You should know the end of the story first, because the ending demands to be heard. It took place last month in the largest event space at The LGBT Center in New York City, where hundreds of people were excitedly greeting each other, grazing at the food table or...
The students who hang out in the Dr. Jesse R. Peel LGBTQ Center of East Carolina University (ECU) are welcome guests in a dynamic, welcoming space. Among them are all manner of gender expression and burgeoning sexualities. You’ll find them lazing on couches or typing...
As I say in my recent interview for Dennis Hensley’s podcast (“Dennis, Anyone?”), it’s hard to talk about this without sounding like a total dick. But really, when has that ever stopped me before? Dennis has a way of entertaining his audience with zippy one-liners...
(I will never explain the early days of AIDS better then this, so I post this essay to commemorate World AIDS Day every year. This essay, written in 2007 for Southern Voice newspaper, won "Outstanding Opinion Piece" from NLGJA, the national LGBTQ journalism...
Charles Sanchez is one busy New Yorker. There’s the writing he does for nearly all of the major HIV outlets, his regular Instagram show featuring community notables, and then his dashes to the gym to contend with the five pounds, give or take, that continue to mock...
The day has come. Today, My Fabulous Disease: Chronicles of a Gay Survivor is officially released. This book represents - and I know how this sounds - my life’s work. It features essays culled from writing over the course of four decades. It is joyful and dark and...
You know what a fan I am of the annual United States Conference on HIV/AIDS (USCHA), produced by NMAC. I’ve been writing about it for years, and providing videos and photo essays for those of you who couldn’t make it or wanted to relive the highlights. If...
In the early days of the AIDS crisis, as a young gay white man finding my way in the emerging HIV arena, I was King of the Mountain even if I wasn’t conscious of it. I worked with people who looked like me, on behalf of people like me, at organizations founded and led...
It felt presumptuous of me to believe I have much in common with historic Olympian Greg Louganis. His level of fame, his record-shattering sports career, and the worldwide scrutiny he faced when he went public with his HIV status in 1995 are all beyond anything I...
It isn’t very often that any of us can play a tangible role in honoring and preserving the legacy of one of the pillars of our shared history. Here’s just that opportunity. Michael Callen is someone many people consider to be the original long-term AIDS survivor. He...
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