Just out., September 16, 2011, Page 19, Image 19

OREGON'S LGBTO NEWSMAGAZINE
a friendly environment tor her. Other friends of
hers have contracted HIV or died from AIDS
since then, including some who are transgen­
der. Transgender individuals are more than four
times more likely to be Infected with HIV than
the general population, according to a survey by
the National Center for Transgender Equality
and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.
Those rates are higher among transgender
people of color.
DeVyne started volunteering for Cascade
AIDS Project with the hope of teaching oth­
ers the lessons she’s learned.
“I feel like I’m a representative for the trans
community,” she says. “I want to be raising
awareness for the trans community, as well,
and get other people to be involved. I really
want to be a positive influence for that.”
— A aron S pf . ncf . r
SEPTEMBER 16, 2011
So when Krause was approached to par­
ticipate in AIDS Walk Portland, he was will­
ing to help.
“I’m all supportive of the cause,” he says.
“Anything I can do, I’m there.”
He’s doing a good job, too. Krause has already
reached his initial fundraising goal of $2,000
and is approaching his second target of $3,000.
He’s also a sort of poster boy for the fund­
raiser, featured in an ad on the back of TriMet
buses with the tagline “1 walk for my dads.”.
Krause and his family remain very close.
They talk, email and text daily, especially now,
as he needs their support while opening his
bakery business, Krause Confections.
He showed the bus ad to his dads. “They love
it; they just think it’s funny as hell,” he says.
“They said, ‘We would have never thought our
son would be on the back of a bus.’
“I never thought it either, but there it is.”
— A aron S pf . ncf . r
Jason Krause:
“ I walk for my dads”
Jason Krause, 28, had a comparatively easy
time coming out to his parents. For starters,
one of his parents had already come out as gay.
“So with me being gay, they were like, ‘Well,
we’ve been through it once, so no surprises
there,”’ Krause says.
Krause’s dad had come out years earlier and
lived with his partner. Krause wasn’t close with
his father at the time; he felt torn between him
and his mom. But after Krause moved away
from St. Louis and experienced romantic rela­
tionships, his dad became his rock.
“My dad and I are really close now,” Krause
says. “We share everything and talk about
everything.”
Their bond also helped Krause to acknowl­
edge something he had chosen not to face for
years: His father is HIV positive. His father’s
longtime partner, who Krause considers a sec­
ond dad, is HIV positive, as well. Krause had
seen the medications before.
“My dads don’t discuss it,” Krause says. “They
don’t talk about complications. They protect me,
in a way, so that I’m not an emotional wreck.”
“It’s hard to see people around you suffer,”
he adds.
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David Behrend:
“ I will walk till there is a
cure and _______
beyond”
David Behrend has lost more than 100
friends since the AIDS epidemic started in
the early 1980s. Now 59 years old and a bar-
tender and waiter at Hobo’s Restaurant in
Old Town, Behrend has emerged a living
memorial for those who’ve died by partici-
pating for the past 20 years in AIDS Walk
Portland. And though he’s suffered great
losses, he’s not doing it alone.
“It may sound silly, but I carry a sheet of
paper with all of my friends’ names as I
walk,” says Behrend, who is not HIV posi­
tive. “I know they are forever in my heart
and my mind as I walk.”
Behrend is the team captain for Team
Hobo’s, and has helped to spearhead nearly
$8,500 in donations as of press time. Indi­
vidually, Behrend has averaged about
$3,500 per year since he began walking
to support Cascade AIDS Project. And
while his duties at Hobo’s, as well as
owning a house/pet-sitting business and
cleaning business, prevent him from vol­
unteering more, Behrend believes it is the
pooling together of small efforts that brings
about progress within the HIV/AIDS
community.
A man of many quotes, it seems, Behrend
paraphrases the late Elizabeth Taylor’s ob­
servation that AIDS is not over, and that “it
is nobody’s fault, just everyone’s problem.”
“Someone once left me with this saying,”
Behrend continues. “‘When someone you
love becomes a memory, that memory be­
comes a treasure.’ The friends I have lost are
my treasures in life.”
As a solo fundraiser, Behrend trails only
Alazar Manning and CAP executive director
Michael Kaplan, with about $3,200 raised
M
“ It may sound silly, but I carry a sheet
of paper with all of my friends’ names
as I walk. I know they are forever in
my heart and my mind as I walk.”
-DAVE BEHREND
with slightly over two weeks left before the
October 2 event. And he has no plans to slow
down any time soon.
“This is such an important cause to me,”
Behrend says. “I have learned to cope with
death through AIDS and it’s not always
easy. I will walk till there is a cure and
beyond!”
— R yan J. P rado
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