Everybody knows PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays), and PFLAG Canada’s appearance in Toronto’s Pride parade is always one of the emotionally charged highlights for me.  Kids march with parents in tow – or vice versa – and that always strikes me both as a reminder of something I didn’t have and  just how far we have come.

PLAG Canada has a Sharing our Stories campaign on right now.  You can find it here.  We featured one of those stories, that of National Ballet Star Rex Harrington, last month and you can find it here. 

But did you know that within PFLAG Canada there is a Black chapter - Black Family and Friends?  Says their website “BFF was created to show young Black LGBTQ youth the levels of happiness, potential, and positivity their lives will reach — if they can just get Love, Acceptance and Support as they go through life. We want to remind Black youth in the LGBTQ community that they are not alone — and that they are well supported.”

The website goes on “Many young people face daily challenges, leading them to feel like they have nowhere to turn. This is especially true for Black LGBTQ youth, who often hide their sexuality for fear of rejection and violence. Without other openly LGBTQ adults and mentors in their lives, they can’t imagine what their future may hold. In many instances, LGBTQ adolescents are taunted — even tortured — simply for being themselves. In worst cases this has led to suicide or homicide.”

It adds “We have been losing high numbers of Black LGBTQ youth to suicide and homicides for decades. In recent years, we’ve labelled the cause as bullying. But the root cause goes deeper, to the very core of our society that discriminates against the Black LGBTQ community on all levels, including the denial of basic human rights that are supposed to belong to every person”

And here’s the thing. If you are a member of the black LGBTQ community BFF is looking for your story Here’s what their website says about that.

“We want to hear your story. Every day, thousands of people visit the support section of websites looking for answers and we know that you too can share in that support. The message of your stories can be the most powerful tools in helping parents, families and friends as well as members of the Black LGBTQ community as they work through the coming out process. We need your help in creating a story center in the support section of the website!”

The Story Centre asks people to respond to three questions. We asked Garfield Durrant, Men who have sex with men (MSM) Prevention and Youth Outreach Coordinator, Black CAP (Black Coailtion for AIDS Prevention) how he would respond to the questions the website poses about  love, acceptance and support. Here is what he told us.

Bob Leahy:  Tell us about the person who provided you with the love that helps you to be the person you are today.

Garfield Durrant: My grandmother has provided me with the essential nutrients as part of my growth today, due to her outspoken and unbiased demeanour.

Bob:  How did she help you come to terms with who you are?

Garfield: Growing up as a child my Grandma would say to me that I should be happy whenever someone can recognize my difference as this shows how unique and valuable I am as a person. She'd always say this whenever someone chastised and/or belittled me, after recognizing this trait of “being different”. I isolated myself from these people.  I expected that there would be some negative reactions and I just didn’t want to deal with them.  I didn’t want to argue about moral judgements and biblical perspectives about my being.

Bob: Tell us about ways you were able to maintain and achieve the support in order to gain acceptance

Garfield: Over the years growing up I have reflected on those experiences and used my grandmother’s words of wisdom as my guide which has helped me throughout life. It’s a decision that has different shades of meaning for everyone.  Making the decision to be open about myself is a personal decision and no one can tell me the “right” way to do it.   Due to prejudices in the community, it means that you could lose the most important things in life.  The price of being honest could be your home, your friends, your family or your job.  It can feel like a steep price to pay and it's steeper for some than it is for others.  Personally, in the long run, I found the rewards to be worth the losses. Being truthful about who I was fit in with my overall approach to life.  I needed to be my own person. My story is just one example of many, many others that highlight the persons in our Black communities, both here in Toronto and across the globe, who stand out, and are committed to their youth through an attitude of Love, Acceptance and Support.

Bob: How is BFF responding to this?

Garfield: BFF continues to reach out to members of the Black African-Caribbean community asking for stories and testimonials. We take this work very seriously. From the media, to the pulpit, to discussions in barbershops and hair salons, there has been an image pushed, accurate or not, about Black communities, and the lack of acceptance for LGBT persons. It’s widely recognized that the impact of sexual intolerance can and has had real implications for our youth. Despite this, however, there are a number of individuals both gay and straight, families and organizations that break the mold of intolerance and are in their own ways making space for Love, Acceptance and Support. Our youth need to know that they we Love, Accept and Support them.

