A Test of Character

I'm on to the subject of HIV Testing again and two things impressed me this week. Seeing a poster for National HIV Testing Week on a phone box in Manchester city centre (I know-they still exist!) and a really important article tucked away in the December issue of Attitude by Kristian Johns.

Now these days more of us are coming out of the HIV closet and more of us are getting tested so it stands to reason that there’s a lot more HIV to talk about than ever before.And so? 

I know ‘blah-blah’ another lecture but no it isn’t just about HIV Testing. It’s about trying to stay safe if you are HIV negative and trying to stay well if you are HIV positive, and of course I mean well in  every sense - Spirit, Body & Soul (wasn’t that a Nolan’s song?)

Anyway, there is so much  supposed awareness of HIV these days and so much talk about ‘complacency’  -you get it, you get your meds, you carry on and yes you do have to look at it like that if you are affected by HIV... but we all know it isn’t that bloody simple.

 

Trust me I’ve spent enough hours in gentlemen’s clubs of the homosexual variety to know it’s a lot of fun and bummery but in hindsight what’s really important is: 

a) sticking around long enough to move forward in life so you’re not thinking about HIV every day.

b) looking after yourself as what’s the point of dragging yourself even further downhill - nobody else is going to look after you.

Knowing your HIV status is either the greatest relief or the biggest shock but what it does do is give you a second chance.

A chance to think about your life and a chance to think about the way you are living it.

It is one thing you do have control over. How you deal with it is another matter entirely.

I know many people who say stoically that a positive diagnosis was the most important thing to happen to them in their entire life. On the other hand many are still struggling day in, day out to come to terms with their status, their self-esteem, rejection, other people’s prejudices and the sheer isolation of a lonely road travelled without direction.

It’s times like these when we need real friends and believe me it’s times like this when you find out who they really are.

Anyone is entitled to go off the rails when they get the news of a positive diagnosis but sooner or later you need to get yourself back on track and that’s so much easier with good friends around you to support you. It’s also vital to get the support that you need and make sure that you call those LGBT & HIV charities because you need them and believe it or not they need you too.

If you’ve never tested before or haven’t tested for a while, it’s important to remember that it’s really easy to test and the benefits of knowing your HIV status far outweigh the ‘ignorance is bliss’ philosophy.

Time to face up to the facts and start living our lives, not regretting past decisions or worrying about the future.

Do what you need to do to keep yourself sane and sanguine and get what help you need to move forward.

Taking personal responsibility for reducing onward transmission of HIV by taking an HIV test is the message for National HIV Testing Week but of course this is only the very beginning of our discussion about HIV. Soon World Aids Day will be upon us and we’ll have to deal yet again with more ‘shocking’ statistics about HIV transmission in the gay community.

Don’t let these statistics get you down, it is not inevitable that you are going to get HIV and if you do some of the most beautiful men I know are HIV positive and there is so much love and support out there for you.

Let’s keep talking and lend a hand to everyone out there who is campaigning for more understanding about how HIV affects all our lives. We really need to support one another.

www.facebook.com/NationalHivTestingWeek

www.tht.org.uk/itstartswithme

www.lgf.org.uk/get-support/for-men/

www.gmfa.org.uk/Sites/fsmagazine

 

GAY MEN & CANCER - BE PREPARED!

 

 

Haven’t posted anything in ages as I have spent much of the last few months working (with others) on ways to provide more information on Male Cancers to gay and bisexual men so this is the reason for the update now.

In our lives we are all going to be affected by cancer, no escape, no special privileges. Please don’t think Cancer only happens as we get older .All of us have been saddened by the death of  Stephen Sutton recently whose story taught us that cancer can happen to anyone at any age.

Cancer affects everyone but as a gay or bisexual man, cancer is going to affect you statistically more than HIV, we just don’t know how to talk about it.

I’ve spoken previously about Prostate Cancer and thankfully there are a lot more out gay men speaking up now. Please take a look at this fantastic piece from Nick Wright of Prostate Cancer UK about Jim Peter’s blog:  ‘No, not all men affected by prostate cancer are straight and no, my wife will not be picking me up after treatment’.

 The wider issue remains the distinct lack of understanding that some of us just aren’t heterosexual no matter how hard we’ve tried to be (Ok, perhaps we haven’t really tried that hard).

Recently I’ve been hearing encouraging news from organisations such as Beating Bowel Cancer and Cancer Research UK about how they too would like to improve information for gay and bisexual men just as Prostate Cancer have done.

