Becoming “poz”

“You’re Positive.” It was the afternoon of June 21st, 1995 and I can vividly remember the exact tone and inflection of the doctor’s voice as he delivered the two words that would forever change my life. I can remember the smell of the office, the pitying look in his eyes as he uttered the words, the ugly wave a nausea that swept through my stomach, and the light dizzy feeling in my head as my brain began to grasp the meaning of this new nugget of information.

“How could this possibly happen to me?” was the question repeating in my mind as I sat absorbing the shock. “People like you don’t get HIV,” my first gay friend had told me only a few days prior to receiving my test results. I didn’t go to bathhouses, didn’t do meth or any other hard drugs, I didn’t even sleep around that much. In fact, my gay dating life had barely gotten off the ground and I wasn’t even out to my friends or family yet. For crying out loud, I hadn’t even tried being a bottom yet! “You don’t fit the profile!” the logical part of my brain screamed in my head. This simply cannot be happening or my life might as well just end right here and now.

“Now you’re not going to do anything stupid are you?” the doctor asked between my sobs as he begins writing a prescription for thirty extra-strength tranquilizers. “Some people can become suicidal after getting this kind of news and I need to know that you will not be trying anything like that.” I shake my head to indicate no, still unable to speak. After another twenty minutes of sobbing and asking several times if this might be some kind of awful mistake, the doctor gives me a hug, a prescription for Xanax, and what I would come to refer to as “The Welcome Packet” from the Department of Health. I walk from the office, literally numb from terror, and somehow make my way back to my new little condo in the gay ghetto. Tucking away my Welcome Packet, I thought about how I now had to call the guy I had been seeing and let him know.

Over twelve years later and here I am today, happier and healthier than I have ever been in my life, looking back and labeling that first year or two of being HIV-positive as “the dark ages”. I am much stronger for the journey, even if it was an unintended one. Facing your own mortality is terrifying, but it can make every day seem like a blessing if you can make it through the initial shock. Oh…and the guy I had to call that first horrible evening? He ended up being the best thing to happen to me, struggling together we overcame a whole lot, and we are a couple still today.

My hope with this column is that I can use my personal experience with HIV to give hope to those struggling with the disease, expose some of the common challenges faced by HIV-positive folks, and provide insights to the HIV-negative readers here about how to stay that way.

So, if you are HIV-positive and are struggling to make it through the first year or two, or have made it through and have some advice to share with others, we would love to hear from you. Over the last several years, I’ve had a great opportunity to act as peer counselor to other newly diagnosed HIV-positive men and it makes a big difference when you are able to talk or learn from someone going through the same journey, struggling with the same issues as yourself. If you are HIV-negative and would like to learn how to stay that way, we would like to hear from you too. In this age, ignorance can kill, or at least ruin a couple years of your life. Even simple things like knowing how to ask someone his or her status, or hearing why it can be so difficult for an HIV-positive person to disclose his or her status, can make a big difference.

(...to the full post)

New kid on the block

Allow me to introduce myself, I am “the light skin girl wonder” (or LSGW, for short).

I was born in LA, raised in CT, drop kicked out the closet in MA, and currently reside in NYC. My mom is Jamaican and Cuban (so Black) and my dad’s birth certificate tells me he’s “Negro” so it’s safe to say that I’m Black except I don’t really look Black. Apparently I look Dominican, which I think is also Black, and people tend to talk to me in Spanish… and then roll their eyes when I tell them I’m not Latina, I’m just regular Black – but light (especially in the winter). This ambiguity leads to many interesting inner-dialogues about my ethnic identity and who I am. For the most part, I identify with my Jamaican roots more than anything because I was raised by my grandmother.

And yes, all the rumors you’ve heard about Jamaicans being crazy homophobic are true. Although I haven’t come out to my grandmother, I’m sure she knows (thanks to a not so subtle keychain my first girlfriend gave me). But it’s ok, she prays for me every day. When I came out to my mother, she handled it the best she could. Four years later, she’s ok with it. At this point, she just wants me to settle down with someone and give her grandchildren. *shudders* Dad knows and never talks about it… ever.

So new friends, what else should you know about me? I always say what’s on my mind, to a fault. I recently started writing again after a two year hiatus. In typical LSGW fashion, I’ve got lots to say and now I have a new space to say them. I want to inspire, educate, share, grow, and learn from all of you. Hopefully the effort will be reciprocated.

How’d I get here?

