In the Life: Ep. 2103, "30 Years Positive"

in the life is funded in part by the H man a meringue and foundation arcus foundation the estate of richard w Wyland dewey & leboeuf gill foundation and these funders and by the annual support of in the life members like you 30 years after the first aids case was reported in the US more than a million Americans are hiv-positive one in five don't know it and 56,000 are newly infected each year but if you only watched mainstream media you would have no idea of the pandemics ongoing impact tonight on in the life we look back at 20 years of HIV and AIDS coverage and later a frank discussion about HIV prevention and the National AIDS strategy with the Reverend Charles king CEO of Housing Works an actress harmony Santana from gun hill road we brought everybody together act up there was nothing for you to hide make a profit and those of us who are lucky enough to still be alive will never be able to convey the hideousness of what life was like then most of my friends died and people dropped it all over the place I remember the hospitals and there were men lying on Gurney's because he didn't have rooms for them and their families had abandoned them and people didn't know them everybody was dying to this point now that only three of my friends from the eighties who still alive I've lost everybody to this epidemic we were going to more memorial services and funerals than birthday parties or celebratory events it felt like there was this extraordinary crisis happening and yet at the same time nobody was paying attention in the life began broadcasting in 1992 11 years into the AIDS epidemic from the beginning we documented the growing crisis in the 1980s the gay community was faced by the sudden emergence of a new disease aids has transformed gay activism politics and expression and ironically it has strengthened the movement we were just coming out of whole decade of living with HIV and losing people our community from AIDS and so aids and HIV was a very important part of what we reported on even from the very beginning and down Christopher spring 2000 smart the quiet reverence to honor the dead and to support the living the media contacts for AIDS was always bracketed in inevitably fatal dread disease fatal illness a hundred percent failed no survivors terminal illness the possibility of survival had been taken away from people with HIV and while there was tremendous loss and incredible pain there was also this phenomenally vibrant community of people who were leading their lives even while they were also dealing with a life-threatening illness i get up at six thirty in the morning you know get myself something that you know probably drink some coffee or so i get them up at seven Michelle found out she was HIV positive in 1991 and her six-year-old daughter Raven was diagnosed in 1992 so in the life from the beginning recognized that people with HIV also had other lives they were more than their disease and has reflected the richness of so many of our lives in a way that it took a long time for other media to to catch up with you know in the beginning the hiv/aids crisis really prompted the gay community thank God to show real leadership and say this is a crisis it's affecting our community dammit we're going to do something about it and when the government would not even say the word aids really challenging the government to begin funding in response to the government's lack of action activist Larry Kramer founded acta to demand that the government and the public pay attention but now harder than ever we must act up fight back fight AIDS we owe him a debt of gratitude for that leadership in that advocacy silence equals death it was true in 1981 and it's still true now we must never forget that perhaps the greatest achievement that gay people have made in history is those drugs are out there because of act up and project inform another activist groups they're not there because of the government or anybody else that's a major major accomplishment that it should show us what we as people are capable of achieving if we all work together and that same kind of energy could propel the activism some kind of activism today most of the people who were my age that were involved in the epidemic that were in act up felt like we were fighting for our lives even those of us who were negative felt like it was our community that was under attack and ultimately there was even a feeling that everybody was going to die from this the government's apathy in the face of the fast developing AIDS crisis angered and galvanized the gay community outspoken radical groups such as act up aggressively challenged the inaction of the government and the medical establishment we learned how to work together we learned in how to have a meeting with a thousand people and I didn't actually get results we had committees and committees and committees you go work together women joined us in a way that lesbians and gay men had never worked together so well before thank God for lesbians I say that with full sincerity around my sisters lesbians have always been an active contingent in the fight against HIV and AIDS very early on is care partners and caretakers beauty of act up was that it was one of the few places where a room full of men would actually listen to women and ask us for guidance and education and health the segment on women of act up chronicled some of the very important contributions made by women and specifically lesbians and Northrop was a moving forth as she continues to be but