 Because there is  a distinct shortage of information related to cancer and men who have sex with men the Health & Wellbeing Service from Manchester Mental Health and SocialCare Trust (NHS) in partnership with The Lesbian & Gay Foundation have funded a brand new resource for gay and bisexual men that will be out in mid-August 2014.

 

 

 

So things are starting to happen, and not before time.

Community surveys suggest that gay men in general drink and smoke more than straight men, putting us at greater risk of developing health problems.

This means that there is a need for us to become more aware of our risks of health issues such as cancer, and be more open about discussing our sexual orientation with health professionals.

A gay and bisexual man’s introduction to Male Cancers  will cover: Sex, Sexual Health, HIV& Cancer ,Anal Cancer, Bowel Cancer, Male Breast Cancer ,Prostate Cancer, Penile Cancer & Testicular Cancer and includes men’s voices and useful contacts to further information and support.

So what can we all do today?

Be informed. Lung cancer is the most common cause of cancer deaths in males accounting for almost one in four of all male cancer deaths. The next most common causes of cancer death in men are prostate and bowel cancers. These three cancers - lung, prostate and bowel - together account for almost half of all male cancer deaths. Bladder, kidney and stomach cancers are also among the top ten most common causes of cancer deaths in males.

So please if you are reading this, don’t be frightened, be informed. Make sure you look after your health, cut down the fags, go easy on the booze, exercise more and eat healthier and get to know more about what cancer is and how it affects us all. Look out for any changes in your body and speak to your GP.

Oh and follow these organisations too:

www.macmillan.org.uk

www.orchid-cancer.org.uk

www.everyman-campaign.org/

http://www.teenagecancertrust.org

 

HMD 2014 & LGB&T Journeys

 

For much of the last 14 years I’ve been involved in events to tie in LGB&T issues with Holocaust Memorial Day and I don’t think it could be more relevant today to keep doing so, what with mass executions in the middle east and rampant homophobia in the east of Europe, Africa, Asia and just about everywhere else on earth. You could be forgiven for  thinking that human beings are just a savage species that  have never learned to truly accept and love one another, but still we all must try to see hope in everyone.

This year I spent a lot of time trying to find something of interest to coincide with the UK official HMD theme of Journeys which has been hard when there isn’t a vast amount of material around relating to an LGB&T audience that most interested people haven’t already seen.

As we watch in horror on the news every night at ongoing developments in Syria, Egypt, Central Africa, Sudan, Ukraine and we worry about what will happen in Russia, Uganda and India to name just a few places currently facing dark days, it seems appropriate to look back on a progressive country like Germany and to a time before the Holocaust when many would have thought we were becoming more liberal, but how wrong could we have been if we had been alive over 100 years ago.  

The First LGBT Activist by Germany’s Pioneer of Queer Cinema

One person I have been drawn too is Rosa von Praunheim, Germany's, Maverick, gay German filmmaker, who has for many years been sharing interesting stories of LGB&T journeys over the last century.

Born in 1942 as Holger Mischwitzky, the director adopted "Rosa" for both gender ambiguity and as a reminder of the pink triangle (Rosa Winkel) that gays were forced to wear in concentration camps. Two years after the Stonewall riots, his first feature caused a furor in Germany but also led to the foundation of the modern German gay liberation movement. Since then Von Praunheim  has dealt with many issues, including the AIDS crisis, in a career of over 70 films and is still considered the most popular (and in turns the most unpopular!) filmmaker in Germany today, even in his seventies.

One of the film’s being shown this week at The Lesbian &Gay Foundation in Manchester to coincide with Holocaust Memorial Day 2014 is ‘The Einstein of Sex’. The film’s title is in reference to its subject Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, a German Jew whose pioneer studies in human sexuality in the late 19^th and early 20^th century were abruptly halted when the Nazis took power.

The film shows attitudes towards human sexuality at the end of the 19th century. Human subjects under scrutiny are treated abominably, and homosexuals are especially mistreated. German law (specifically Paragraph 175) stated that homosexuality was illegal, and Hirschfeld’s goal was to have the law repealed. If you need any more recommendation than checkout what PeterTatchell had to say about the film at the time of its original release over a decade ago.

Not a film you can see on Netflix, iTunes or easily get from Amazon yet the film is available in German with English subtitles from the Rosa Von Praunheim official site