On the video wall, there was a little five minute remake of Death in Venice, but turned into “The ADS Epidemic”, not the AIDS epidemic. So, acquired dread of sex was the new epidemic, and it was of course talking about that culture of fear and hatred that early AIDS discourses in the mainstream media and state policies have produced, demonizing queers, creating a general sense of sex panic, and trying to combat that through humour and music.

– John Greyson (AAHP interview transcript, p. 1)

As someone who dabbles in stand up comedy, I’ve been thinking about the work of making comedy and the work of making change.

Continue reading “Making comedy, making change” →

So, we did a die-in that actually said, “Dying of denial of drugs” or whatever, right. And I think it was for that conference that we produced this flyer that was headlined, “There can be no consensus without the involvement of people living with AIDS and HIV.” And we leafleted everyone.
– Gary Kinsman (AAHP interview transcript, p. 14)

Like Gary Kinsman quoted above, AIDS activists across Canada have reflected on putting their bodies on the line to extend the lives of people living with HIV/AIDS. In his AAHP interview, Kinsman describes engaging in direct action that was “technically against the rules” but that would “have a media impact” (AAHP interview transcript, p. 12). The die-in is a fitting example.

Continue reading “Dying for a cure!” →

From 1990 to 1993, Toronto-based activists/academics conducted research on the behind-the-scenes work of “hooking up.” They weren’t investigating romantic encounters—nor were they trying to catch people with their pants down. Instead, they were researching the work that people living with HIV and AIDS do to “hook up” with health and social services. Researchers George W. Smith, Eric Mykhalovskiy and Douglas Weatherbee (who was involved in the early stages of the project) applied for, and secured, funding from Canada’s National Welfare Grants in 1990.

Continue reading “Hooking up to social services!” →

Originally posted by Halifax Media Co-op
by Robert Devet

An AIDS vigil at the Citadel in Halifax. A new website shows how people living with HIV/AIDS in Nova Scotia engaged in a long and vigorous battle against prejudice. Photo Anita Martinez KJIPUKTUK (Halifax) – Less than thirty years ago people living with HIV/AIDS in Canada agitated against widespread prejudice, ignorance and stigmatization in society and government. This was while treatment was in its infancy and people with AIDS were dying at horrific rates.

In Nova Scotia Eric Smith, a South Shore schoolteacher living with HIV, was banned from the classroom after parents threatened to keep their children at home.

Also in Nova Scotia, Simon Thwaites was discharged from the Navy for being HIV-positive. He successfully fought the discharge in a precedent-setting case arguing that discrimination based on disability is a human rights’ violation.

Continue reading “Fighting bigotry in Nova Scotia: AIDS activism in the eighties and nineties” →

Originally posted to NB Media Co-op

Less than thirty years ago, ordinary people living with HIV/AIDS, alongside allies, took action to resist stigma, change harmful government policies, and save one another’s lives. These people’s stories deserve to be remembered and learned from. We have posted complete transcripts along with short video clips of the first interviews conducted as part of the AIDS Activist History Project. We have also collected and made available extensive archival material, including photos, meeting minutes, and news articles from this time. It is all available through our website.This is only a beginning of recovering the stories of direct action oriented AIDS activism from 1985 to 1996 across ‘Canada’ that will include more interviews in these centres as well as the narratives of activists in Montreal and Ottawa. During these years AIDS activists changed the world. These interviews capture a sense of the power of this organizing and the energy and imagination of these activists. Along with these stories of resistance are stories of loss and pain as people died during these years because of state and professional neglect.
 Continue reading “AIDS Activist History Project posts interviews with Vancouver, Toronto & Nova Scotia activists” →

Originally Posted by Daily Xtra
By Pat Johnson

Thirty years ago, a dramatic movement erupted on the Canadian scene as people with AIDS demanded treatment, an end to stigma and a host of revolutionary innovations, many of which we take for granted today.

That period of AIDS activism is now the subject of a major historical investigation that is plumbing the memories of those who were involved at the time. The AIDS Activist History Project, headed by Carleton University sociologist Alexis Shotwell, has begun interviewing AIDS activists across Canada and collecting documentary materials. Her research partner is Gary Kinsman, retired Laurentian University sociologist and one of Canada’s leading scholars on LGBT history.

Continue reading “A Canadian History of AIDS Activism: AIDS activist history project documents grief, urgency, anger, and courage” →

Originally posted on aidsorganizing.ca

Gary Kinsman is a long-time queer liberation, AIDS, anti-poverty and anti-capitalist activist. He has been involved in the AIDS Committee Of Toronto, AIDS ACTION NOW!, the Newfoundland AIDS Association the Valley AIDS Concern Group and is currently involved in the AIDS Activist History Project. He is the author of The Regulation of Desire, co-author (with Patrizia Gentile) of The Canadian War on Queer, and editor of Whose National Security?, and Sociology for Changing the World.  He is also the author of “Managing AIDS Organizing” and “‘Responsibility’ as a strategy of governance: Regulating people with AIDS and Lesbians and Gay Men in Ontario.” He has a website called Radical Noise. He recently retired from teaching sociology at Laurentian University on the territories of the Atikameksheng Anishnawbek nation.

Continue reading “Gary Kinsman: Resisting State & Professional Management of AIDS Organizations, Memories of AIDS Organizing in ‘Canada’ 1983-1990” →

Originally posted on aidsorganizing.ca

Continue reading “Anne Marie DiCenso: Linking Community Organizing, People Living with HIV & the Prison Industrial Complex” →

Originally posted on aidsorganizing.ca

On October 17th 2014, a one-day dialogue Where Do We Go From Here? AIDS Organizing, Services, Bureaucracy & the State was convened in Toronto by Alex McClelland and Nicole Greenspan in the hopes to begin a dialogue about the questions we had about the current organization of the response to HIV, and concerns about what the consequences of new surveillance technologies, financial austerity, as well as upcoming funding and policy changes – such as integration – might mean to the future of the response to HIV.

Continue reading “Prisoners’ Rights and Grassroots Mobilization: Lessons in AIDS Organizing from Anne Marie DiCenso & Gary Kinsman” →

Conversations will focus on:

•The history of AIDS organizing & the development of AIDS Service Organizations
•Funding, service integration & financial austerity
•Increasing Public Health surveillance, monitoring & evaluation
•Impacts on people who use services & the consequences of ‘client-ization’

Keynote speakers:

Gary Kinsman, Co-research on the AIDS Activist History Project

Anne Marie DiCenso, Executive Director of PASAN

Continue reading “Gary Kinsman will be keynote speaker at a one-day dialogue addressing the political context within which our collective community-based work on HIV & Hep C takes place.” →