When I walk out the front door, I'm scared as shit. Before I leave, I make sure I pray. I say my prayer, God bless me, to make it to the store and back home safely. I feel like people know that I'm HIV positive, even if they don't know. Some people just don't really agree with the whole homosexual thing.
They will say stuff like, you fag or you bitch or whatever else. And I just keep walking as if I don't hear them. I pay them no mind at all. I'm not in that comfort zone where I can just walk and dealing with these people dying that are gay.
I just think that it could be me. Like, that would be me. Hello everybody. How y'all doing?
Welcome, welcome to a support group. We're gonna start off by introducing ourselves. When you found out you was HIV positive.
I was diagnosed with HIV on Tuesday January 17, 2012. I've been positive for about two years. My name is Tommy and I live in Jackson, Mississippi. I've been positive for about, well since 2010. since 2012. I found out in 2010. I've known I was positive since 2008. However, I didn't get close to anyone until two years later. I'm Rovoski Mays, better known as Ro.
20 years old. I found out I was positive last year of October. When I found out I was scared, devastated, but I'm in a better place now.
Around March, April, I started knowing my hands hurting, my legs hurting, my breathing getting short. Then I kept having sores on my bottom. Had to have two surgeries. And in the process of those surgeries, I was asked for.
if I wanted to take a test, HIV test. And I said yes. So I got the results back from that, of course. It was positive. And from then, everything just went sort of downhill very quick.
My weight went off me very quickly. quickly. Couldn't work, wasn't in school, didn't have any money, so I couldn't pay the rent.
I was homeless. And of course, I was still in my addiction. I tried to OD off pills, smoked and drank to hide that pain. I learned about taking these pills in the hospital. I take Valtres, which is for herpes.
There's Gapopinin. I have Neuropia in my hands, in my feet, legs. This is Trimek, my actual HIV pill. And these are my Batrum.
And it's for my immune system to fight off bacteria. Sertraline, it's for depression. There's been times where I've just...
I know I have to take them, and I just haven't. I don't really think a lot of people know how hard it is to be gay, black, and HIV positive in Jackson. I mean, it's just crazy. Jackson, Mississippi as a state has a very high mortality rate for people who are HIV infected. So if you live in Mississippi, your chances of dying of HIV or AIDS are much more higher than if you live in any other state in the Union.
Open Arms is the only place of its kind in the whole state of Mississippi. Our mission is to be a medical home for LGBT people who live in the city of Jackson and surrounding areas. You know, the rooms are very small, as you can see. Who is getting?
HIV as a black man who is a student living in Jackson, Mississippi is one in two. Which means that unless you do something, the chances that you catch HIV are very, very high. The HIV epidemic in Jackson is critical.
It affects disproportionately some groups, especially African-American men, who has issues with men, especially young men. The combination of factors, poverty, education, the lack of health insurance, poor access to health services. That means when people get diagnosed, they get diagnosed so late that either within 12 months or a diagnosis, they already have developed AIDS. We are in a moment of great urgency in our state.
You know, part of the challenge, you know, just think about transportation in a city like Jackson, where the public transportation system is really bad. You know, that can be a challenge for people to, you know, go to a clinic. Even though Jackson is the capital of Mississippi, it's not like living in New York or L.A.
or even Atlanta. We didn't have the service that we have now for transportation. I think a lot of these people would miss their appointments because they wouldn't have ways to get there. And what I'm about to do now is go pick up one of our clients.
Who I'm picking up is Jamarius Butler. He has became one of my many kids. Hey, babe.
Hey, baby. How are you? I'm good.
Okay. Are you ready? So over the last year or so, we thought that we were going to lose Jamarius. How many times she was in and out of the hospital?
Over 10 times. I was just tired of fighting. At the time, I had no support system. Me and my family are not close. We wasn't close then, and we're really not close now.
So I feel like I was fighting a battle by myself. I've been there. In 2005, I was diagnosed with HIV.
I ignored it. I went a year without treatment. And this is a picture of what I looked like back in those days.
And I really think if it wasn't for the support of my family, my mother and my entire family, I don't think I would be here. So this support is very helpful for them. In the beginning, Grace House was simply the place that people came to die. You got any new clear numbers for me? Because I've got to turn in the report yesterday.
We became an organization that provides housing and supportive services for men, women, families, however those families define themselves, living with HIV. Do you want it? Yeah!
In Mississippi, families respond in very poor ways when they find out family members are HIV positive. Because they're uninformed, because they're fearful. They are fearful to hug or kiss on the cheek.
