Policy

The Gay Men’s Health Movement in the United States: What Does it Offer the Next Generation of HIV Prevention for Gay Men?

Eric Rofes, Ph.D.

Presented at the Office of AIDS Research & Centers for Disease Control Workshop on Increasing the Efficacy of HIV Prevention Efforts for MSM

Washington, DC January 9, 2003
Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA
eerofes @ aol.com (707) 826-3735

The Gay Men’s Health Movement in the United States

(1997-2003)

1. Origins
1. Dallas, 1995: Identification of need for new generation of health work with gay men
2. HIV/AIDS prevention
3. LGBT health movement
4. Women’s health movement
2. Key Events
1. Philadelphia, 1997: Transformation of Safeguards from HIV focus to GMH
2. Gay Men’s Health Summit I., Boulder in 1999: 300 participants
3. Gay Men’s Health Summit II., Boulder in 2000: 500 participants
4. 2000-2002: Over 25 local & regional Gay Men’s Health Summits held in the U.S.
3. Ideas to Consider about the Gay Men’s Health Movement:
1. Theory & research based
2. Strategically planned
3. Principle-driven
4. Core issues to gay and bi men focused upon
4. Characteristics
1. Decentralized, anarchistic and neotribal
2. De-professionalized
3. Community-based and subculture-based
4. Mobilization focused
5. Dependent upon the kindness of strangers
5. The Path Forward
1. National Gay Men’s Health Summit III. in Raleigh, NC on May 7-11, 2003
2. Identification and educating of organizers for diverse gay men’s health movements
3. Creation of local community-based gay men’s health summits, projects, and trainings

The 6 Foundational Principles of Gay Men’s Health Summits, Projects, or Campaigns

1. Replace the HIV-centric paradigm of health advocacy for gay men with holistic models that integrate (but do not default to) HIV
2. Exit the crisis paradigm of HIV work and embrace understandings, meanings, and implications of HIV for gay men in 2003

3. Challenge deficit-based models for work with gay men and replace them with asset-based approaches
4. Confront structural forces challenging the well-being of gay & bi men strategically and politically
5. Embrace a “big tent” vision of community, respecting diverse ways of organizing sex and relationships among gay menà Shame and guilt are the health hazards, rather than specific sex practices and sex cultures
6. Launch only efforts that are not overtly or covertly sanitizing, sanctimonious or moralistic.

Address the 8 Core Issues

1. Confronting gay & bisexual men of diverse generations, ethnicities, races, locations, and social classes
2. Meanings of anal sex, penetration, & the exchange of semen
3. Relationships between various cultural and class-based masculinities and anal sex practices
4. Understandings, resources, & wounds emerging from childhood experiences with boys & men
5. Sources of resilience, creativity, determination, humor & playfulness in diverse gay men’s cultures
6. Healing from trauma: violence, abuse, homophobia, racism, poverty, AIDS and addiction
7. The relationship between transgression, risk, and the taboo and sexual desires, practices, and subcultures
8. The ways privileged masculinities of youth present challenges to & opportunities for well being as men age
9. The revival & re-creation of community rituals, social structures, and in the post-AIDS era

Key Features of the Gay Men’s Health Movement

Implications for HIV Research and Prevention

1. A powerful Gay Men’s Health Movement may provide a strong foundation for health promotion related to syphilis, HIV, substance abuse, and domestic violence
2. HIV prevention may be most effective by not referencing HIV
3. Challenging HIV-centric thinking may do much to strengthen gay men’s health
4. Non-directive, non-manipulative, non-coercive approaches may be most effective with gay and bisexual men
5. Sexual meanings and social identities may be central to sexual practices, subcultures, and communities
6. The Gay Men’s Health Movement is a site to consider as having the potential to catalyze new thinking, create new projects, and mobilize masses of gay and bisexual men

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