The Bilerico Project

Common Lab Tests for HIV+ Persons & Why You May Need Them

D Gregory Smith — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 13:30:00 -0500

HIV-infected persons have a lot to deal with. It can be hard to think about - and even harder to talk about. There's a lot to know about this disease and it can be overwhelming. Because it can be, we may often simply let our healthcare providers do what they think is best for us.

But I think and have seen - both as an HIV+ person and as a mental health professional - that a proactive stance by a patient is more likely to decrease feelings of depression, helplessness and fear, and increase feelings of strength, health and well-being.

Knowledge is power and knowing about your disease only helps your healthcare provider give you more excellent care. Plus, knowledge of the truth can help defeat the head-gremlins that want to prey on our deepest fears. Your medical provider may be an expert in diagnosis, but you are the expert on your own body. Unless you both work together, diagnosis and treatment can become extremely difficult and frustrating for you both.

To that end, I've scoured the internet, and created a brief HIV lab test information sheet. This is a conversation starter - and perhaps, a self-education starter. There is also a link to the printable document at the end of the piece. Print it out, take it to your doctor (or PA or ARNP) at your next visit and ask them what they think.

Treatment is a team effort. So if you're on the bench wishing you were anywhere else but here, maybe it's time to get in the game with the rest of your team. The win may be up to you.

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Should We Forgive Ken Mehlman?

Dr. Jillian T. Weiss — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 08:00:00 -0500

Yesterday, radio host Michelangelo Signorile of SiriusXM OutQ hosted a segment in which he discussed a piece in The Daily Beast entitled "Gay Marriage's Unlikely Hero." That piece discussed the role of Ken Mehlman, former head of the RNC, now openly gay, in helping to pass marriage equality in New York. As the piece notes, however, Mehlman managed President George W. Bush's re-election drive in 2004. "Courting the evangelical Christian voting bloc so crucial to the Republican Party, Mehlman's boss campaigned on a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage."

Signorile made the point that Mehlman was responsible in important ways for a Republican strategy across the country that used gay people and anti-gay rhetoric as a stalking horse to bring out Republican votes, resulting in many state constitutional amendments across the country banning marriage equality. He also played a clip of a confrontation between Mehlman and a gay activist on the night of the New York marriage vote at the Stonewall Inn, where many people gathered to celebrate the victory. In the clip, the activist can be heard asking Mehlman whether he was the one responsible for much anti-gay legislation, to which Mehlman responds: "I've moved on to other things," and then, curtly, "good night."

The segment of Signorile's show opened the show to callers, focusing on the question of whether we should forgive Mehlman for his previous anti-gay activities in light of his recent assistance for marriage equality, and his attempts to get Republicans to support it across the country.

The callers were 10 to 1 against forgiving Mehlman for his past sins. They were very angry not only for his anti-gay acts, but, more significantly, for the anxiety they felt about their ability to be accepted in their local communities, and the angst they felt about the country itself. It was an engaging and interesting segment that sheds some light on the anger that gay people are feeling about their human rights being up for debate.

But I say we should forgive Ken Mehlman. He has turned over a new leaf. Now that he's ready to help us, we should forget the past.

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The Death of the 'Transgender' Umbrella

Mercedes Allen — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 20:00:00 -0500

If you've traveled anywhere among trans or LGBT blogs in the past year or three, you've inevitably come across an ongoing battle over labels, and particularly "transgender" as an umbrella term. It seems to be a conflict without end, without middle ground and without compromise.

Yet for discourse on human rights and enfranchisement for transsexual and transgender people to move forward at all, at some point that discussion needs to have some sort of resolution, and some thorough dissection of the argument will need to take place. Could an alliance-based approach be a solution? Or more accurately, could enough people on both sides of the argument be willing (that is, to not see their position as immovable) to seek an alliance-based approach for it to make a positive difference in the discourse?

I don't know. But something that has become clear to me over the past while is that the language is changing. And I don't have to like it, but I have to understand what that means.

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Why I Am an Evangelical Christian

Rev. Emily C. Heath — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 17:00:00 -0500

Growing up in the South, there was one phrase that could always strike terror in my heart: evangelical Christian.

My town was overrun with Christians who claimed the label of "evangelical". For them, this did not mean spreading the good news of God's grace. It meant promoting a political agenda that was anti-gay, anti-choice, and anti-Semitic. Their witness to the faith was far different from the loving God presented to me in the Gospels and in my encounters with mainline Christianity. Yet their voices spoke the loudest, and came to be associated for most of my friends with what it meant to be not just an evangelical, but a Christian.

I went off to college and came out, and my faith deepened. When questioned by friends about how I could remain in a religion that preached such hate my response was often the same: "Oh, I'm not one of those evangelical Christians."

And then I went to seminary. And in my fairly progressive seminary, filled with professors who advocated for LGBTQ equality, I came to a stunning realization about evangelical Christians: I was one.

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Not Born This Way

Paige Schilt — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 18:00:00 -0500

Last week, Lady Gaga's single "Born This Way" debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Her achievement marked the 1000th number one hit since the list was launched in 1958.