*************************

The Black Family and Friends spokesperson is Canadian actor, writer and producer, Trey Anthony -  famous for Da Kink in My Hair. Here is Trey talking about the campaign. . .

 

PositiveLite.com is always looking for new writers of all stripes – people who like to write, know or are learning how to express themselves and have interesting things to say.  We can help you hone your writing skills if necessary – in fact that’s what I’m here for. 

Here’s the thing.  I’d argue blogging is good for you. It’s good for each of us to grow by saying what’s on our mind in the best way we know how.  Writing, and regular blogging in particular, can be very therapeutic – or most of us wouldn’t be doing it. I know in my case I’ve been blogging regularly since 2003.  Two thousand entries later, it’s changed my life.

The poz experience is of course very diverse and we love to reflect it in all its infinite variety. We take diversity seriously here.  Right now, we are mostly men who write here, and gay men at that. While that reflects the (past) face of the epidemic in our country  we are really conscious that we need to reflect the times and feature more women in particular, as well as a wider range of ethnicities.

We are a Canadian site whose reach extends way beyond our nation’s borders. We feature writers from around the world, but we still like to give particular voice to the Canadian experience of living with HIV, Sometimes that is the same as the global voice, and sometimes it isn’t, and we want to make sure those exceptions are heard. 

So have you thought about writing? The catch is – if it’s a catch at all, because the discipline involved can be a good thing – we need people who have no trouble writing regularly. Blogs are less effective if they are updated infrequently – they make our site look less lively, too.  So we ask for a new post at least every two weeks. (Although there are opportunities for people dying to get their work published on a one-off basis; we have a revolving door/guest column just for that.)

PositiveLite.Com has its own take on life and it’s important that prospective writers are aware of that. As our vision statement says  “The goal  of PositiveLite.com is for readers to see themselves as whole and complete people whose lives are much more than a positive HIV diagnosis, all in plain language, featuring grass-roots personal perspectives from and for people that may not have a voice in traditional organizations.  PositiveLite.com also serves as a point-of-entry for people living with HIV who are not connected, either by location or sense of comfort. We foster and nurture participation and build capacity for people living with HIV within a  modern social media context.”

Get it?  Want to apply? It helps if you are Canadian and a women, but you don’t have to be either, each case is judged on its own merits.  So consider the benefits of being a featured writer here on Canada’s HIV Online Magazine.  The pay isn’t so hot – in fact it's non-existent – but who said we are perfect?

Email me at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. for further information, would you?

It’s become pretty apparent that while many people living with HIV are blessed with an undetectable viral load, how we process that information strays all over the map.  It’s a classic case of 'your experience may vary'.  For some, it’s clearly business as usual,  with nothing really changing, while others are in awe of what’s happened to them.

I like that we don’t all think alike on this one.  I like that we all process things at different speeds.  I like that our community includes idealists and pragmatists.  I like our diversity of opinion. I like that out three articles this week will likely reflect that diversity – and then some.

As the first of the three writers giving their take on this topic this week, let me set the scene. Undetectable viral load has been all over the news this month, even in our national press, which rarely covers HIV issues at all, let alone this rather technical, highly nuanced one. The reason, of course, has been the story unfolding in our nation’s highest court, as our side’s  top legal experts, backed by a who’s who of ASOs and NGOs, argue that undetectable load equates to no/minor/virtually insignificant risk of transmission. Take your pick. So by that measure, undetectable potentially changes everything – the legal need for disclosure of one’s HIV status, being viewed as criminals, being scapegoats of the popular press.  It’s one step closer to acceptance if we win, one brick loosened in the wall of stigma. Score one for undetectable.

Confusingly, it’s also being argued away from the courtroom, often by the same organizations, that nothing has changed – that we are still as infectious as ever, that nothing needs to change to our approach to HIV prevention, that risk guidelines remain the same and, from a service delivery perspective, that the same infrastructures that served the dying in the 80s are appropriate today.

