Positivo is the first of its kind program celebrating the lives of HIV+ Latinos in Philadelphia.
“There’s all kinds of naughty, sexy, silly, fun sex to be had with ALL parts of our bodies,” says Elicia Gonzalez, Executive Director of GALAEI. Standing originally for the Gay and Lesbian Latino AIDS Education Initiative, GALAEI has evolved alongside the needs of all queers in Philadelphia, now branding itself on its website as a “Queer Latin@ Social Justice Organization.”
While its name sounds radical, GALAEI ‘s main goal is commonsense: Equal justice and dignity for all people, particularly those under the LGBT or queer umbrella. So, it’s no surprise that GALAEI is now in the middle of Positivo, the first of its kind HIV awareness campaign affirmatively portraying gay male Latinos and Latinos living with HIV/AIDS as they live everyday within their communities and families.
“Positivo is important because it will highlight that Latinos are affirming of gay and HIV+ Latinos – something we never get to hear about or see,” Gonzalez explains. A familiar refrain, or excuse for inaction, in the HIV prevention and outreach industry is the dearth of support from minority communities, and Gonzalez flatly rejects this narrative. “To suggest that Latinos are any more homophobic or against an HIV+ person is racist and implies that Latinos are somehow not sophisticated enough to embrace these communities and these issues."
Positivo includes celebratory HIV prevention and awareness messages.
“By perpetuating this myth, and highlighting only fear-based [HIV prevention] messages surrounding our sexuality, we [as society] further oppress and disempower gay and queer Latino men from leading healthy and pleasurable lives, regardless of their HIV status. Messages around our sexuality, around queer sex, around sex in gay Latino communities must be honest, celebratory, strengths-based, and positive if we ever want to see a shift in the health and wellbeing of our communities. Anything else is discriminatory and dangerous,” she says, making the key link that stigma, regardless of its manifestation, is the same tune on the same broken record. Indeed, racism, sexism, stigma against the HIV+, sex-negative imagery, and fear. The same bigotry finds itself in each of these ideas.
In fact, inherent danger exists in fear and stigma-based HIV prevention campaigns. After all, if a gay teenager is scared to death of sex thanks to HIV fearmongering, he’s more likely to resort to drugs or alcohol to overcome his anxiety; inebriated, he’s less likely to take steps to protect himself in the best way possible for him whether this is through PrEP, condom use, masturbation, or abstinence. Consequently, his fear leads to even more risky behaviors than if he simply felt comfortable in his physical, and sexual, form.
Gonzalez agrees, “There is no such thing as ‘safe sex.’ The sooner we stop pretending there is, the sooner we can have real and honest conversations about the sex people are having, the sex people want to have, or the sex people could be having if they weren’t paralyzed by fear.”
Indeed, the conventional wisdom for decades has been, “If you don’t have sex with a condom, you will die.” Of course, logically, this means that HIV+ folks are the walking dead. As a result, a great many HIV+ folks and commonsense HIV- folks have started to question this conventional wisdom through positively affirming and portraying sex, friendships, and love. With this in mind, Positivo seems to love its participants.
“Positivo initially started out to reduce stigma in the Latino community [particularly in North Philly] around being gay and/or HIV+. But, after doing a survey of one hundred people, we learned that most [were already] affirming of gay and/or HIV+ people!” Gonzalez explains the fact that, because of the Latino community’s warmth and generosity of spirit toward gays and those living with HIV/AIDS, Positivo became more of a celebration than simply an awareness campaign. “[We then sought] to highlight the Latino community as affirming of gay and/or HIV+ Latinos. Everyone seemed to know someone who was either or both."
“So, we are releasing a new story each week via posters, postcards, and [through] Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr and [placing] posters and postcards in North Philly and at Latin Nite at Woody’s along with Latino-serving agencies and establishments. We are also promoting HIV testing; our hope is that others will show how they are positivo by [participating themselves and] uploading videos.”
“Nothing like this has happened in Philadelphia ever. We are helping to put queer Latinos on the map in Philly. We are here. And, now, you can see us more than ever.”
This article originally appeasred on Josh’s own blog here.