It also seemed to signal the ascendancy of a certain kind of narrative about sexual identity. If gays are born this way - whether because of biology or Creation - then they deserve rights, because their difference is innocent of choice.

There are so many reasons to be skeptical of "born this way" rhetoric. It emphasizes rights over freedom. It reduces identity to a dichotomy of choice or no choice. It relies on bad science. And, historically, attempts to locate difference in biology have been carried out in the service of domination, not liberation.

For myself, I can't help but question the increasing dominance of "born this way" narratives because they don't fit my own experience.

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Why You Shouldn't Give to the Salvation Army This Holiday Season

Bil Browning — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 18:00:00 -0500

This post has been updated for 2011 with more information.

In case you've forgotten, the holiday season is fast upon us. That means the Salvation Army bell ringers will be out in full force dunning shoppers for donations meant to help the needy and destitute. Unfortunately, the Salvation Army won't assist everyone - only those they deem sufficiently worthy.

While many think of the group as just another charity, in truth the group is a religious sect that is notoriously anti-gay; you shouldn't give to the Salvation Army this holiday season if you support gay rights.

When a former boyfriend and I were homeless, the Salvation Army refused to help us unless we broke up and left the "sinful homosexual lifestyle" behind. We slept on the street and they didn't help when we declined to break up at their insistence. I've seen the discrimination the Salvation Army preaches first hand.

Need more examples? Check out the video after the jump for a laundry list of anti-gay policies and positions the Salvation Army has taken. You'll probably be shocked - and you definitely won't put any more coins in those big red buckets.

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Positive vs. Negative: The Truce is Broken

Mark S. King — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 17:00:00 -0500

The wary truce between HIV positive and HIV negative gay men is crumbling. We resent one another more than ever before, it appears.

During the latest permutation of the AIDS crisis, when lives have been extended and the crisis mentality has receded, there has been a silent understanding between those of us who are HIV positive, and our friends who have remained negative. We won't make them feel guilty about being negative if they don't blame us for being positive.

The whole topic is fraught with shame and guilt and blame, and keeping our opinions to ourselves (or within our respective group) has been the collective response.

That is, until last week, when I posted a video "in praise of HIV negative gay men" as part of my video blog My Fabulous Disease. The response, from both positive and negative men, was fast and infuriated. And they say a lot about the thin layer of restraint covering some deep resentments.

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Gay Rights Needs to Roll with Weed Reform

Andrew Belonsky — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 10:00:00 -0500

Ganja, like gay rights, has fueled innumerable social battles, and both continue to inflame massive amounts of Americans.

In abstract terms, medical marijuana and gay rights aren't that different. They're both fine examples of federalism: gay equality has civil unions, employment non-discrimination, and a rare marriage law, while medical marijuana contest decriminalization, legalization, dispensaries and taxation.

For all these subtle parallels, though, these cultural campaigns have their fair share of differences. But those differences aren't insurmountable. They may actually be assets, and I bet that if gay and pot advocates threw into a coalition, both movements could reach new highs.

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Needed: A Better Definition of Bigotry

Patricia Nell Warren — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 14:30:00 -0500

Recently I ran across a striking comment by George Washington. In 1790, one year into his presidency, the former general wrote these words to a Jewish group in New Jersey: "The Government of the United States, which gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires only that they who live under its protection, should demean themselves as good citizens."

Sad to say, if Washington were alive today, he would frown to see how open and powerful bigotry has become. It not only drives major government policy -- it is socially acceptable, even admirable, to many Americans.

Indeed, while Washington didn't shrink from using that word, some Americans are ouchy about saying it out loud. Conservatives don't like to hear the word "bigot" applied to them. Many liberals -- including some LGBT people -- are convinced that it's not cool to refer to other people that way.

I disagree 110 percent. "Bigot" is an excellent word -- a necessary word. If it didn't exist, we'd have to invent it. History has shown us the awful picture of how bigots operate, and why we shouldn't mis-define their activities today. Read on and see why.

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How Gay Marriage Put an End to Gay Sex

Yasmin Nair — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 18:30:00 -0500

Years ago, I was at a queer political meeting on a Sunday afternoon. Some of us felt that our group lacked a broad enough representation of all demographics, particularly women. A man, at the time a dear friend of mine, let's call him X, said, "We usually have more women at our meetings, but look at us today! We're all men!" A puzzled silence fell upon the group, and I turned towards him with what I hoped were eyes brimming with inquiry. At which point, X turned beet red and apologised profusely: "I'm so sorry, Yasmin! It's just that I always think of you as a gay man!"

X, who knew enough about my sex life, had long seen me as one of the boys. And I've long declared myself a gay man in a woman's body. I purred in response to his words.

Everything I know about sex I learnt from gay men. By sex, I don't just mean specific acts but the whole fuck-and-be-fucked, sex-doesn't-have-to-mean-hello-or-even-goodbye attitude that I have treasured most about the culture of gay sex. And it's a culture that I see, sadly, dwindling. Or, at the very least, being made invisible as a brand new culture of homo/hetero (the two are so interchangeable these days) normativity takes its place.

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