Gay

CDC official Dr. Amy Lansky announced today at a plenary session of the National HIV Prevention Conference the CDC's finding that gay men and other MSM have AIDS at a rate more than 50 times (that's right, FIFTY TIMES) greater than women and non-gay/bi men.  This confirms in emphatic terms that of all the disparities and disproportionate impacts in the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the greatest one is the extraordinarily disproportionate impact on gay and bisexual men (MSM) -- of all races and ethnicities, though the most disproportionate impact is on African American gay, bi and other MSM. 

As the CDC 's incidence estimates released last year revealed, MSM constitute more than half of all new cases of HIV and are the group in which the number of new cases each continues to slowly increase. What's new today is that the CDC has calculated *rates* of HIV/AIDS prevalence among MSM, not just raw numbers. Lansky says the CDC estimates that there were 692.2 new HIV cases in 2007 per 100,000 MSM. Having a rate as well as the raw numbers allows comparisons for the first time to other population groups at risk, such as women and heterosexual men.
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During CHAMP's March community forum to create intergenerational dialogue within the AIDS movement around the ACT UP Oral History Projects, we watched an incredible video compilation of ACT UP protests from the early days of AIDS activism, put together by panelist and ACT UP Oral History Project co-creator Sarah Schulman. An opening scene showed people sitting in the very same room at the LGBT Center that we were sitting in. The room was hadn’t changed in 25 years.  The crowd was even pretty similar-mostly white faces. The only difference was the most recent forum, while a good turnout for a 2009 event, didn't draw as much of a crowd as the standing-room only ACT UP meetings of yore.

This sort-of déjà vu seemed a metaphor for AIDS activism today. Watching the video, I was struck how some of the slogans-"AIDS Budgets Kill!"-and chants-"Act Up, fight back!" can be found in many of the rallies I've attended over the last two years.  As a young person new to the movement, it was incredible seeing the uncanny similarities that I hadn't fully grasped until I saw it firsthand.

ACT UP Philadelphia member Pascal Emmer noticed the similarities too when he first became involved in queer activism. "Most of our works and rhetoric was borrowed from earlier movements, but it lacked a historical context,” Pascal said. Emmer and his friend Jessica Rodriguez joined ACT UP Philadelphia where they started the group's oral history project to highlight the stories of the movement and preserve them for memory so these stories aren't lost.  read more »

Launching our Promo Homo campaign, we met with hundreds of participants who signed on with CHAMP’s HIV prevention justice mission, and planned new partnerships with grassroots groups.  This is a groundbreaking effort, reuniting across movements to build a powerful community-based movement at the complex intersection of HIV and homophobia and transphobia in the United States.