September 17th, 2005 khoward
Dear Editor:
Regarding the LA Gay & Lesbian Center’s new “HIV is a Gay Disease – Own It, End It; social marketing and advertising campaign (“HIV Ads Embrace, and Stun, Audience” (Sharon Bernstein, September 30): As a gay man living with HIV since 1990, and since that time working in HIV mental health and social services in various community agencies (including the LA Gay & Lesbian Center), and as currently a psychotherapist in private practice specializing in serving gay men, including many living with HIV, I am deeply offended by this campaign. I find this campaign heinous as much for what it isn’t as for what it is. It is a throwback to the early days of the AIDS crisis when anti-gay forces in this country used AIDS as “justification” to hate and discriminate against the entire gay community, without realizing that AIDS is a disease caused by a virus that can strike anyone – Read the rest of this entry »
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March 15th, 2005 khoward
Recently I was browsing through online personal ads in various online services for gay men. I was surprised at how often the term “UB2” came up. This is an appreviation for, “You be, too!”, in reference to a negative HIV status. It seems to say, in those succinct three characters, Read the rest of this entry »
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February 11th, 2005 khoward
After recently shifting my focus after 10 years of working with non-profit HIV and mental health social service organizations, I’ve been reflecting on both the positive – and negative – things that I witnessed. With the re-election of President Bush and a Republican majority in Congress, social services and other “liberal” institutions are certainly out of favor and have come under fire as a low priority for the American public and taxpayers. Read the rest of this entry »
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January 3rd, 2005 khoward
Many young gay men, in childhood and early adolescence, as they become aware that they are gay, often build an internal awareness of their gay identity long before it is known to any other human being, including those closest to them such as parents or best friends. Eventually, this awareness builds internally until the need for it to be expressed externally becomes almost overwhelming: the person needs the outside perception by others of one’s self to be congruent with the internal reality. Read the rest of this entry »
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December 14th, 2004 khoward
What does the re-election of President George W. Bush mean for the mental health of people living with HIV/AIDS? That’s a complicated question. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Anxiety, Depression, Gay Political Advocacy, HIV: Living Successfully | No Comments »
March 5th, 2004 khoward
I recently saw the legendary drag performer, Miss Coco Peru (Clinton Leupp), do a wonderful homage to Disney’s now-classic musical animated film, “The Little Mermaid,” in her superb stage act. She poignantly and comically draws many parallels between her own life and the life of the fairy tale’s heroine, Ariel, the mermaid who “sells” her beautiful singing voice to the evil sea witch, Ursula, in exchange for getting legs to visit the sea surface, meet, and marry her land-lubber prince. Her identification with Ariel made me think of another analogy: How many people living with HIV “sell” their voice to get the things we need? Read the rest of this entry »
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February 22nd, 2004 khoward
One of the sound bytes I remember from my days in elementary school was the phrase, “Everyone line up: boy, girl, boy, girl!” For teachers and school administrators, this was an easy of way of doing crowd control for groups of rambunctious kids. But I remember this was also rife with very predictable, homophobic and sexist jokes, where someone inevitably would say, “Hey, [fill-in-the-blank], which are you?” Read the rest of this entry »
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November 17th, 2003 khoward
Driving through West Hollywood these days, I often see the banners on streetlights and telephone poles with the faces of the “HIV Stops with Me” campaign poster-boys. This public health awareness/HIV prevention program is certainly high-profile, and like everyone else, I hope it does some good to reduce the sadly high number of new HIV infections every year in this country. But I’m not convinced of this campaign’s effectiveness. Read the rest of this entry »
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January 1st, 2003 khoward
As a mental health professional and licensed clinical social worker, one of things I do with a new patient is to take a thorough “psychosocial assessment” – basically, his or her life story in one hour or less. I ask about family history, history of current symptoms (depression, anxiety), current medications, work history, health experiences, education, social support, hobbies, and cultural background. But I also ask about his or her current and past socio-economic status; what “class” did he or she grow up? I ask this because I think the issue of money in American society is one of the most emotionally-laden, and can shape – positively or negatively – a person’s experience of the world. Read the rest of this entry »
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