Life after Vancouver
In 1996, I gave a paper at the XI International AIDS Conference, held in Vancouver. It was about the effective use of narrative to engage audiences with stories of positive people, but it could [...]
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March 2018
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March 2018
Best of times and worst of times
Indeed, the 1980s were like that. They were a peak time for ‘gay’ and ‘community’. They were also the time that we got to understand the HIV epidemic, and by the end of the [...]
15
March 2018
The Middle Years
From where we stand now, the years from 1992, when the heady romanticism of ACT UP started to fizzle out and fracture, to late 1995, when early news of the success of combination therapy [...]
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March 2018
It came out of nowhere
No one knew what it was, what caused it, or how to deal with it. But it was a guaranteed killer. The first recorded case of AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) in Australia was [...]
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March 2018
1988 Revisited
It was the worst of times: September 1988. It was when AIDS notifications had risen to 1,000; when 500 people had died; when the stigma of infection had spread its poison wide. In a [...]
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March 2018
People living with HIV were central
From 2000 to 2003 many positive people who had earlier retired were thinking about returning to work. Many were worried about the risks involved, felt unconfident about their skills or what would happen if [...]
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December 2017
Our changing conversations – the PSB two decades on
As a Positive Speakers Bureau (PSB) presenter of twenty one years for Positive Life NSW, I have been privileged to hear stories and see lives transform from bleak to hopeful, through a time of [...]
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December 2017
Where to from here?
I usually had an HIV test every three months, but this time I’d skipped a month. When I went for my usual check-up, I wasn’t feeling too well, but I knew there was a [...]
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October 2017
Culture, secrets and HIV
In my family, I am the responsible one. I am born here, but my South American culture is very strong. I have to look after my sisters and my parents and they come to [...]
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October 2017
Being Transgender and HIV Divergence
In April 2008, my Thai transgendered partner and I were both diagnosed with AIDS in Thailand a day apart, skipping HIV completely. While I lay dying in a Bangkok hospital with AIDS related PCP [...]
