Ignorance Isn't Bliss

This week is National HIV Testing Week and it exists for a very important reason.

It’s also an opportunity for me to share my own story which if you don’t know it already, I hope may prove helpful.

In 1987 I was 21. Legally old enough to have a same sex relationship and working as a postman in Sheffield, my hometown.

One of the things we had to deliver at that time was a leaflet about AIDS which was to go through every letterbox in the UK. The Government launched a major advertising campaign with the slogan "AIDS: Don't Die of Ignorance" and it was scary stuff.

This was to be the last time that a major nationwide campaign about HIV was to be delivered in this country and there was a lot of hysteria.

Because I was so very obviously gay, people used to shout the word ‘AIDS’ at me as it was something they presumed I was bound to acquire (even though I hadn’t had sex with another man at that time.)

I was rather a late developer but I eventually made up for lost time. I encountered many men and I wondered if many of them were HIV positive, though it was never talked about. I tried to make sure I always played safely. I say try as with many situations things sometimes got a bit out of control. So much so that I went for a yearly HIV test as I was terrified of becoming HIV positive.Year after year my test results came back negative and I  admit to becoming a little complacent in thinking that whatever I was doing I must have developed the right tactics to keep the virus at bay.

Well fate has a way of telling you that you don’t know anything and sometime during 1998 I began to get seriously ill. I lost about a stone and went down to 120 llbs. I couldn’t eat solid food and the diagnosis from my GP was Crohn’s disease, a chronic inflammatory condition which causes stomach pains, diarrhoea, and weight loss. He didn’t asked me about my sex life and I didn’t volunteer any information.

I never twigged that these were symptoms of HIV infection and soon ended up in hospital on the Wirral were I was living with my long term partner . No-one could work out what was wrong with me until they recognised that my illness seemed to follow the pattern of HIV infection.

So arrogant was I that I had not succumbed to the virus that I agreed to an HIV test and went along for my results waiting to be told I was negative yet again but all of a sudden everything had changed.
I had to sign off work , think about starting HIV medications and go on incapacity benefit (good luck to anybody these days if you think this is a way to sustain yourself.

I was diagnosed in October 1999 and started meds in January 2000 as it was quite clear my body needed some assistance in building up its immune system.

Because of the advance in combination therapy treatments in the mid 1990’s I took to the drugs really well . I am currently on two tablets a day and when I hear about the problems some people have with drugs not working out for them I consider myself very lucky.

Obviously this whole experience changes your life and in my early 30’s I wondered if I could ever work again. Even though I was supported by my partner I felt the need to get involved in something but what could I do?

I saw an advert in Manchester’s Clone Zone store for sexual health outreach workers and I knew that this was something I should do so off I trotted to The Lesbian & Gay Foundation where I have been since August 2000. I can honestly say the last 12 years have been the most rewarding (if sometimes challenging!) of my life.

I wonder if I had been sexually active in those early days of the 1980s, would I be here now?

 

What would have happened to me if I hadn’t had that test?

 

It really doesn’t bear thinking about. I would say to anyone who is scared or doesn’t think they need to go for a HIV test please make sure you get checked up regularly and if you need support make sure you get it.

Nobody is perfect and we should all endeavour to wear condoms all of the time but this isn’t always enough.

Fortunately there are more of us alive these days to tell our stories and able to fight the stigma so that we can share our stories publicly. But it isn’t always easy.

Over the last decade I have met some fantastically inspirational people who just happen to be HIV positive and we could all learn a lot form each of them.

Please make sure you look after your health. I learned before it was too late and I am so grateful that I did.

For help and support:

www.lgf.org.uk/testing

https://www.tht.org.uk/thinkhiv

http://www.ght.org.uk/

Rainbow Over Steel City

 

10th November 2012

 

 

OOPS! It's been six month's since my last update.

However that’s nothing compared to the thirty years since I first left my home town of Sheffield.

Returning to this city to see what has happened to the LGB&T community there has spurred me on to keep writing. Even if no-one else reads this, it’s good for me to get it out!

As a teenager, growing up during the depression of the 1980’s and the demolition of the steel industry that affected my family and my city was bad enough, but the realisation that I just couldn’t be myself in this place, was just too much for my young mind to cope with. There really was nothing down for me except to be stifled by heterosexual norms, ending up as a sad dejected figure lost in other people’s aspirations with no knowledge of my own potential for the future. I didn’t know what I had to do but I knew I had to leave and try and move forward, even if it meant blundering around in the wilderness for a few years before I found any real answers.

