As we march to the front lines in our fight for equality under the law, a question I have found that many of us don't realize to ask of ourselves before it's almost too late has been, "Am I ready to sacrifice large chunks of my private life and turn them over to the public domain?" Because in today's 24-hour news cycle, we are the story.
Five years ago I created a blog that wound up chronicling my life experience as a young HIV-positive man living in urban San Francisco. I had no grandiose aspirations to reach a large audience, it began innocently enough more as a daily writing exercise and as an avenue for me to process the dating scene, health concerns, and medical advances that went along with being a responsible poz guy.
The letters began to arrive almost immediately, I'd say. My blog went viral among San Francisco's nonprofit agencies, club kids, and young politicos. Soon I was getting media requests for quotes on everything from then-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed cuts to the AIDS Drug Assistance Program to being asked my opinion of the media campaigns various groups were using to target LGBT youth. By the time I had a chance to catch my breath, the proverbial ship had sailed, as they say.
It has been a few years since I shut down my now-defunct blog, but I now find myself in the extraordinary position of being a national spokesperson for the Greater Than AIDS campaign. My image has been used on billboards, on bus shelters, in print media, and now there's even a commercial on television that begins with me saying, "Hi, I'm Jason ..." and where I go on to describe what it was like being diagnosed with full blown AIDS at the age of 25.
Having a memorable turn on The Oprah Winfrey Show two years ago probably didn't help me in maintaining anything close to a low profile, because after that I learned what it was like to experience people stopping me in the grocery store to comment on everything from friends they'd lost to the disease to their own fears over seroconverting to asking my advice on medical procedures that I was in no way qualified to offer commentary on. It was at once emotionally overwhelming, stress inducing, and at times caused me a certain amount of anxiety over the fear of not saying the right thing.
In this day and age of Google, once you go public there is no going back. Just last week I walked into a job interview and the man who would have been my direct supervisor said to me, "So it is you! You have HIV. Are you okay? Can you work?" Apparently he had Googled my name and read all about me in profiles on various news outlets, watched several of my speeches on YouTube, and seen god knows what else a laptop, a cup of coffee, and a bit of patience will allow.
Let's forget for a moment that he broke every Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act privacy law known to man in asking me about my medical condition in a workplace setting. Instead let's focus on the reality I share with many emerging activists in our community, and this works across the board no matter what your cause is, be it the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the struggle for marriage equality, or to the young teens battling high school administrations across our great country to take their same-sex date to prom: we are now the story.
The level of exposure that has come with fighting a public battle for HIV/AIDS education has been at times unsettling, but I wouldn't take it back for the world. In the last five years I have grown into my role as a public advocate and I've found now after speaking to thousands of people in small groups, at press conferences, or one on one across the desk from a major policy maker, I enjoy having a voice.
This life certainly is not for everyone, but after reviewing a quick Google search of myself in preparation for this written piece, you know, there's nothing out there that I'm ashamed of or regret having said out loud �" I only wish that I insisted on a few better pictures. Don't forget, once it's out there you can rarely go back and hit the delete button, so mean what you say, say what you mean, and always speak from the heart. You'll do great, I'm sure.
Jason Villalobos lives in San Francisco.