You may have heard discussion recently about "the gay men's health movement" – and if you haven't, you will soon. In March, over 20 gay men, most of us from San Francisco, gathered in Guerneville to attend the nation's fourth Gay Men's Health Leadership Academy. Our goals were threefold: to educate ourselves about the theories and values behind effective gay men's health work, to join others in translating these ideas into practice, and to learn practical strategies for influencing local gay men's health efforts. This four-day retreat was so successful that a one-day version was offered in San Francisco in May, attended by a diverse group of over 50 Bay Area men.
These leadership retreats arose from the gay men's health summits that have been organized locally and nationally throughout the country in the past 10 years, part of a larger effort known as the gay men's health movement. While there is no singular, monolithic movement, there is a growing sense of collective desire and struggle to create change in relation to our health. Grassroots and loosely structured, this is a social movement whose time has not only come, but is long overdue.
The movement experienced a major setback in 2006, when, out of nowhere, came the unexpected death of Eric Rofes. Rofes, who co-founded the Gay Men's Health Leadership Academy, had been the driving force behind the movement for years. Heavy with a sense of extreme loss and suddenly without his guidance and veracity to propel us forward, many of us in the movement floundered. Two years ago this week I attended Rofes's memorial service in a packed gymnasium at the Eureka Valley Recreation Center. Many of us felt, in the words of community historian Gayle Rubin, "as if a mountain had suddenly vanished." So there we stood, in the valley created by Rofes's absence, wondering how to rebuild our mountain.
In the last two years, we haven't rebuilt a mountain, exactly. But the landscape of gay health and politics has shifted in dramatic and unexpected ways, and we find ourselves at a crossroads in moving forward. On the national level, leaders like Chris Bartlett and Tony Valenzuela have stepped up to carry on Rofes's work. In the past few months, the ranks of the gay men's health movement have grown by at least 60 in the Bay Area alone. Having met most of them, I am confident we already have the talent, skill, and passion necessary to make this movement flourish. Now we need momentum and mobilization to move forward.
This is why several organizations and community members are collaborating to produce "EdgeTalk: Queer Men's Wellness" – a series of monthly community forums on "edgy" topics related to the health of gay, bi, and trans men. I know what you're thinking: "Yawn – another workshop, another panel discussion – Zzzzzzz ..." But the EdgeTalk series, like our health movement, involves more than just a laundry list of current issues or one-shot events. These forums offer an opportunity to meet others who want to transform gay men's health by taking control of our own wellness, on our own terms.
It has become clear that a gay men's health movement can only emerge from the ground up. Government health agencies and community organizations can play a role as partners, but they cannot single-handedly accomplish what we need: a radical and sustainable shift in how we approach gay men's health. The gay men's health movement will not manifest without a visible and public expression of need from a critical mass of community members. One clear hurdle is to go beyond addressing gay men's health primarily through a lens of HIV prevention. This approach is inherently limited and problematic: it draws on a disease model driven by crisis and fear, and it foregrounds individual deficits by blaming and shaming rather than affirming collective assets such as our resilience and innovation. The prioritizing of HIV above all other health concerns for our entire community, often in contradiction to how we live and love, itself poses a unique threat to our health.
The EdgeTalk forums are an invitation to participate in the re-energized gay men's health movement. The first forum, "Bus Stops, Billboards & You: Campaigning for Queer Health," will focus on the controversial public health ad campaigns aimed at San Francisco gay men, and will take place Thursday, July 17, from 7 to 9 p.m. at the San Francisco LGBT Center, 1800 Market Street.
Michael Scarce is a local writer, technology consultant, and health activist. The opinions above represent only the viewpoint of the author, not necessarily those of the organizations sponsoring the EdgeTalk series.