They make their loved one eat off of a special plate or a paper plate and with plastic utensils or utensils that only that person uses. Unfortunately, some of the homeless with HIV are homeless because their families, when they found out, kicked them out because they don't understand how hard it is to contract the disease. This fight, as with many others, is unique in the state of Mississippi because we're poor and we don't have enough resources so that the Health Department has to close clinics. The fact that we're in deep in the Bible Belt, we have to undo some faith beliefs that suggest that you're going to hell because you got this disease.
And unfortunately, there's no avoiding race in Mississippi, no matter what the subject matter is. But in terms of HIV, those in the African American community who are living with HIV, particularly those we serve at Grace House, who are homeless, impoverished have very traumatic histories. So it's an assault from all sides.
It's harder to be gay in Mississippi. There's no statewide protections for LGBTQ citizens that would protect them or give them legal recourse should someone... Deny them service or fire them because of who they are. Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant joined ranks with North Carolina on Tuesday when he signed into law a religious freedom bill that critics call the most sweeping anti-LGBT legislation in the United States.
Now the law applies to marriage licenses, jobs, housing, even an employer's dress code. I remember the reporters were asking me as I was walking down the hallway just after it was passed, surely they thought he's not going to sign that bill just as soon as it gets to my desk. Now I will tell you, and I probably shouldn't admit to this, but there is some joy in letting them know we are not afraid.
There's something about Mississippi that there's still this tendency to cover things up and not talk about things that are that are important and things that might be controversial and certainly the HIV epidemic is. The federal funding very often that we receive for prevention and for treatment can be directed towards abstinence-only education. Our sex ed education laws state that teachers, instructors should instruct that same-sex intercourse.
is prohibited by state law. Because of the stigma, because of the homophobia that exists, people are reluctant to talk about their sexual orientation with their medical provider. These kind of discriminatory laws increase the kind of self-hatred that exists among LGBTQ Mississippians.
People say to me very often, they say, well, it must be very hard for you to be a gay man in Mississippi. And, yeah, there are challenges for being a gay man, but I'm also a gay white man in Mississippi. Mississippi, and so there's some privilege that comes along that we have to acknowledge. I tell people, imagine when it's like for a gay person of color, it could be incredibly challenging.
I've always grown up in the church singing in choir. My mom was a Sunday school teacher, so she would always throw that out there. You know that's wrong.
You're going to hell and God forbid, and I'm just like you're making this harder for me. I tried to separate as long as I could. As far as me being gay and, you know, and then being a Christian or whatever, I would leave that at home, the gay at home, and just take the Christian with me to church. It was a struggle to force myself to like females because I know that that's the right thing to do. But this is who I am.
I can't change that. You know, I repent, I pray, I have one-on-one conversations with him. I feel like what he does is for a reason. That's Tronely on the download.
These men, many of whom are married for the definition, they represent the driving force behind the new cases of AIDS in HIV. It's not a homosexual in a corner somewhere. It is now your respectable married man who's on the down low. Statistically, you got a 50% chance of having AIDS or HIV in your lifetime! Sometimes HIV is the public indication.
of what I have been doing privately. Some of the other things that would fall into the umbrella of sexual immorality would be homosexuality, lesbianism, transgender. Any sexuality that is not consistent with the historical, biblical interpretation of Christianity. You see, sexual immorality doesn't always kill, but it can certainly wound. When you lay down, you was whole, but when you got up, you had something.
And just because you take a towel and wipe it off, that don't mean it's clean. Oh, I wish I had a witness up in here. My ex actually, nobody knew that he was gay. He'd pretend around his friends, around his mom, brothers and sisters, like he was straight.
Homosexuals catch hell. Mississippi. We cannot date guys openly in Mississippi. I've been caught in the act as a child. And I've got beating.
I'm talking about belts, switches. I don't want to, you know, put my life in jeopardy. You know, people know that I'm gay.
There are. More guys that are on the DL than we believe here in Mississippi. They're on these apps, these dating sites.
They go to these clubs. They will try to, you know, make a pass, you know, hint, hint, you know, I'm on the DL, you know, what you want to do? Like, you with it or, you know?
People don't take the whole HIV thing here seriously. They don't think it's going to happen to them. You know, they think they're safe. The people in my community, They really just expect me to grow up and be a man, get married, have kids.
And that's really all that I want to be. But, you know, being gay, it would be nice to, you know, be able to freely enjoy that with a guy. But because of the people around, it's a lot of pressure. I feel like every guy has some girl out there for him.
