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Activist David Mixner and actress Alison Arngrim share their personal reflections on World AIDS Day
The day is almost over but I did not want it to go by without writing something about World AIDS Day.
It’s held on December 1 each year and is an opportunity for people worldwide to unite in the fight against HIV, show their support for people living with HIV and to commemorate people who have died.
While HIV is no longer necessarily a death sentence for those who have access to the life-saving drugs, there still is no cure and that’s something each of us needs to think about before having sex.
Going through the many social media posts about World AIDS Day, two jumped out at me that I want to share with you. The first is from Alison Arngrim, best known as Little House on the Prairie bitch Nellie Olsen.
Alison writes on Facebook: Today, December 1st, is World AIDS Day. We lost our beloved Steve Tracy, (“Percival”) to HIV/AIDS on Thanksgiving day, 1986. He spent his last days trying help others with HIV and educate the world about this disease.
Do something positive today in his honor. Get tested, make a donation, check up on a sick friend, or read something to educate yourself further about HIV and AIDS.
David Mixner, once named by Newsweek as the most powerful gay man in America, is an author, political strategist, civil rights activist, public affairs advisor (and so much more). Here are some excerpts from his column posted today on DavidMixner.com:
For years, rarely do I speak of my own journey with HIV/AIDS and the toll it takes on those who are negative. After all, through some miracle, I am healthy and made it through the horror of the 15 years when to have the disease was usually a death sentence. How could one complain when you have been given the gift of life that was taken from so many of my very young friends?
First, let me be very clear.
My behavior was no different from that of my many beloved friends who passed from this horrible scourge. I engaged in what today would be called risky sex since we had no idea at the time that it was risky. Nor am I ashamed of my sense of sexual liberation at the time. The mood of the late 1970’s was one of joy and celebration of our sexuality. The time before HIV/AIDS was a time of coming out and in a tribal way creating a community out of the ashes of oppression.
One by one, week in and week out, our young friends started dying.
For many of us, it was the beginning of our own personal holocaust. Over fifteen years, I lost well over 300 friends (most under 40) and gave at least 90 eulogies in one two year period.
My entire middle age was given to HIV/AIDS, death, devastation and grief. From about 37 to 52, the disease dominated my life. Even in the most dark moments we never lost our sense of humor, our will to live nor our love for our brothers who suffered so much. Nor can I ever forget how quickly the world turned on us when we most needed them. Our government failed totally.
While I realize how grateful I am on World AIDS Day to be breathing it does not wipe out those horrible, horrible years from my life. Although I feel HIV/AIDS stole fifteen years of my life, the fact of the matter is that I was able to witness unbelievable courage, unconditional love and sheer determination in the face of death to be a free human being.
Today is certainly a time for reflection, memory and to finish the uncompleted job of ending HIV/AIDS and finding not just a vaccine but a cure.
Photo: From Left: Peter Scott and David Quarles ( both who died of AIDS), David Mixner and Governor Brown
Comments
(All comments are reviewed before being published, and I review submissions several times per day.)
2201 East says:
So very sad to think of all of those we have lost. Such special men and women.
jad says:
Other then Governor Brown, who are the men in the picture?
Greg Hernandez says:
They are listed at bottom of post.