I was all set to chill out and play some video games, and then a gossip site ran a story suggesting that Kanye West is telling people that Pete Davidson has AIDS. I know, that's a lot to take in. Just focus on the someone using AIDS as an attempt at slander. I'll...
HIV/AIDS
25 Years Ago My Life Changed When I Became a POZ Magazine CoverBoy
Read the issue on POZ.com! We have moments- both grand and grim- that are gamechangers in our bumblefuck journeys through this physical plain. For me, a couple of those moments are wrapped snuggly around "my pet virus", or HIV, as most know it. My HIV diagnosis at age...
50. Ryan White Would Have Turned 50 Years Old Today.
Today would have been Ryan White's 50th birthday. As some of you may know, there are some similarities between his story and my own. However, as time goes by that changes. The biggest difference is no longer in how each of us responded to the earliest days of our...
Goodbye Everybody, I’ve Got to Go: 30 Years Since Freddie Mercury Passed to Spirit
I recently blogged about Magic Johnson's announcement thirty years ago that he had contracted HIV. I was a junior in high school, and by the end of the day I'd heard my first Magic AIDS joke. Shockingly, even though Freddie Mercury passed shortly thereafter, I never...
Thirty Years Since Magic Johnson Disclosed His HIV Status
I was a junior in high school. Coming off a sophomore year that had been defined by some drama where HIV was concerned. I'd really fallen in love, and was experiencing my first dose of sexual activity. I didn't disclose my status, but I thought if we were just having...
Once Silent, Now Paying it Backward for Peter Staley’s NEVER SILENT Memoir
Opening up about HIV at age 20 was the best decision I've ever made in my life. After a decade of keeping my status to myself at all cost, what should have been a tough change came quite naturally. All at once, it suddenly felt harder to not talk about HIV. I...
My HIV in the 90s Experience, HIV Unmuted
Recently I spoke with The International AIDS Society as part of their HIV Unmuted podcast series. The episode that I am on focuses on the 1990s, you can learn more about the episode and listen to it by going here. Dr. Ho is featured, and you'll also hear from...
Hemophilia: The Neglected of the Neglected Pandemic on VICE
Vice aired a special program called 'HIV: The Neglected Pandemic' to commemorate four decades of HIV/AIDS. Jonathan Van Ness narrated the program, and it was bopping along at a nice pace. But when it got to Ryan White, the boy with hemophilia who did his...
Condoms: A Love Story For International Condom Day
You never forget seeing your first condom. I was probably 10. One day at my grandparent's swimming pool, one of the older boys down the street, a rebel who claimed "Rowdy" Roddy Piper as his favorite wrestler, pulled me aside. "Know what this is?" "A balloon?" I...
The POZ/Beatles Connection: An Interview With Sean Strub on the Anniversary of John Lennon’s Passing
Tuesday, December 8 marks forty years since John Lennon's murder at the age of 40. In the frantic moments that immediately followed the tragedy, Sean Strub was among the first people on the scene. He was 22 at the time and five years removed from an HIV diagnosis,...