You know, it might take a while. To find this, you know, just keep on trying, because that's what I really want. I really want a happy family. I want a wife and kids. You know, so I have no problem with suppressing it, letting it go, or whatever I have to do.
Because like I said, I know what I want out of life. And that might be what I'm doing for the time being, but it's not my life. That's not what my life revolves around.
It's a blind dog. Sometimes she gets along better than me. I was diagnosed with HIV. I was living the life of God knows whatever. And I was at that point where, because of my situation, I have this virus.
I don't want to live. It wasn't just talked about killing myself. I actually tried to do it.
You know, I felt hopeless. And through prayer, I was led to this particular place right here, Grace House. It's made me a better person. Being around people and understanding their struggle. Is that you?
Yeah. Remember? Recovery is really doing good for you, baby. Wow, that's you for real? Yeah.
Now with the generation where it's at right now, we're just in a time period where it's not talked about anymore. So the level goes up, you know? And now people who are in a higher level who can do something about it, they don't care. Point blank. I can tell you from the experiences that many of my patients have told you, very often people go to a physician and with a lot of embarrassment, they are able to tell the doctor, you know, doctor have sex with men or I'm gay.
And very often that clinician either ignores that or is not very well informed about what to do next. We can estimate that probably half, if not a little bit higher, of the people that we know are HIV infected are not receiving care. When I first found out I was positive, I wanted to just tell my entire family.
But then I thought about it. I imagine how long it took me to tell them I was gay. And it's like a whole different level.
You got to be comfortable with yourself. Once you get active, you know, you're going to want to take care of yourself. You can't go out there and lie to people, try to tell people how to take care of themselves, when you're not taking care of yourself. It feels good when you tell somebody.
It's like you possibly have saved a life. I had four tests done. My test results came back positive. The initial reaction was, OK, who do I supposed to talk to about this? Because my dad really didn't approve of my lifestyle.
He really doesn't now. So I'm still battling with it as well. I didn't have a support system at first. It was hard.
It still is hard. I can honestly say last year was probably the worst year for me because I was in that hospital close to death. Like, the thing about HIV was after a while, a while I started to get like really really tired and like it got to the point where I didn't want to get out of the bed like I would go anywhere.
When I found out just like everybody else I was pretty in shock and devastated turned to a little Drinking. My name is LaVon Williams. I'm 19. I've been clean of everything throughout these months.
He's protecting himself to protect me. So what was it like for you when you guys first met and Darryl told you that he was HIV positive? When he told me, and he was like, well, I'm HIV positive, I said, OK, what else?
He's human. I'm human. Stop. I got you. I got you.
All right, boy. At first, I kind of didn't really deal with the diagnosis. Just pretended that everything was normal.
Until it just hit me one day and I had my breakdown. I literally sat in my car, cried. I'm starting to tear up now.
But make sure you take care of yourself. Make sure you have a support network and just carry on. Thank you all again.
Stand up real quick and close with a prayer. Father God, I just want to thank you for allowing us to see another year in time. I ask for us to continue to get these blessings.
Father God, I ask you for knowledge, wisdom, and understanding to get through the rest of our days of our lives. In your name, Jesus, I pray. Amen.
Okay, you're going to be the honorary prayer boy. After the people would die, right here at Grace House, they didn't have any family who cared, or didn't have any family with finances. They would take upon themselves and do them a memorial and place their ashes here.
This angel has been here for like two years, and nobody has decided to bring it out here. It symbolizes the memory of someone from here, right here in this spot. There is a guy who was cremated and buried here.
I thought that it would be nice to give him something, you know, like a present. I mean. I would want somebody to do it for me, so I thought to do that.
I feel more so now that I am ready to get my life started. Growing up, my stepfather used to tell me, you are not handsome, you will never be shit. He would install that in my head.
So as a grown up, I would always think that. Even when I look in the mirror, I would look at myself and say, you're not shit. You're never going to be shit.
Now when I look in the mirror, I say, you are the shit. So, yeah. Look at my pictures from me being sick and out on my meds to now.
I feel a lot more confident in myself. I feel like if I can overcome that, I can overcome anything. I let the virus control who I was. And once I came to the realization that I am the virus, the virus is not me, once I kept installing it in my head, once I saw other people who had this disease for 20, 30 years here and who looked damn good, it made me feel, OK, well, I can be 50 years old as well and still look healthy and do the things that they do.
Oh