The apparent discrepancy in prevention messaging has left some high-profile HIV+ people in our movement, like Sean Strub for instance,  suggesting  that the prevention community isn’t coming clean with us.  Those HIVers are saying that the state of being undetectable is, in effect,  safer than condoms.  Respected scientist Dr Julio Montaner in a phone interview with me last month, said much the same thing. 

My take though?  We can highlight the legal angle, we can highlight the HIV prevention  angle. The BIG story is in fact neither.  It’s the impact of undetectable on our health and on our psyche.  Or not.  That latter impact is clearly not universal, and I must admit I find that  fact a bit strange – more on that later.  I argue that the feeling of being someone who is highly infectious, who could die soon, is much different from someone whose immune system and blood functions much as anyone else’s, who would be hard pressed to infect anyone, and whose potential life span now rivals the next person's.  Not to acknowledge that fact, but to pretend instead that it’s business as usual, seems kind of weird.  It seems bordering on the perverse, in fact, to acknowledge the importance of undetectable only in the legal sense – only in the Supreme Court of Canada – and not in our daily lives, where it has the potential to change everything. If we want it to.

I’ve said before we should be celebrating undetectable, not arguing about it in the courts.

I think often about those who went before us, including my friends, who never made it to undetectable, and who didn’t have the incredible luck I’ve had to live to see this sea-change in the epidemic happen. Coming back from the abyss as I have has been difficult to process at times, but ultimately an exhilarating ride in the front seat of one of THE stories of the twenty-first century.

So yes, I do think undetectable is a big deal, not just a legal thing, or a condom thing, as seems regrettably to be the focus in 2012 - but a “state of mind” thing.  This is my litmus test: blood spilled from my finger in public in pre-undetectable times used to be positively traumatic.  Blood spilled in public now seems not a big deal at all, because in my mind,  it’s “safe”  blood, not a killing agent.

I wrote in a March 29, 2011 article about Post-AIDS titled “Are We Over It? “ that “It's true that we're likely better off health-wise than we have been in a long time.  We don’t always acknowledge that, for reasons that are quite complex.”  I said too in that article – and I’m sure I made no friends with it - that “reluctance to admit the crisis is less devastating than in the old days stems from the fact there is SO MUCH invested - in jobs, dollars, lives - in pretending that nothing has changed.”  I think that remains the case.

In any event, let's see what the others have to say on what undetectable viral load really means to those of us who live with it.  If we all agree, I’ll be mighty surprised.

I thought people might get a chuckle out of the video below.

I actually met my partner in a bar.  It was in San Juan, Puerto Rico of all places, thirty one years ago.  It was a dark and seedy place, with a go-go dancer on a raised stage with red velvet curtains, and a dark backroom off in one corner. I felt totally at home there.

Which is probably why I was quite comfortable when my future partner left the friends he was with to chat up little ole me, standing by myself, probably doing a lot of the things shown in this  video.

By the way, we show a lot of stuff here that’s gay, reflecting that at least in our local market, most people living with HIV are  - well, you know.  But we are not a gay site.  PositiveLite.Com welcomes writers of all persuasions.  If you feel you are under-represented here and would like to change that, drop me a line at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .

They say that travel broadens the mind.  It certainly fattens other parts of the  body, at least on the basis of  our ten day trip to South Carolina, just completed.  We had decided to drive down – so with two days there and two days back, that’s a lot of sitting – and broadening.

Once there, it was nice - very nice, in  fact – and I’ll talk about that in a minute. But writing about vacations, and vacations for people living with HIV in particular, almost feels awkward.  It shouldn’t do, but it does. I guess it’s because so many people in the poz community don’t take them – it’s a luxury that a meagre government disability doesn’t even come close to covering – so we don’t hear much vacation talk. (How’s lack of vacation for one’s health, by the way?) And to be frank, when we do hear some lucky soul has managed to get away somewhere, it tends to grate. People living with HIV are not supposed to have a little luxury, here and there, right?

