More than ten years ago, when pop icon Donna Summer died, I wrote a tribute to the impact her music had made on me as a young gay man growing up in Louisiana in 1977. A few weeks ago, producer Becky Ripley at BBC Radio 4 in Bristol, UK somehow ran across that essay...
“If this article doesn’t scare the shit out of you, we’re in real trouble... Our continued existence depends on just how angry you can get.” - Larry Kramer, “1,112 and Counting,” The New York Native, 1983 Forty years ago, on March 15th, 1985, I received my HIV...
The phrase sat there on my Facebook feed, staring back at me like an accusation. “If you aren’t resisting, you are assisting,” the post read. I felt flush with self-conscious guilt. It wasn’t a familiar feeling, not after nearly forty years of speaking up and...
When Jeremiah Johnson was perusing the Gilead Sciences website last November, as one does when tracking one of the most insidious assaults in history against people living with HIV, an item he found buried deep in Gilead’s pulldown menus literally took his breath...
At Out Front Theater on August 8, 2024, seven Atlanta community members performed essays from my new collection, My Fabulous Disease: Chronicles of a Gay Survivor. It was the last stop of a national tour that included events in Palm Springs, Ft. Lauderdale,...
This is a story about GLAAD’s 2024 State of HIV Stigma Report and why its botched release generated widespread condemnation from advocates throughout the HIV arena. It is also the story of how community leaders who keep their eye on the ball can collectively work...
Matt Nadel has quite a connection with the viatical settlement industry - the cottage industry created to purchase life insurance policies from largely gay men dying of AIDS. Based on their life expectancy, policies were purchased and a settlement offered the client,...
Honestly, my meth addiction still haunts me. It intrudes on my waking hours and sneaks seductively into my sexual fantasies. The wounds are deep, even after so many years of my recovery process. Dr. Dallas Bragg isn’t coy when it comes to addressing these issues. As a...
The abrupt closing of aidsmap.com, the stalwart HIV/AIDS information and resource site in the United Kingdom, has sent a mortal shudder through the ranks of those with a history in the HIV arena. The loss is incalculable. It is also a very personal milestone for...
Honestly, I was flattered to see a photo of me on Jennifer Vaughan’s social media feed. She posted it a few weeks ago, during the first days of Pride Month, and it showed me at the 2013 Atlanta Pride parade. I was a Grand Marshal that year, and in the picture...
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