Included on my long list of Black women in the HIV movement I admire are writer Deirdre Johnson, entrepreneur and activist Hydeia Broadbent, social media influencer Davina Conner, and editor and ally (and proud mom) Olivia G. Ford. The Black women that have shaped and inspired my HIV activism -- and my personal [...]
If there was any question that Charles Sanchez is the Mad Hatter of the HIV community, his latest project should remove all doubt. “The More You Can Ho,” a completely looney set of new HIV public service announcements, is the brainchild of Sanchez and his SkippingBoyz producing partner, Tyne Firmin. The pair is responsible for [...]
Rush Limbaugh once mocked AIDS deaths by playing disco music while gleefully reporting who died. Now that Limbaugh himself is dead, here is my first (and last) episode of "Rush Limbaugh is Dead," in which I name just a few of the HIV activists who have outlived him. Rush Limbaugh apologized years later for mocking [...]
The promise of a new, ambitious television series about “what happened” to gay men in the 1980s is tremendously exciting for long-term HIV/AIDS survivors like myself, starved as we are for representation in the media and for another chronicle of our history to be told. It is often a promise unfulfilled. Already, the British limited [...]
The Counter Narrative Project (CNP) continued their boundary-busting content creation by hosting a recent virtual event honoring the legacy of Mario Cooper. Cooper, who died in 2015, has been described as the "Nexus Between AIDS Activists and Black Leaders." Mario Cooper might actually be the most consequential figure in the HIV/AIDS movement you have never [...]
Karl Schmid, Jeff Taylor, and Mark S. King during +Talk. Karl Schmid, the plucky television broadcaster who revealed he is living with HIV in 2018, has been putting his notoriety and adorable Auusie accent to excellent use since his courageous announcement. Schmid has created Plus Life, a series of social media posts and [...]
Have you heard the one about the gay porn dude who tried to produce a Palm Springs event for this October that he called the “POZ Pride Fest” to raise money for HIV groups and it would include a “Chaser’s JAMboree!” sex party where HIV negative guys could meet their HIV positive dream date for [...]