But here's the thing. There is a myth  - or at least a mis-statement - that HIV attacks the disadvantaged in our society.  How many times have you heard that, as if the privileged are immune?  In truth, HIV disproportionally affects the disadvantaged. I sometimes think that the focus on vulnerable populations – a key pillar of HIV prevention which largely reflects economics/economies of scale - leaves many people out in the cold.  The results are everywhere.  The roster of poz PositiveLite.com writers, for instance, includes two lawyers, a banker, a public servant.  So many of the people I know who have sero-converted are not, in fact, in “vulnerable populations” at all.

So we acknowledge our privilege and move on.

Back to our journey through middle-America to the south, an area of this continent which aside from Florida – and I never think of Florida as the south – I wasn’t all that familiar with.  We think of the south as antebellum mansions, Spanish moss, quaint manners, a broadly endearing accent  - and mint juleps.  I experienced all but the latter.  Which is a shame, because I don’t even know what a mint julep is, but I wanted one.  Passed on the grits too (do people really eat that stuff?)  and  I should have passed on the chicken and biscuits, a gloppy concoction foreign to our northern palates, and deservedly so.  The hush puppies were OK though.  More than OK too were the regional specialties of the Lowcountry of South Carolina, in particular the Gullah food we became addicted to, a remnant of the black slave culture of the south.

Loved Charleston by the way. If there is a prettier, more civilized-looking  city in North America, I have yet to find it. I could live there. Savannah, which I had high hopes for, even reading up (again) on The Garden Of Good and Evil so that I could really get in to the groove of the city, was a bit of a disappointment.

But perhaps one of the highlights was in fact seeing middle-America and just how interesting that can be.  True, the landscape can look much like our Southern Ontario one - believe it or not, Canada is not all lakes and mountains – but there is an unmistakable foreignness to the United States. It’s hard not to be conscious of the right-wing element, and of the high visibility of religion.  Mostly that’s not a problem when one is travelling through – in fact it’s easy to ignore it.  Only once did it become obtrusive.

On the journey north, we had stopped at a place off the highway somewhere in North Carolina.  It was called Stormin’ Norman’s Barbecue.  Partner Meirion alerted me to the sign outside. ”Do you want to go in or not?’ he said.  “Christian Owned and Operated. May God Bless You as You Travel” he read.  I have no problems with being blessed. So we went in.

We were greeted by a cavernous space, somewhere between a school gymnasium and a real restaurant, with a slightly unpleasant smell and zero charm.  It was packed. The service was cafeteria style.  There was a long list of options available hand-written over the counter, all variations on Sunday-dinner-style food.  The line was moving real fast, so we each grabbed a tray and went for it.

Everything looked like your mother would make  - on a bad day.  Wanting to play safe and because I’d had some excellent southern fried chicken on our trip already, I ordered that, with a side of baked beans and green beans.  The portions were enormous, however, unappetizing looking. I turned down dessert, some gloppy looking stuff scooped out of a large tray.  Trifle perhaps? In any event, the whole ball of wax didn’t cost much. And I had in front of me a piece of chicken breast bigger than the average whole turkey. This can’t be bad, I thought.

We sat down with our trays at one of the booths that lined one wall and looked around at our fellow patrons.  They were all wearing suits, the men that is.  The women, many of a certain age, had on those overly prissy outfits not usually seen outside reruns of The Mary Tyler Moore Show.  I should have mentioned this was about noontime on a Sunday; all these folks had clearly just emerged from church and Stormin Norman’s was where they went next. And did I mention that the busboy had a cross emblazoned on the front of his white t-shirt?

We felt conspicuous.  Nobody seemed to be actually looking at us, but as two oddly dressed strangers in town we would have expected to be looked at.  Nope – they were doing their darndest NOT to look at us, I could tell that. It felt awkward. Plus the food wasn’t tasting all that good – probably the worst, chewiest, least flavourful fried chicken I’ve ever had, in fact.  Colonels Sanders had nothing to worry about here at Stormin' Norman's.

The upshot was we left our food all but untouched, and left pretty quickly.  It just didn’t feel comfortable being in that space, quite aside from the rotten food.  But it left me thinking what a hostile environment places like this would be for same sex couples living in that area, yet alone people living with HIV brave enough to want to disclose, and how political and religious climate does shape our existence, even if we aren’t of the faith.

