The Center on Halsted's Sexual Orientation and Gender Institute ( SOGI ) convened a roundtable discussion on HIV/AIDS and the LGBTQ community May 11. Discussants included people from the Chicago Department of Public Health ( CDPH ) and healthcare professionals.
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Simone Koehlinger and Chris Brown at the Center's HIV talk. Photo by Yasmin Nair
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Braden Berkey, director of SOGI, asked people to reflect upon when AIDS entered their lives. Speakers' responses reflected their life experiences as well as generational and gender differences. Christopher Brown of the CDPH has been part of the epidemic from the beginning; he lost a number of friends and contracted the disease early on. Douglas Kimmel recalled living in Maine and trying to build awareness that the disease was not restricted to large cities like New York.
Jason McVicker spoke about feeling a similar sense of frustration in New Orleans because AIDS funding initially focused on large urban areas; this 'delayed a lot of critical education' in smaller areas. Armand Cerbone remembered the importance of early AIDS activism and its resistance to the mainstream community's attempt to shut down gay sexual expression as a supposed corrective: 'Needing to protect our right to be sexual was critical.'
For Simone Koehlinger, AIDS was not her generation's issue; she was still in high school at the time. However, she grew up with her gay father and his partner, and was acutely aware of the growing stigma around the disease—all of which had effects on her own coming to terms with her lesbian identity.
Arlene Lev addressed the differences in lesbians' relationships to the epidemic. She spoke of a close friend who worked with the health organization Shanti as a caretaker to many dying gay men. Ironically for Lev, that same woman is now coping with chronic infections as a lesbian whose access to support systems is severely restricted.
Participants commented on the grieving process for survivors of the epidemic since it became clear that many have not reconciled to the massive loss of friends and community and of what McVicker called a 'profound traumatization of the community.'
In response to a question about the economic and racialised aspects of AIDS today, there was acknowledgement that the face of AIDS has changed. One audience member commented on the importance of remembering these early histories of AIDS, and the need for 'a more conscious attempt to connect people historically—otherwise this [ the AIDS epidemic ] will always come as a surprise.'