really in the early days was a out proud and sometimes loud activist and I'm going to tell you it's your duty to speak up you must represent yourselves and you must speak directly to the public activism also extended into arts and culture many artists with HIV made their illness the focus of their creative work you understand that your body no longer has any effective mechanism for fighting off anything I'm gonna beat this thing you know and every year we would cover more artists and and and the prominent people in our community that died it was depressing it was awful to think with this community lost in the AIDS epidemic the amount of talent and energy and beauty that we we witnessed because these people were actually on the early days of in life many of them while it's impossible to measure the loss of life and contributions to society from aids advancements and medications were starting to allow people to be healthier and live longer for John hatchet 1996 is ending a lot better than it began I can't describe the the boost and the rush I got in the month after starting the protease inhibitors think everybody thought is this gonna last you know but it seems to be working I could feel day to day an improvement in my strength my energy level to be able to report on the first signs of hope after reporting on so much loss was remarkable it was like once combination therapy came out and those were fortunate enough to have health care and to have access to treatment got it it was like for a lot of people the epidemic went away when we finally had three drug combinations while we now know his heart cocktails HIV went off the front pages and so we've lost that whole generation that was 10 years old in 1995 there I'm 26 years old they didn't live through all the death and dying and that fear that we all went through back in those days James Jerry I think it's really important frankly that independent media has a voice around these issues because independent media has the ability to take an issue and look at it from a perspective that that you know the mainstream media doesn't or won't through the years in the life has provided nuanced coverage of the diversity of HIV and AIDS issues somebody's high on crystal meth they don't feel lonely they don't feel depressed they feel like they're the most beautiful most hot most amazing thing in the world when you look at a group of people who's been stigmatized in our culture and then you add on 25 years of the AIDS crisis that's a powerful burden and crystal kind of wipes all those concerns away it companies are spending far more money on marketing and they do on research so we really question if it's wise to spend all this money on these ads and they also raise the price of the drugs aqua seat is the only clinic in Mexico that provides AIDS drugs to its patients free of charge drugs that are brought here from San Diego and elsewhere in the United States I essentially collect medicines medical supplies that would normally be thrown away and bring them down here in the life has remained at the vanguard of HIV and AIDS coverage by challenging persistent stigma and misconceptions and one of the pieces they gave me was a form that said HIV testing at the top and the third paragraph down it said that if you're HIV positive you will be no longer considered eligible for employment the accusation in the police report was that I had not disclosed my HIV status prior to conducting this relationship the sentence associated with this could be as much as 30 years in prison I am so proud of in the life for taking this on when almost no one else would and dramatically raised awareness within the community and kind of set the stage for subsequent activism the National AIDS strategy included a couple very powerful paragraphs about criminalization and how criminalization has become an obstacle to addressing the epidemic having that in the National AIDS strategy has facilitated all sorts of other conversations I was really pleased when the administration released its national hiv/aids strategy because it really was for the first time a roadmap to changing the epidemic in America but it requires political will political strength and it requires money as the need for AIDS research and activism persists in the life continues to cover the inspiring conversations between activists at the forefront of the movement you've been at this for a long time and do you think we might see a cure at some point it's only a tough time but we are going to get to understand this dr. Iverson know what it wants and what it needs marriage is not a condom marriage is not that's why you need condom sense hahahaha so here we are and me lesser than you you a bigger person than I still to this day have made compromises because of the power and the devastation of stigma stigma continues to be a really pervasive challenge Oakland has been hit really hard I ate some you're checking especially in the black community people who find out that they're positive I'm not going to get treatment because of the shame associated with it this is what a charm is strong people afraid because black communities were slow to respond to the AIDS epidemic in the beginning because these epidemic was Miss characterized as a wide gage disease and so quite frankly is kind of those that the old phrase while you were sleeping now why while we weren't paying attention the virus had a chance to take a hold at our communities we've been able to stabilize the HIV epidemic not stop not reduced stabilize we're never going to control the