Let’s be clear, not all the places we visited were anything like this.  We loved West Virginia for instance – what a beautiful state that is – and felt instantly comfortable there.

In any event, the south is nice overall. Today’s  post is illustrated with iPhone photos from the road, a quirky place at times, plus below, one other I liked from my little Lumix which gives  a flavour, perhaps, of the considerable quiet beauty of the south that endears whatever its politics.

Last night the significant other and I went to the opera, which is not quite as la-de-da as it sounds. The opera crowd is far more diverse than it used to be. True, there are plenty of middle-aged frumps, and older, but there are also gays aplenty and yes - last night at least, tons of twenty-somethings in tight jeans and black everything. People don’t dress up for it anymore, or a lot don’t, and that’s good, I think. 

Could be the crowd make-up was a reflection of the fact that the big attraction was Tosca.  It’s one of the most approachable operas you’ll find.  Some will say shows like Carmen or La Boheme or Madame Butterfly are the ones to get your opera feet wet. I say nah -  all three border on the tedious. Tosca, on the other hand, has it all.

Want love, lust, jealousy, attempted rape? How about political intrigue, desperate rebels, evil villains, heroic patriots?  Or murder, executions, suicide? In Tosca, they are all here.  And the soprano dies at the end.  So does the hero, and, earlier,  the villain, bloodily too. And because it’s Puccini, all this is conducted against incredibly lush melodies, lovely set pieces for the soprano (before she jumps to her death) and a powerful orchestral score that might just have you humming on the way out.

It’s all hugely melodramatic, of course, which is an operatic convention of sorts that one has to swallow, along with, in this case, a stylized, traditional acting style that may grate.  But Tosca is nevertheless exciting theatre. Act Two in particular will have you on the edge of your seat – a classic battle of good and evil that is written as taut as a drum and sung to the hilt.  That’s in part why I recommend Tosca as a starting point for those new to opera.  Simply put, you won’t be bored. Everything is larger than life, but rooted in human emotions stretched to the breaking point.

I wish I could recommend this particular production more.  The Canadian Opera Company is a reliable source of good opera, often adventurously staged, and this show, at the Four Seasons Centre for the Preforming Arts until February 25, isn’t the latter. It’s very traditionally staged, in fact.  If you’ve ever seen Tosca before, there are no new touches here. That’s not to say it isn’t gorgeous to look at, beautifully sounding  - both vocally and orchestrally - and that the drama quotient is in any way impacted by the lack of directorial risk-taking.  It’s just not one of those departures from standard staging that some love and infuriate others.

Those non-standard interpretations, by the way, are often popular with younger audiences.  I like them too. They can be quite bizarre.  Instead of legions of spear carriers, for instance, you could see these transformed in the director’s vision to packs of Nazi storm-troopers. Sopranos might be sloshing around in knee deep water rather than singing away on the battlements with a horned helmet on their head.  Or  - and we've seen this in Toronto -  swimming in pools of blood.

Back to Tosca. Despite my disappointment that this production does nothing new, it does what it does well.  You’ll likely love the music, be awed by the big scene at the end of Act One which features a cast of thousands and spectacle for days. You’ll be biting your nails wondering whether Tosca will survive the menacing advances of the uber-villain Scarpia   And  - because Puccini’s material is so strong, and it’s difficult to produce a bad production of Tosca, and this one certainly isn’t – you’ll have a good time.

Going to the opera house is a nice experience too.  It’s circa 2006, with a striking minimalist but grand lobby, all blonde woods, glass staircases and big vistas. The hall itself has a classic horseshoe layout that delivers excellent sightlines and great sound.

One thing I didn’t mention that while opera tickets can be pricy, there are incredible deals for those 30 and under. The opera company wants you.  Give them a try.

I’ve written this report for opera newbies. But will more experienced opera-goers like this show? Probably. The production has garnered generally good reviews, though, sometimes with the same kind of reservations I’ve voiced here too.

Tosca runs until February 25 at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, Toronto. Buy tickets here.