September 1. 2000 * Jutai M it. 1 g
A
n IV running into my left arm
kept me from dehydrating. My
temperature soared past the
103 F mark. At night, I sweat so
much the sheets got soaked. 1
didn’t have the energy to get up and walk
across the room, and 1 barely could eat.
For three days in 1 9 9 5 ,1 lay in a hospital
bed fearing the worst: Despite my precautions,
1 somehow must have contracted HIV, and it
was beginning to take its toll.
The homophobic doctor who treated me at
the hospital thought the same thing. As soon
as he found out I was a gay, he kept trying to
coerce me into getting an HIV test. Concerned
that the results would not be confidential and
would become part of my permanent medical
record, I declined to have one, much to his
exasperation.
Later, even after the doctor discovered the
cause of my symptoms were because of another
ailment, he still tried to arm-wrestle me into
consenting to an HIV test.
W hen people think of gay mens health, the
first thing that pops into their minds— even
our own— is AIDS. Given the history of the
epidemic and how it has devastated the gay
community during the past 20 years, that’s
understandable.
But it’s no longer sufficient.
Although HIV is an ever-present element
of gay men’s health and remains the most
prominent disease with which our community
continues to grapple, it is hut one of myriad
concerns affecting gay men’s overall well-being.
It’s way past time that we as gay men take a
broader view of what it means for us to keep
healthy.
Just a few of the additional health concerns
that need to be addressed under the rubric of
gay men’s health include issues of aging as the
first out generation of gay men gets older; a
complete look at sexually transmitted diseases
beyond HIV; anal cancer and early detection
methods such as so-called “anal pap smears";
mental health concerns, particularly as they
relate to living as gay men in a generally
unsupportive society; and the short- and long­
term effects of ubiquitous drugs ranging from
poppers to Ecstasy.
Yet, while thousands of organizations
around the country deal with HIV and AIDS,
probably fewer than a dozen take a completely
integrated approach to gay men’s health. A
growing group of gay activists are working to
change that.
"W e’re starting a gay men’s health move­
ment that deals with gay men’s health in its
full complexity,” says Eric Rofes, a professor of
education at Humboldt State University in
California and one of the main leaders of the
Bedside manners
Gay men’s health is about more than H IV
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newly seeded movement.
This is particularly true for young gay men
who have grown up in the age of AIDS. “For
young gay men, the idea of health often
amounts to little more than getting tested [for
HIV],” says Kirk Read, a 25-year-old activist
and organizer in California. “It’s especially
important that younger gay men know that
health care is a broader issue.”
Rofes and Read, along with a band of
health advocates, already have put together
two national gay men’s health summits, the
most recent of which just concluded this past
July in Boulder, Colo. But the gathering was
the last of the national get-togethers and really
signals the beginning of the hard work for this
fledgling movement, not the end. The next
step is to set up an array of local gay men’s
health groups everywhere.
“I want to see us blanket the country with
gay men’s health organizations, like we did in
the 1980s with AIDS organizations,” Rofes
says. “I want to see places develop around the
country where gay men can go with their com­
plete list of health concerns and get frank,
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nonjudgmental answers to questions and help
for their problems.”
Without a doubt, the need for such groups
is strong. 1 know firsthand how uninformed we
can be about even the basics of our own
health.
It wasn’t until I found myself physically
depleted and emotionally distraught in that
hospital bed in 1995 that I knew much of any­
thing about hepatitis. Until then, I thought of
it as a disease that hit travelers to exotic lands.
I was totally unaware that a common sexual
practice among gay men known as “rimming”
put us at such high risk for hepatitis, and I
knew even less about the devastating effects
the disease has on the human body.
Many times since then, I’ve looked back at
my ignorance and felt utterly astounded. I never
would have believed myself so uninformed.
Indeed, I thought just the opposite of
myself. I was a totally out, college-educated gay
man immersed in my local, thriving, big-city
gay community. I’d volunteered for two AID S
organizations and thus had gone through
extensive training sessions.
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As a reporter, I wrote one story after anoth­
er about AIDS, frequently covering the latest
drug development or experimental treatment
for HIV-related conditions. The people 1 spoke
to on a daily basis were gay activists, HIV pre­
vention experts, doctors and drug company
researchers, all of whom spoke frankly about
sex in unabashed detail.
I thought of myself as incredibly knowledge­
able about gay health concerns. It couldn’t
have been further from the truth.
I felt like a naive high school kid being told
the facts of life as one gay friend, himself a
nurse, filled me in. W hat was most annoying
was discovering I could have taken a simple
vaccine to protect myself.
I never had a similar discussion with my
doctor. Even though he knew I was a gay man,
he was too squeamish and uncomfortable about
gay sex to discuss with me how I obviously
contracted the disease.
Even worse, he failed to tell me I was also at
risk for hepatitis B— an even more dangerous
version of the disease. And he failed to inform
me I could protect myself against that through
vaccines, too.
My doctor was not unusual. “Typically, a
gay man doesn’t have a health provider he can
talk to honestly and openly,” Rofes says. And
typically, doctors, too, view gay health through
the narrow blinders of HIV care.
T hat’s why it is so important that the push
for gay men’s health centers comes from gay
men themselves. We have to be integral not
only in sparking the creation of these organiza­
tions but in making sure they are designed to
unflinchingly answer our real needs, without
apology or squeamishness.
■ A W estern S tates G ay M en ’ s H ealth
SUMMIT tentatively is planned for September
2001. For more information, e-mail
donaldnelson@home. com . To contact national
organizers about other regional summits, e-mail
GM HSumm it@aol. com .
M ubarak D ahir receives e-mail at
M ubarakDah@aol. com .
Contact information
• Oregon AIDS Hotline:
(800) 777-2437.
• King County Health Department:
www.metrokc.gov/health/glbt/gbmen.htm
• Gay and Lesbian Medical Associa­
tion Physician Referral Program:
www.glma.org/programs/prp/index.html.
• GayHealth Care Network:
www.gayhealth.com.
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