worldwide epidemic with any retroviral therapy it's just not going to happen given where the epidemic is and given how it spreads it won't work we need a vaccine every nine and a half minutes there's a new HIV infection in our country it became very clear that to a lot of man and and many men actually used these words that HIV isn't a big deal anymore well educated men believed that HIV was curable and that taking antiretroviral therapy would prevent them from transmitting it you know the course of really 25 years we went from you know average life expectancies that were in the months to today where people are living decades with this disease I don't know how you bring back the urgency people die all the time from HIV and HIV related conditions how can we get the message out to 13 to 29 year olds now we're looking at how do we begin to get tested into venues that are not considered traditional venues and people my age how do we get the message out to people in our late 40s and 50s and 60s look straight over my shoulder there are times when I still wish we could take to the streets there are times when I wish there were enough people around who still had that mentality that we could take to the streets to battle some of the battles that are going on in Washington now you don't get what you don't fight for and you don't get you don't get anything we're being nice I am always amazed at the dynamic power of moving out of who we are as individuals and coming together as friends as family neighbors co-workers and people of conscience to make a difference we've accomplished so much we can help people in such great ways I just wish the message was out there though it's much better not to be HIV positive than to be HIV positive enough time has passed from the worst of the epidemic that people can look back and process grief and think about what that time meant we need to understand how easily it can happen again in how in ways it is still happening if there is a silver lining to this epidemic it is perhaps that it empowered the gay community in a way that I can't imagine anything else could have on the other hand I think about you know the people that we lost and what our lives would be like how they would be different if those people were here and the friends that I lost in those you know in those really difficult days that I think that would mean it would the world would definitely be a much better place if they were here in the 2011 film gun hill road harmony Santana gives an inspiring performance as 16 year old Michael a teenager in the Bronx undergoing a transformation just as her father returns home from prison any like I never got class before the don't lie to me okay you can't just follow me around papi sit down I don't go following you around so put your hands man what your hands don't talk to me like a man I didn't raise you to be like that you didn't raise me you can't just come in here and try to be papi now harmony drew on her past experience as a homeless teen for the role she is part of a new generation of LGBT activists who are coming of age three decades after the AIDS epidemic began representing an earlier generation of activism the Reverend Charles king is a Baptist minister and a relentless advocate for ending the duel crisis of homelessness and AIDS he is the CEO of Housing Works you ever asked yourself known for its thrift stores around New York City Housing Works was founded in nineteen ninety as an advocacy service and social enterprise organization for people living with HIV and AIDS Charles and harmony came to in the life studios to discuss advocacy HIV and their work so harmony I understand you were discovered for gun hill road while you were working as a volunteer the queens pride parade I used to work for Harlem united and Bronx a services HIV prevention and things like that and I was a peer educator I was handing out condoms and flyers trying to get people to get tested and rashard came by with a flyer for the movie and I said I was like well can i audition so I went in audition he told me to come back a second time as a girl because at the time I was justing as a boy still and hits a make out the wrong that's great had you done any AIDS activism before your work has appeared I moved to New York in 2009 I didn't have a job or anything and I had to do things to be able to like eat even you know to me I know which man um a friend of mine told me about Bronx a services and it was like an open space for LGBT you to go in and discuss their feelings and II because they brought food in and I did programs like Code Red it teaches you about HIV and everything and I told me that I was like I want to be one of these people later on I found out one of my best friends has HIV it just pushed me more into becoming an activist so Charles ear Baptists and what you're trying to say well we're we're kind of a fire brimstone kind of folks we're kind of absolutist and so I was raised in a preacher family so when the time comes to stand up I never have any problems standing up gift interrupted President Obama I did at an HIV and AIDS White House event can tell me more about that sure the National AIDS strategy is a political document it was meant to satisfy the AIDS community that the president was serious about doing something but if you dig deep into the document it doesn't really offer up that much at the time that I was invited to the White House for the unveiling of the strategy there were already over 6,000 people around the country on waiting lists for antiretroviral drugs so I