Back in those days I didn’t really want to acknowledge my sexual orientation because I just wasn’t ready for it, bear in mind that for any young gay man to begin a sexual adventure in the early to mid 1980’s was incredibly dangerous with the hysteria surrounding HIV & AIDS. Not to mention the fact that, apart from one or two pubs and club nights, none of which really appealed to me, there was nothing for South Yorkshire’s LGB&T Community to really hold out much hope for.

So I moved to Blackpool, then Liverpool and eventually Manchester just far enough away to try and find places where I could feel like I fitted in somewhere, not that I was sure where that might be. I’m sure I will talk more about those other cities one day but Sheffield, my home town is the one that I want to acknowledge now as almost 30 years since I left, I returned yesterday to find a burgeoning LGB&T community and the fact that this is being documented is something that I want to mark in my own small way.

 

It was fitting (for me) that I should attend the conference ‘LGBT Communities in the 21^st Century’ at the city’s Crucible theatre, as this was one of the first places where I ever felt that I could really be myself. 

This conference was held to launch research into understanding differing views on the importance of an LGBT community which has been put together by Eleanor Formby of Sheffield Hallam University.

Professor Catherine Donovan of the University of Sunderland who has long been looking into need for LGBT communities also pointed out that in the absence of a truly diverse society we need further resources for lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans people to really make sense of who we are and how we can live our lives.

Of course there are all kinds of ways of accessing a community, or somewhere where we may not feel so much of an outsider in the hope that we can make a connection with others and begin a journey of truly realising who we are and what it is we are meant to be doing. It was uplifting to be attending this presentation in the city where I just couldn’t find that sense of belonging all those years ago.



I was delighted to see so many projects being run for young LGB&T people and to see the work of Sheena Amos Youth Trust and their projects for LGB&T and straight youths alike gives me hope. If only every young person could have access to this kind of outlet, this kind of community.

Fortunately there is a lot going on for LGB&T people in our Steel City. Sheffield has it's own Pride event,a thriving university life and going back to long before any of us were on the 'scene' the city will soon have a memorial tribute to Edward Carpenter,an early pioneer of sexual liberation who lived near Sheffield in the early 20th century.

It makes me sad when people feel they don’t want to belong to any kind of community and that they can make it on their own, because at some point in life we all need to be around others who understand a little of what we are going through. The sad fact is that if we don’t share our troubles with those who can support us we are likely to do ourselves harm ,often with tragic circumstances.


           Link to a booklet on breaking down barriers in the city 

 

It was interesting that Steve Slack our joint host for the day from Sheffield's Centre for HIV &Sexual Health pointed out the irony in a recent book which talked about ‘The Declining Significance of Homophobia’ particularly amongst young people, and of course you don’t need me to tell you with all the many thousands of cases of homophobic bullying and hate crime documented in any one year in the UK alone this would be laughable if it were not worryingly distorting. We won’t plug that particular book here though.

We know that service providers in general are just not aware of the full needs of our diverse LGB&T communities, how could they be? We don’t even know where everyone is or what problems they are having to deal with if they are not able to find some kind of sanctuary in some kind of community where they really can begin to be themselves.

Yes there are issues with ‘our’ community, the sense that equal rights are coming so fast that there is a myth we don’t need to challenge ‘bigots’. The lack of inclusion for women, racial and cultural diversity, the older,younger,those with disabilities is also a problem for communities struggling to define their own identity.

One of the most common omissions in LGB&T is often the ‘T’ and Lee Gale from TM Training gives a fascinating insight into the world of the trans masculine community and the importance not only of understanding all diverse aspects of gender identity but also for trans men to be included in sexual health resources aimed at gay and bisexual men.

We criticise Pride events too if we don’t feel they are political anymore. However the mere fact that we re able to be seen to visibly enjoying ourselves in public in a safe environment is a massive political statement, one that too many others still do not have. What we do with this opportunity is up to us.

 As Eleanor Formby highlights “for all the therapy and anti-depressants in the world, nothing will cheer you up more than having LGBT friends.’’

The importance in having some sense or ‘feeling’ of community is important to all of us, whether we acknowledge it or not because the world outside does not yet know how to recognise us let alone welcome us.

To anyone who feels they have come so far in life that they feel they really don’t need any one else I would argue that one day you will and you will be lost if you do not feel it is there, just like so many of us are when we are growing up.

And if you are secure in yourself, your relationships, your family, your work and your life in general, how about giving support to someone who isn’t?