My Vision for Gay Health
This is a piece I wrote a couple of weeks ago and was placed on Life Lube, a fabulous gay health website that can be found here. The version here on my blog is unedited. The version that appears on Life Lube had to be modified because of my partisan comments, which can't be posted on a site that receives government funding.
One of the most beautiful things about living in a country like the United States is that dreams can come true with commitment and hard work, even in spite of the many obstacles that may face us getting to where we want to be. I believe it was Nelson Mandela who said “It always seems impossible until it is done”. While this quote is fairly new to me, I have adopted it as a principle of the community organizing work I do both in the city of Philadelphia where I reside and in the national work I am involved in. Below are 2 facets that are part of my vision for a gay men’s health agenda.
Overcoming Structural Barriers & Asset Development
One of the things I feel is essential to improving our lives as individuals, which has reverberating effects on building stronger communities of gay men, is asset development. There are many counter-cultural forces that seek to rob gay men of our self-worth and self-esteem such as heterosexism, homophobia, religious violence, teasing and rejection by family, friends and faith communities. For 2009, we need to take the gay men’s health revolution in our own hands and use our existing assets as gay men to help strengthen our brothers who need support to get to a healthier place. Together we stand or divided we fall and the divisions in our communities along lines of masculinity, race and class among others only hinder the development of the assets that are needed to ensure the health and survival of gay men
Another major structural barrier is access to health care. We must continue to fight for universal health care, so that we are all ensured access to treatments that will keep us healthy, regardless of our sexual orientation. However, there are many benefits that would be afforded to gay men if we had universal health care. Consider a young gay man kicked out of his home for coming out, a man terminated from his job because of his actual or perceived gay sexual orientation or a trans man who has a general medical issue, but he hasn’t applied for health insurance because he doesn’t want to have to explain why his identification doesn’t match his appearance. Universal health care would give each of these people the access they need to maintain their health.
The HIV Epidemic and Beyond
HIV continues to be a major health crisis among gay men in the United States, especially among Black men who have sex with men. Just last month (August 2008), the Centers for Disease Control shared that their estimation of 40,000 new infections in the US annually is inaccurate and that they now believe that number to be 56,300. This is almost a 40% increase over the previous estimate. The majority of new infections by risk category are among men who have sex with men (53%) and when looking at age, the majority of new infections are among the 13-29 age group (34%) followed by 30-39 year olds (31%). Looking at how many young people are being newly diagnosed, I think we can in part, thank the abstinence only policies of conservative Republicans for these statistics. If our school system can’t educate adolescents about sex and sexuality, then how will they know how to protect themselves? Many parents choose to avoid having these conversations with their children, leaving our young people to experiment among themselves in a time when sexual naivety can have serious consequences.
If you never thought getting political and voting was important, now is the time to change that mind set and get active, because these statistics will only get worse if the McCain-Palin ticket wins in November. Especially given Sarah Palin’s super conservative views on sexual health, though one would hope she might be a little more understanding given her 17-year old, unmarried daughter turned up pregnant. Even in light of this unforeseen incident in her family, I doubt her conservative views on sexual education will change.
Given these new incidence trends regarding HIV, there is no doubt we must continue our efforts at prevention, but we must widen the lens and re-define the focus of health-related interventions for gay men. For too long gay men’s health has focused mostly on HIV/AIDS, to the detriment of other health conditions that have direct and indirect ties to HIV/AIDS. These other issues are not limited to, but include: mental health, the effects of forced sexual experiences, external and internalized homophobia, substance abuse, lack of knowledge on male specific health issues (ex: anal health, foreskin health, etc), and lack of testing for sexually transmitted infections among others.
These are just a few things I feel are needed to improve the health and well being of gay men in the coming years. I am committed to and will continue to work with my brothers and our allies to strengthen our communities. Earlier this year, Grammy award winning music artist Alicia Keys said in her acceptance speech that we need to remove the word “can’t” from our vocabulary. I agree with her and I also believe in the words of presidential nominee Barack Obama, that “yes we can” form an unprecedented gay men’s health revolution, so let’s make it happen!
Lee Carson lives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and is the president of a grass roots organization called the Black Gay Men’s Leadership Council, which is an organizational member of the Sexual Health Xchange. He works full time as a behavioral science researcher and part time as a therapist in a mental health clinic that exclusively serves the LGBT population. He has also taught in the masters-level social work program at Temple University.