interrupted the President to ask him about that we're investing 30 million dollars in new money and I've committed to working with Congress to make sure these investments continue in the future the second let's look hold on you can talk to me after we'll be able to talk after after I speak that's why I invited you here I feel that President Obama needs to be called on HIV and AIDS just like President Bush needed to be called on it I think it's misguided for us to just assume that he's going to do the right thing what would you say to other HIV and AIDS activists who think that the National AIDS strategy is the first step in many ways it could be considered a first step for the first time it spells out very clearly the levels of the epidemic and and the need to address the epidemic among men who have sex with men but in many ways it's also a step backwards it mentions young adults but doesn't even include the Department of Education in the AIDS strategy and it really doesn't talk about youth prevention at all it almost completely ignores women so it took essentially the same pot of money and shuffle it around to me that's not a real strategy bin the epidemic in fact that best it's a strategy to maintain the epidemic what if it is so little funding for HIV and AIDS prevention aids is a disease that is fueled by poverty and inequities so people who are already the most marginalized whether it's IV drug users or org a min or transgender folk or the folk who are going to be most at risk and the reality is our society doesn't think that those lives are worth saving so instead of bringing the AIDS epidemic to an end which we actually could at this point we throw enough money at it just to appease the activists without ever developing a serious global strategy 10 the epidemic at the White House if I'm given an opportunity to to speak up I'm going to speak up then very brave of you well it was actually kind of fun okay I don't think it's any braver than doing civil disobedience or anything else tell me about your own experience you left home at an early age well I never really had a relationship of my father growing up like in gun hill road he wasn't really around I went through a lot of mental abuse with him he was very angry when he saw me through girly things I don't know I think that if he was different and was there for me and you know how I want him to be I wouldn't be the person I am today and you're you're actually living in a portable housing program right now I am Green chimneys and how is it it's amazing we really need more programs like this because there's so many homeless youth in New York I got my my name change everything to help me with my transition they refer me to callen-lorde which is where the clinic where I'm going to for my hormones access to hormones is one of the biggest HIV prevention things that you can do for folk or transgender because if you've got to buy it on the black market inevitably you engage in sex work but then if you're injecting a lot of times that involve shared needles and even worse is if somebody decides to inject silicone in the film gun her vote there was a scene where I'm my character goes to get pumped with silicone and it gets hormones from like the black market you want anything on top no I people kill me okay just the cooler okay okay you can hold me if you want mama oh hell no try not to move can you pass me that please this thank you it is the fastest wedding does it look good you gonna look hot mommy done to me that was a very powerful scene I never went and got pumped or or gotten hormones for like that kind of person it's something i known about because a lot of the girls talk about it it's very scary and I felt like I was living that for a moment just knowing that HIV can be transmitted through like sharing needles I'm proud of putting that out there I'm part of being in that scene I'm part of showing the world what transgenders go through well I think one of the things that this speaks to is that there's just an incredible lack of awareness about transgender issues this winter in january-february we're going to be doing trips up to Albany will be organizing for the gender identity and expression act transgender rights bill statewide how about you come up with so okay I would love to need to raise a new generation of young activists right that's why I think you're you're such a great role model Here I am I'm in my mid 50s and been around doing this and look like somebody's grandpa I think you and people like you are really good voices to speak out not just to the powers that be but other young people and get them engaged and involved in fighting these systemic issues that are still hurting our communities well Charles it was a pleasure talking to you it's great to meet you harmony and I expect to see you up in Albany in just a few months definitely thank you for watching in the life to watch more historical coverage from the last 20 years of in the life visit our website at itl media org you know in the life is a really wonderful gift to the community and I think sometimes like many gifts people don't fully appreciate them in the life always has included HIV and AIDS as part of the unfortunately but part of the fabric of the LGBT community we both hope for the day when that's no longer the case but that's not today in the life is funded in part by the H van a meringue and foundation arcus foundation the estate of richard w island dewey & leboeuf gill foundation and these funders and by the annual support of in the life members like you you you