- Hey, what's up Vogue.
This is Troye Sivan.
I am in my parents' house in Melbourne Australia,
and I am very, very nervous right now
because I'm about to have a conversation
with one of my all time heroes, Peter Staley.
Peter is a HIV/AIDS activist from New York city.
He was a huge part of the Act Up movement
in the late 80s and early 90s.
They saved literally millions of lives
and made incredible process during the HIV/AIDS crisis.
And I'm about to talk to him.
So I'm shitting myself, but let's do this.
Hey, Peter, how's it going?
- Well, I have a cat about to enter the picture.
- Nice.
[laughs]
- Troye, how are you down under?
- I'm very good, thank you.
I am very, very excited and actually kind of sweaty,
to be talking to you because I have looked up to
you for a very long time,
and this is just a very, very cool moment for me.
So thank you for hopping on here.
- I've got a lot of friends who are very jealous right now,
so...
[laughs]
Really? Okay, good.
Tell them, I say hi.
- Major Troye fans.
- I think the first time I became aware of your work
was when I watched "How To Survive A Plague"
and not to sound like crazy, dramatic.
I genuinely feel like that documentary
and that story and your story changed my life
and kind of like changed the trajectory
that I want to be on.
- I think the first time I heard about you
was your youth video
and the reason it got so shared,
here you were rolling around in bed
with this cute blonde kid.
Well that's what I remember.
[laughs]
And prior to that, the kind of boy band pop stars
that came all the years earlier, they wouldn't start out.
You know, from the get go, you were yourself.
And that ended up in itself, was a news item.
- Hey, what's up? Its Troye Sivan
and this is probably the most nervous I've ever been
in my entire life.
But I'm going to deal with it
because I have something to tell you guys.
I want you guys to know that I'm gay.
This is not something that I'm ashamed of,
and it's not something that anyone should have
to be ashamed of.
So why not share it with all of you guys.
That was by design,
because I was already out to my family and my friends
in my real life at that point.
And,
I was about to get signed to my record label
and I was petrified that I was going to be outed
and then, you know, have like the rug pulled out
from under my feet.
And I just was, I was thinking to myself,
this is so something that I'm not ashamed of.
It's actually something that I am quite proud of.
And it's just a part of me.
And so I kind of wanted to intentionally take control
of that narrative and take back that power
from anybody else.
So that at least if I'm going to do it,
it's on my own terms.
- And then it was only a few months later
that you watched "How To Survive A Plague"
and started speaking out after that and I noticed.
I kept seeing these news reports
of you talking about the history of AIDS.
And it reminded me of when I did the same
when I first started my activism
and I didn't know anything that had come before.
And I was like 26 at the time.
And somebody told me to watch this new documentary
that had won the Oscar called "The Times Of Harvey Milk".
My life got changed by watching that documentary.
- I've got a couple photos here, Peter,
I would love to know your take on them.
- [Peter] Sure.
- Here we see you on vacation in Amsterdam, in 1985.
- I was falling in love with a young Dutchman,
there on the right.
And then a few months after that he was visiting me
in the States.
And that's when I found out I was HIV positive
and everything got very serious after that.
I got lucky with my timing
because about a little over a year later,
this movement was started, Act Up.
Their first demonstration was on Wall Street
and I got handed a flyer on my way to work.
- No way.
- And it gave me so much hope
to see this community begin to act up about this illness
that was very likely going to kill me soon.
So I got to the next meeting
and my whole life changed from there.
I decided to become a full time AIDS activist.
[crowd chanting]
- [Troye] So here we see you on the roof of the FDA
at the very famous 1988 FDA protest that you guys did.
- Yeah, the FDA demo was probably the most famous demo
that Act Up did.
We surrounded the headquarters in 1988.
And it was kind of our national coming out as a movement.
All the Act Up chapters converged on the headquarters.
And we were the lead news story that night
on all the networks.
My friends clasped their hands together.
I put my foot in their hands
and they launched me up to that awning,
where I could hang the silence equals death banner.
Everybody just exploded with joy
and it got the demonstration going.
So it was a very cool moment for me.
- Wow.
That's like the most bad ass photo I've ever seen
in my entire life.
[laughs]
Interestingly, when I watch the footage of you guys
back then, there was this like unbelievable,
what seemed like fearlessness.
I think about that clip of you on that TV show,
"Crossfire", right.
You know, you standing up to these two older white,
straight men.
And you're so much younger than them
and you really, really standing your ground.
- Over 140 drugs out there that the FDA has identified
as possibilities and are in some stage
of being looked at right now.
- Why are they holding back?
- Among that 140, there's got to be one
or a combination thereof that can slow down this virus
or halt it in its tracks.
I didn't know if I had a year or two years
or maybe a little more.
So for me it was like, it's just all in.
How are you viewing your voice now that you look back
at this history and you started
speaking out about it publicly.
Cause you have spoken out.
I know it can be a kind of a dangerous territory
to walk through as an artist.
- You say it's dangerous, but honestly not really.
And I attribute that to the work of the people
who came before me.
When I came out, I didn't know any LGBT people.
I didn't have anyone that I could kind of see myself in,
in my own personal life.
You know, I remember the very first time I saw
two men kissing on TV.
And I remember the first time
I met a gay person in real life.
I want to try and create those moments on a big,
you know, on a big scale that somebody
is like flicking through channels
and they catch one of my music videos
or something like that.
And just kind of remind everyone how beautiful it all is.
My goal has been to just be kind of as loud and proud
as possible and create these really, really safe spaces
at my shows were donating a portion of ticket sales
to LGBT charities while also like getting the audience
to bring socks and scarves, to donate,
to like LGBT homeless shelters.
While also just creating an amazing vibe
in whatever venue I'm playing,
where people can come exactly as they are.
And just for that hour and a half or whatever it is,
kind of completely do away with any of the stresses
that following them in their life.
- I hope I get to come to one of your shows at some point.
- You have to, yeah, it'll be so fun.
That'd be awesome.
What can we still be doing today
in the fight against HIV/AIDS?
- Well, the sad thing is a lot of people think it's over.
And it's still spreading.
There's still a million and a half deaths
around the world every year.
Almost an equal number of infections,
which is obscene and shouldn't be happening.
But the good news is that we have medical tools now
that could actually wind all that down.
- It turned out 100% effective for Truvada PrEP.
It's like a miracle drug.
And so just getting that message out,
telling them about prep.
That's been a lot of the work we've been doing
over the last five years.
- PrEP is something that I would love to learn more about.
It kind of feels like a real,
unbelievable achievement and a miracle
that this has happened.
And so any contraction of the virus
or any death from the virus just feels so unnecessary
at this point.
And so that's something that I would really want to work on
in the future.
- Yeah, well, let's work on that together.
- I see the work that you and the rest of Act Up did.
And so many others did and like the LGBTQ people
that came before me did.
So that I can just have this absolute breeze of a life
and I just feel so, so, so like inspired
and indebted forever to all of you.
And thank you, I guess, it's like the biggest thing.
Thank you.
- For me, activism is about acting on empathy.
So, just keep tapping into that empathy and speaking out,
using your platform.
It is all about community.
We're in this arc of history and it's a beautiful thing.
And your generation will just carry that work forward.
So thanks.
- Good luck.
And just thank you so much again.
- Great meeting you Troye.
- Nice to meet you, enjoy the rest of your morning.
- I can't wait to see you in concert.
- Thank you very much.
[gentle music]