The most powerful speaker at the recent "HIV is Not a Crime" conference was a man named Kerry Thomas. He held the crowd of more than 150 advocates spellbound for a full twenty minutes. And he never even took the stage. When one of the conference organizers, Reed...
When Donald Sterling dissed Magic Johnson for being promiscuous and unworthy, it was nothing new for people living with HIV. They’ve heard it all over the years. A lot of those misconceptions persist today, even (or maybe especially) among gay men. Our attitudes can...
"Talk to me like you talk to your friends when no one is around." That was my only request when I sat down with each of four HIV negative gay men to create a short film about their lives and attitudes (video below). They held back nothing, sharing details of their sex...
Maybe we should blame the criminal prosecutions of people with HIV on the mythical legend of Gaetan Dugas, also known by his slanderous nickname, Patient Zero. Dugas was a gay flight attendant from Canada who, according to Randy Shilts' 1987 book And the Band Played...
There is a classic episode of Oprah from 1987 that can still raise my blood pressure. That year, the tiny town of Williamson, West Virginia, became part of a national discussion about AIDS when Mike Sisco, who had returned to his home town to die of the disease, dared...
"We don't know the side effects of this drug. It's too expensive. Insurance won't cover it. It hasn't been studied enough. It will encourage slutty behavior. And why the hell don't people just use condoms?" -- Objections raised to the oral contraceptive progesterone...
The year 2013 was a game changer for My Fabulous Disease, and I want to thank you for your clicks, comments, and shares. I have more confidence as an advocate and a writer, thanks to you, and traffic for this blog more than doubled over last year! I'm bad at...
To view young gay men and say, “if only you saw all the AIDS deaths I saw…” disturbs me on all sorts of levels, and it says far more about us than it does about them.
I had to create a video in my own peculiar way — something that demonstrates the sense of humor that has served me well over the course of 30 years living with HIV.
The film is either a transgressive act of eroticism, or an act that demonstrates how to become infected with HIV. Or perhaps both.
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