LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
Hear Me Out: Gay Men's Health is about More than HIV |
by Mubarak Dahir |
An 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. I didn't have the energy to get up and walk across the room, and I could barely eat. For three days in 1995 I lay in a hospital bed fearing the worst: that despite my precautions, I must somehow 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 due to another ailment, he still tried to arm- wrestle me into consenting to an HIV test. When people think of gay men's health, the first thing that pops into everyone's mindseven our ownis HIV and AIDS. Given the history of the epidemic and how it has devastated the gay community over the past twenty years, that's understandable. But it's no longer sufficient. While HIV is still an ever-present element of gay men's health, and remains the most prominent disease with which our community continues to grapple, it is but one of a myriad of concerns that affect 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 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 affects of ubiquitous drugs ranging from poppers to ecstasy. Yet, while there are thousands of organizations around the country that deal with HIV and AIDS, there are probably less than a dozen that take a completely integrated approach to gay men's health. A growing group of gay activists are working to change that. "We're starting a gay men's health movement 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 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, have already put together two national gay men's health summits, the most recent of which just concluded in Boulder, Colorado, this past July. But the gathering in Boulder 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 1980's with AIDS organizations," says Rofes. "I want to see places develop around the country where gay men can go with their complete list of health concerns, and get frank, nonjudgmental answers to questions and help for their problems." There can be little doubt there is a strong need for such groups. I know first-hand 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 anything 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 affects the disease has on the human body. Many times since then, I've looked back at my ignorance and felt utterly astounded. I would have never 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 AIDS organizations, and had thus gone through extensive AIDS and HIV training sessions. As a reporter, I wrote one story after another about HIV and AIDS, frequently covering the latest drug development or experimental treatment for HIV-related conditions. The people I spoke to on a daily basis were gay activists, HIV-prevention experts, doctors, and drug-company researchers, all of whom spoke frankly about sex and HIV in unabashed detail. I thought of myself as incredibly knowledgeable 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. What was most annoying was discovering that there was a simple vaccine I could have taken to protect myself. I never had a similar discussion with my doctor. Even though my doctor 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 that I was also at risk for hepatitis Ban 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 does not have a health provider he can talk to honestly and openly," says Rofes. And typically, doctors, too, view gay health through the narrow blinders of HIV care. That'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 organizations, but in making sure they are designed to unflinchingly answer our real needs, without apology or squeamishness. Mubarak Dahir receives e-mail at MubarakDah@aol.com |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 10, No. 12, Aug. 25, 2000. |