Two years ago today, I was diagnosed with HIV. Having managed to remain negative throughout the first 28 years of the epidemic, here was I, in my sixties, suddenly finding myself HIV-positive. The diagnosis itself was not unexpected - I had made some decisions to have unprotected sex - but the shame of having to admit that I had seroconverted was difficult for me to reconcile with the self image I had of myself. And with the image others had of me. After all, here I was - an educated, aware gay guy who’d lived through the early years of AIDS, a social worker who’d worked within the gay community for over thirty years - now having to deal with the shame that I’d allowed myself to become poz.
But I was well-connected in the community and had the support of a wonderful life partner and some great friends. They, along with the excellent care I was receiving from my GP, who is also an HIV primary care physician, enabled me to handle my emotional turmoil. And because I have a natural curiosity, and because I wanted to learn as much as possible about HIV and what it meant to live with it, I began to read voraciously about every aspect of it. I found a great deal of help and useful information at a number of websites, particularly Canada’s CATIE, Vancouver’s Health Initiative for Men and the UK’s aidsmap.com.
Then I found PositiveLite.com. This website was a revelation - a Canadian online HIV magazine by and for people who are either HIV-positive or who are our friends and supporters. Here were women and men, both from Canada and elsewhere, who were writing openly about their lives as poz people. And they were writing not just about living with HIV but about all aspects of their lives, which were as rich and as varied as those who were not living with this chronic illness.
But there was more. They were also writing, from their own lived experience as HIVers, about issues of importance to us all - the best approach to take in the 21st century in preventing the spread of HIV, developments in treatment, about stigma and discrimination, about how to manage disclosure and deal with the increasing criminalization of non-disclosure, about aging with HIV and about how, paradoxically, HIV had changed their lives for the better.
I was so impressed with what I read on PositiveLite.com that last summer I wrote to publisher Brian Finch to tell him so. He was very gracious in his response and asked if I would be interested in providing more specific feedback about the website, which was about to undergo a major redesign. I said I would. Before I knew it, I had an email from PositiveLite.com editor Bob Leahy inviting me to write for the magazine the story of my seroconversion. I agreed to do so, anonymously. I was not quite ready, at that stage, to have my name, face and the intimate details of my life plastered all over the internet for all to see.
I guess Brian and Bob must have liked what I wrote, because they arranged for my story to be picked up by aidsmap.com. So it was not long before Bob started using his considerable charm in encouraging me to become a regular contributor and to write more about what I was learning. I took some time to say yes, because I’d just retired from my long-time job and was looking for volunteer opportunities that would provide me with the chance to to work with people face-to-face and to make new friends - writing, after all, is a somewhat solitary pursuit. But, in the face of Bob’s persistence, I overcame my hesitance.
So before I knew it, I was actually starting to enjoy sharing my experiences as an HIVer and my increasing knowledge of HIV with PositiveLite.com’s community of readers. Through doing so, I quickly decided that I no longer wanted to remain anonymous. I was ready to stand tall and proud as an openly HIV-positive gay man. For this I have to thank Brian and Bob and the opportunities they provided me to share my thoughts and experiences with others. After all, coming out as a gay guy when I was in my early twenties had been a liberating experience and I reckoned that coming out as poz should be equally as liberating. And so it has proven to be. I now feel a great sense of freedom and liberation living as an openly poz guy.
It was not long before I began to attend HIV community events and do interviews for PositiveLite.com with other people who who had interesting things to say. Then, at the beginning of this year, Bob offered me the position of assistant editor. And now, just three months later, I find myself as publisher. Never in my wildest dreams did I think, on March 15, 2010, the day I received my HIV diagnosis, how having HIV would change my life in a such a positive (pun intended!) way within two short years.
As he wrote here yesterday, Brian has come to the decision that it’s time for him to pursue some new opportunities and that he’d fulfilled his job of creating PositiveLite.com. Last week, he asked me if I’d consider taking over the position of publisher. How could I say no? I’m in awe of Brian and what he’s created here. He’s a guy who’s lived proudly and openly with HIV for over half his life. He’s a true survivor with a passion for enabling HIVers who may not otherwise feel they have a voice to have the opportunity to be involved in a discussion about what it really means to be HIV-positive today - the rationale behind PositiveLite.com.
I’m both honoured and humbled that Brian has entrusted his creation to me. His are enormous footsteps to tread in, yet I fully intend to ensure that his trust in me is justified. I can do that only because Brian will be remaining an integral part of PositiveLite.com as our founder and I will continue to benefit from his wisdom and wise counsel. I’m also supported by our knowledgeable and indefatigable editor, Bob Leahy, and by an amazing community of writers and contributors, who are at the heart of PositiveLite.com. Without them, the magazine would not exist.
I have a strong sense that this three-year-old, PositiveLite.com, is poised to continue its progress beyond its early years as it becomes an increasingly important and respected part of Canada’s HIV community. And while we are indeed Canadian, and will continue to reflect the Canadian experience, we remain open to the world - indeed half our readers and many of our writers now come from outside our nation’s borders. We welcome that diversity of experience. Yet we are equally committed to reflect the increasingly diverse face of HIV, both in Canada and elsewhere.
At present, most - but by no means all - of our writers are gay men who write about HIV and their lives from that perspective. This reflects the historical nature of HIV in countries like ours. Gay men still account for the majority of HIVers in Canada, and their experience of HIV will continue to be portrayed in our pages. But the face of HIV is changing, a reality that all of us here at PositiveLite.com are committed to reflecting. Thus, we’re actively engaged in increasing our coverage of HIV as it affects women, First Nations, transpeople, those from countries where HIV is endemic, injection drug users and others. By the same token, by the middle years of this decade it’s estimated that 50% of all HIVers in North America will be aged 50 or older. This reflects the reality that, thanks to anti-viral medications, HIVers are living longer than anyone ever expected only 15 years ago. There are also an increasing number of people who, like me, are seroconverting in later life. These realities will continue to be reflected in our pages even as we continue to tell the stories of younger people infected with and affected by HIV.
We will always remain faithful to our mandate, to be a place for HIVers and our allies to talk about the reality of our lives. Sometimes we will be funny, sometimes angry, sometimes controversial, but always honest.
As I said earlier, you, our readers and writers, are at the heart of what we are all about here at PositiveLite.com. I hope you continue to enjoy, be inspired by and encouraged by what you read here. And if you think you have something to say yourself, then why not consider writing about it here on PositiveLite.com. It may be that you just want to comment on something you’ve read here, in which case I invite you to share it in the comments section at the end of each article (currently an underutilized resource). Or it may be that you want to contribute your own thoughts through submitting a post of your own. In that case, I invite you to contact us through our facebook page, via email to our editor Bob Leahy at
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or by sending me a tweet @John_McCullagh.
Thank you all for your support. And Happy Reading!
