The Great Truvada Debate

When we talk about gay rights...and how far we have come as a community, I think many people would think first of the tide of marriage equality that has been steadily advancing across the nation. This is what makes the news and has become a defining movement for the community. And indeed, we have come very far in the legal recognition of our lives and loves, thus beginning to stem a tide of injustice that was just an accepted and given part of gay life as I knew it when I came out. It is amazing to be writing this to you as an out, gay, and married man with a family as those things were so far beyond my dreams not too long ago.

But there are other issues and conversations that move us along as a community with equal momentum. Some of those conversations are quite heated and so emotionally laden that they are hard to approach. Today's blog is one of those for me. Living the life that I have, and coming to terms with my sexuality when I did....I understand the debate over Truvada affects me, as it does all of us....but another part of me feels so ill prepared to tackle it with the breadth and understanding I think this topic deserves. However, there are few topics today that can cause such heated division as Truvada...and PreP therapies in general. For something sold as an "advancement in HIV prevention, it has engendered such a divided response, with both sides digging in their heels in their positions...that it leaves anyone looking in from the outside confused as to why this drug that can save lives should get this much controversy.

Is there actually a meta-conversation going on underneath the outward discussion of facts and transmission rates? Are we still grappling with old fears and ingrained self prejudices that is keeping us from see this drug as anything other than another tool in the fight against HIV? As the debate swings from one heated comment to another...what are we saying to ourselves, about ourselves?

Gay Rights..Where Are We Now?

Hello everyone....

It has been sometime since I last spoke to all of you. For reasons I will detail further on, writing had become a chore that I didn't understand why I was still doing. But I am happy to be back and I hope that this will mark a new beginning....not only for this blog...but in my life. In fact, the title of todays post offers a clue of what I want to share with you all. So without further ado...

This evening I watched the HBO adaptation of "The Normal Heart", written by HIV and gay rights activist Larry Kramer. For those unfamiliar...the subject of the drama was a retelling of the early years in which AIDS began killing young men in the new York gay community and the struggle to get an uncaring government to respond and a terrified gay community to galvanize in it's own defense. With no medical information on what was happening and why we were getting sick, half the battle was in combating fear and marching on in the face of uncertainty and the loss of friends and lovers that went on unabated. The film shows the foundation of one of the first gay organizations to respond to the AIDS crisis, Gay Mens Health Crisis, and is told from the perspective of one of it's founders Larry Kramer(renamed Ned Weeks in the film), who is often criticized for being too loud, too confrontational, too critical in his roll as an activist fighting against the tide of death all around him.

I watched this movie in tears for the most part(while developing a crush on Mark Ruffalo).....and then I lied awake most of the night thinking about it. Something in me had shifted. You see, I had stopped blogging after DOMA had been struck down because I did not see any need for what I was doing anymore. Prop 8 had launched us into the fight for gay rights, not limited to marriage equality, but when that goal seemed realized...I didn't know what I was doing anymore.

Until someone asked me an innocent question....

World AIDS Day, Truvada...And Why We Can't Ignore HIV

Today is December 1st, and that makes today World AIDS Day. On this day we take a moment to educate people on the current reality of the HIV/AIDS and to reflect on it's history and those we have lost...and those we are still losing. I sometimes can't believe it, but here we are over thirty years after I first ever heard about HIV, still fighting this disease. And...we are not only fighting the disease itself but also still battling to educate the world about who gets HIV and how. For me, coming up in the 90's, the conversation about HIV and AIDS was pretty unavoidable. It was everywhere. There were commercials aimed at teens and young adults, movies and t.v. shows with HIV/AIDS themes, and of course...the news. Now, to be honest, I am not the most media aware person...but I grew up with a crystal clear idea of what HIV/AIDS was...how it was transmitted...and how to avoid it. I understood that a condom was an important thing to have even before I had any idea what sex really was.

But here we are in a whole different millennium and still needing to have the same conversations. Many still consider HIV to be primarily a gay disease as opposed to a disease that ravages the lives of heterosexual men, women and children around the world...worst in nations that still refuse to acknowledge it's existence and who can often not afford treatment. Over time, new medications changed what a diagnosis of HIV meant such that what used to be an automatic death sentence now holds a ray of hope...if not an end to the disease.

But that thirty years has taken a toll on our perceptions of HIV/AIDS. What used to be a terrifying killer to nearly everyone has become something to be managed and in some cases ignored...for example, for World AIDS Day the online hook up sight Manhunt is sending out emails to its members promoting Truvada...a recently approved pill that can reduce the chances of being infected with HIV...as a solution when "condoms get in the way".

Really?......I was shocked when I read this and had to stop and take a deeper look at it. After thirty plus years of living with HIV as an ever present possibility...and that sex still comes with risk, I questioned how this was helping people stay healthy?....  and was it sending completely the wrong message?