Funny question. So I was talking with a group of self-proclaimed bougie Black folk and we were talking about if you can pray away the gay and people were feeling really comfortable because they assumed everyone was straight in the group. So I’m chillin’ in the cut listening to people say some crazy off the wall stuff and then I dropped the B-bomb – bisexual. (We were in the middle of a heated discussion about whether bi exists or not). Crickets. Yeah. Then the tones changed, people wanted to be inquisitive. I get private asides that they don’t really feel that way and they’re sure I’m not going to go to hell. Gee thanks.

I recently finished James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man. Spoiler alert: After witnessing a lynching, he decided to start passing as a White man and lived the rest of his life like that. He was so embarrassed about belonging to a race with so few rights and who could be dealt with so mercilessly that he essentially quit the race to live the easy life.

It’s very easy for me to pass as straight because I “look straight”. I date femmes, so my girlfriends look like they are just girl friends. I also date men more frequently than I date women, so people often question why I still identify as bi when it probably would be easier to keep my mouth shut and just act like an ally. The thought has crossed my mind, but then I wouldn’t be true to myself. Even if I never dated another woman again, I wouldn’t pretend to be straight and ignore my past. I would never consider a life on the downlow. And I do all this recognizing the privilege I get from living in some of the most liberal cities and in very supporting environments.

When asked what I want to write about, my response was something along the lines of “race, pop culture, sexuality (and the homophobia goes with that), island people, South Africa, women's colleges, schoolin’ fools on who I am, challenging Catholics and Baptists about whether or not I'm going to hell, the bi-life, answering dumb questions like ‘how do you pick up girls?’ with witty answers like, ‘the same way I pick up boys’, being dropped kicked out the closet, confusion over which gender to spend the rest of my life with, keeping it real even when it really goes wrong, awkwardly reentering the dating scene, passing, punching holes in the box, etc. etc.”

To steal a line from Steve Biko, “I write what I like.”

(...to the full post)

Socialworker: Introductions

Like most of the folks on this blog, I am someone that lives outside of the binary. I am also a therapist-in-training, and even more unusual, I am a state employee…hired mid-transition. I am a social worker for child welfare services. Which state? Not saying…but it is one that my trans status was not a deterrent to hire. (Also, my office focuses on Indian Child Welfare Act cases, and traditionally, Native societies are often more accepting to those of us outside the gender binary.) I am also open about who and what I am.

Within the office, I am called a range of pronouns: she, he, ze…if we have a guest in the office (interns, social workers from other offices), I have noticed that my co-workers enjoy watching the guest do a double take if I am unshaven and binding and I am referred to as “she” or if I am unbound and clean shaven, and referred to as “he.” Social workers typically have a wicked sense of humor…and I am old enough (and comfortable enough with who I am) to find it funny, too. It is not mean-spirited—I have had enough experience with that type of treatment to know the difference…teasing is part of many cultures and it is something I grew up with, so in this context, it is something that makes me feel accepted. When referring to my gender identity, they usually say I am “two-spirit.”

Outside the office or in front of clients, my coworkers refer to me as “he” (or try). This is by agreement, as my supervisor has told me she feels that the gender fluidity does pose a safety risk (and she is right) with some of our clients. I have had some clients ask “are you a boy or a girl?” My response is either “my name is Luis,” or “what would make you more comfortable with me?” This depends on several factors: age, gender identity or sexual orientation, and their comfort level with me as a person. I find that I am not as rigid with my gender identity as the media says I should be. Strangely—or maybe not so strange—a few of my female clients like me because I “think like a guy” but they have figured out I used to be female, and so I am “safe”…and easier to talk to.

However, there are times I have to appear in court. Some judges have rudely asked me if I am “male or female” (a small minority) and others have chastised defense attorneys for being disrespectful to me, telling them that the only confusion is in “your mind, not his (me).” Still, court remains a bit hard for me. I tend not to use the bathrooms. Which one can I use? Like every transperson under the sun, I have a potty dilemma. In court, it is even worse…either one I use, I could be hauled out and arrested! (I look male, my ID is still female.)

Since I have a goatee, generally bind, and have a low tenor/high baritone voice, being a “he” in the courthouse and meeting with clients makes my life easier…and really, theirs. I know that living outside the gender binary is where I belong, but the power dynamic in my relationship with my clients is NOT where I force my worldview or my ideas on my gender identity. I figure they are not there to have to skip around the question, and I am not there to inflict myself upon them. Do I broaden their worldview? Maybe. Do I want to make a big deal about it? No. My colleagues: attorneys, judges, other social workers…I expect a certain level respect from them. The quality of work alone should get it…but it doesn’t always. I generally laugh at them, and move on. In private, I sometimes feel a bit anguished about it, and it can be very exhausting.

But still, like all of us, I press on.

(...to the full post)