Cambridge, Massachusetts

Positive since 1999

“Are you clean?” my Grindr date asks me.

“What do you mean?” I ask him. As if I don’t know what he means. As if I haven’t been asked this question before, too many times.

“Are you disease-free?” he asks.

“Are you asking me about my HIV status?”

“Yeah,” he shrugs. “Are you clean?”

“I am HIV positive. Undetectable on meds.”

He is silent.

“I guess that makes me dirty,” I say. As if it’s a joke. As if I don’t know he’s as good as gone already.

I’ve been positive since 1999. Overall, I have been in good health otherwise.

In the early days, I was involved briefly in ACT UP and Queer Nation (I still have the “Silence = Death” T-shirt). It was a time when we rallied. We fought a common enemy shoulder to shoulder, for a while putting aside our other differences. AIDS did not care if you were young or old, fat or buff. It did not care about gender or race. There was a community that gelled in response to this new epidemic.

When I was diagnosed, it was scary and unreal. But as a nurse by profession, I had heard that new meds were in the pipeline, that there was hope. Still, at that time, the thinking was to hold off on starting treatment until T cells had reached some arbitrary point.

In my case, I wouldn’t begin ARVs [antiretrovirals] until after a diagnosis of a Kaposi’s sarcoma lesion on my arm put me in the AIDS category. Yes, it was terrifying, but I had support from other gay men and women. And I had knowledge to help me through the fear.

So today, so many years after those terrible dark days in the beginning, here we are with new medications and treatment options that did not exist when I first tested positive.

What saddens me, though, is what seems to be a vanishing community of gay men supporting one another. It saddens me to hear words like clean and disease- free to talk about status because it sets up a split among us of positive versus negative.

Frankly, I don’t like being made to feel “dirty” or “disease-ridden.” I work too hard and have been through too much to feel shame again about my status. At 50 years old, I am not about to feel bad about HIV.

I hope that in some way, those in the gay community, and in society at large, can again be supportive of one another. Maybe this can start with the words we use with one another in discussing health matters. If we are aware that the words we use can further stigma for those of us who are positive and healthy, maybe we can begin to change.

Currently, I am a nurse at an HIV clinic. It is really a gift to be able to work in the field at this time, but the work is clearly not done. We get newly diagnosed patients with regularity. Many of them are young men who have sex with other men, or MSM.

I hope that my presence can be of comfort. I can offer knowledge and support. I can simply be there in my authentic body.

If I could do one thing to help them, I would wave a wand to remove that fear and shame that still exists with this diagnosis. I would remove stigma over being HIV positive.

In the meantime, all I can do is talk to others, write about my experience, live life as healthy as I can and continue to hope.

What three adjectives best describe you?

Thoughtful, imaginative and funny.

What is your greatest achievement?

Having my writing published.

What is your greatest regret?

Relationships I didn’t work hard enough on.

What keeps you up at night?

See above (lol).

If you could change one thing about living with HIV, what would it be?

Removing the stigma.

What is the best advice you ever received?

“Live your life like no one is looking.”

What person in the HIV/AIDS community do you most admire?

Greg Louganis.

What drives you to do what you do?

The desire to make others smile and laugh.

What is your motto?

Do your best. Love with all your heart. Be true to your word.

If you had to evacuate your house immediately, what is the one thing you would grab on the way out?

My writing.

If you could be any animal, what would you be? And why?

Fish. I’d like to go with the flow and swim all day.