We all know the saying about freedom of speech. It doesn’t mean you have the right to yell “fire!” in a crowded movie theater. That kind of speech can risk lives. But what if the theater is already burning on all sides, and someone tries to convince people not to find a safe exit, [...]
Photo by Matt Roth (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 [...]
Social media activist Kalee Garland, who was born with HIV in 1986. The issue of HIV criminalization used to intimidate me, because I didn’t understand State laws, much less how to change them. Thank God I got a scholarship to the first HIV Is Not A Crime Training Academy (HINAC) in 2014, because [...]
‘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 “Mistr Wonderland” music video, and it’s got holiday cheer [...]
Richard King and Emil Matzner, 1982 (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 [...]
Some of the ferocious women of USCHA; Rick Guasco hugs it out with Ace Robinson; Tik Tok personality Brian Thomas; a Puerto Rican performer. 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 – [...]
Among the many resources available to those who access the new (and entirely free) HIV Justice Academy, an online resource for those interested in addressing HIV criminalization, is a new edit of a video created ten years ago. At the time, Sean Strub was in the early process of founding what would become SERO Project, [...]
“There is no greater form of stigma than when it is written into our laws.” SERO Project founder Sean Strub made that notable remark years ago, in regard to what he considers one of the great moral issues of our time: the prosecution of people living with HIV for no other reason than the fact [...]
Jeff Berry, newly named director of The Reunion Project The Reunion Project has always held a special place in my aging heart, probably because the national network of long-term HIV/AIDS survivors addresses the very issues relevant to people like me, namely, what the hell will happen to us as we age, and where [...]
Mark S. King and Damon L. Jacobs 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 standing butt naked a few [...]
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