So I'm really excited to create the Facebook page for
a panel that I'm going to be part of at GMHC in a month.
I didn't know how much fear was part of every sexual encounter I had had,
and every sexual thought I had had, throughout my entire adult life.
I did not even begin to unravel that,
until I started using PrEP, and that fear started to lift.
I'm still unpacking how profound that is.
Welcome to our New York update for PrEP.
First of all, I'm so excited, I want to thank everybody for
coming out in this weather to be here.
I am. What I have seen of all ages now
is the expansive freedom that PrEP is allowing us
to have intimacy with partners of any HIV status.
It has drastically changed the sexual and emotional and
psychological landscape of interactions with others.
Did you ever try the strawberry jam that we bought that one time?
Where?
The strawberry wham, the spatula?
No, I don't think so.
Wow. My name is Michael and this is Leo, and
I'm an HIV carrier, and Leo is negative, and
we've been together for a year and a quarter.
I'm an HIV carrier, but I am undetectable, which means I am
on HIV treatment which suppresses the virus in my body to undetectable levels.
That's not something that I feel ashamed of or afraid of.
For me it's just important that it doesn't ever get past me.
I just don't ever wanna give it to anybody else.
I have to buy oregano.
And basil.
Yes. Good one.
I actually heard about Truvada as PrEP in 2010.
I had a lot of reservations about it in the beginning.
Pharmaceutical intentions, side effects.
It took a lot of studies to come out and a lot of opinions.
I was very suspicious about it, and I was really, really reserved.
And sometimes you have to just go on the side of hope with things, and
the hope for me in the beginning a year ago was that I hoped that this
would enable us to just leapfrog past this issue or this virus or whatever.
And it really did, and I can say that whatever issues we have as a relationship,
none of them are HIV-related, and that blows my mind.
That's the best feeling ever.
It's a freedom I never thought I'd see in my lifetime.
I thought I was gonna scared of it 'til the day I died.
So when you do them sunny side, do you just leave them alone, or
you gonna flip them over?
No, you don't, sunny side up is just.
Just like that.
Yeah.
So then how does the top cook?
It just doesn't cook.
It's just kinda runny.
So then what are they called when you flip them over?
Fried.
Really? Yup.
What causes a lot of stigma, it comes from this fear, and
suddenly there's something to explore that erases that fear.
Status is still a very important thing here.
Know your status, but know your status doesn't mean know your status so
that you know if you're positive you can't have sex with me.
Know your status really means get tested, and if you are positive then
you can get treated for it so that you 're not at risk of infecting someone else.
That's really what that's all about.
And if you're negative then get on PrEP so that you can build that barrier.
A lot of the critiques that come from people towards other people who think that
they're only using it to have condom-less sex is really slut shaming and really
a lot of the self loathing that we've developed over the years through fear.
Some people will take it so
they can just feel comfortable and they'e still gonna wear condoms all the time.
Other people are gonna use it so
that they can go to some bareback orgy three times a week.
It's a personal choice.
And its a personal choice, but that also affects the community as a whole
in terms of getting rid of this disease and
getting rid of passing it along as well catching it.
It's such a cycle that's continued, and it finally has a stop to it.
HIV is a stigmatized infection.
The fact that it's still spreading around the world, at root, is because of stigma.
My hope is that as we talk more about PrEP,
people will have a chance to reconsider their attitude about HIV.
It's not part of people's identity.
It's just another thing that some people have.
It is a manageable thing that we can help each other through.
Applause for these amazing, amazing people.
It does sometimes feel in this work that, not just HIV but in advocacy work,
that we're trying to solve problems that will never be solved in our lifetime.
And yet here is a problem that I actually believe can be solved in my lifetime, and
before my son graduates high school.
So I think, let's do it.
I think this epidemic has to go.
I think we have to end it.
I think we know how to end it, and
I think we need to use what we know works in terms of treatment, then PrEP.
I think if we do all of that, this epidemic will end.
Attacking the condom culture is very, very destructive.
Being so careless about STDs is
gonna have a bad outcome, even if we don't know exactly what that outcome will be.
I just wanna to make sure that people are empowered to make
the decision that is right for them.
Just because a choice may not be for you, allow others that choice.
I think we have a way of ending this epidemic.
There are multiple other things people can do, but
Truvada offers us a game changing way to do it.