On March 14, 1996, a bright sunny day, I stand in front of the
storefront home of Bay Area Young Positives, in San Francisco's
Lower Haight, looking in. Cheery gingham curtains cover the windows.
I push open the door, and take half a step onto the scuffed wooden
floor, arms hanging, uncertain. Ramone, behind a desk to the left,
is on the phone, tilted back in his chair. He looks up at me and
beams. I immediately feel more comfortable. The staff members
rush around, dressed hip and casual, not unlike the people at
the cafe next door. In fact, the office, with its bright posters,
homey curtains, and cozy furniture, is decorated in an aesthetic
not far removed from the Haight's neighborhood coffeehouses: places
for young people to sit or slouch or hang out comfortably; a certain
attention to detail but not too much; the thick, almost living-room
feeling in the air: this is a place where pretense is not necessary.
When Ramone flashes his gorgeous smile at me, I hesitate a second,
then grin back, feeling a bit guilty that his full energy, his
determined positive cheer, is going to me. Everyone here is assumed
HIV-positive until proven negative, and I have tested negative
for the virus that causes AIDS. I suck in my breath, and remember
that the young people who work here: handsome youth with braids
and jeans and good skin and purposeful gestures, are all HIV-positive.
Antigone comes from the back to meet me, smiling, and reaches
for my hand. She has a melodious, clear voice that resounds off
the hardwood floor. We go into the vacant room usually used for
support groups. There are a bunch of empty chairs pushed together
in the corner. Antigone offers me tea, and we sit down. She is
one of those people whose complexion sparkles, who is pretty through
a combination of sturdy good looks, strong eye contact, tousled
red hair, a bit of nervousness, a sense of herself, and sheer
will.
SK: It seems like you're very comfortable in your role: so
did you just wake up one day and say, "I'm going to become a leader?"
AH: Oh, no! I found out I was HIV-positive when I was
22. Before then, I could never speak in crowds, in front of anybody.
I was just very shy. And I never really thought in terms of social
issues...I mean, I had been starting to get more in touch with
women's issues, so, I was thinking that way, but I never really
got involved with any movement. I just would complain, like about
all the ads on TV...
But after I tested, one of the first things I did was become
a peer educator, three months after. And I also started speaking
in high schools in San Francisco, where I grew up, telling my
story, 'cause I was really upset and angry about the fact that
I had had no idea that I was really at risk for HIV. After I tested
positive, and I was looking back, I thought, well, of course
I was at risk for HIV, I had unsafe sex! With men...you know,
why not? I mean, my God, it was so obvious, but the message, for
me and my generation, never got to us.
SK: How old are you?
AH: Twenty-seven. I graduated [high school] in 1986, and
I had like five minutes of AIDS education...about bodily fluids
or something, and it was in homeroom. My homeroom teacher just
said, well, HIV is in sperm, and it was so weird hearing him say
it, you know, he was this English teacher guy, Mr. Taylor, so
scary...
SK: Why did you decide to get tested?
AH: I decided to, just to make sure I was negative.
SK: Did you assume you would be?
AH: Yeah, 'cause I started using condoms when I was 19...and
I thought, well, God, if I had HIV, I would have had symptoms
by then, 'cause I had been using condoms for three years. I also
just thought that you could tell, and thought it was really hard
[for women to get HIV]. I'd read articles about women and HIV,
and they were always about prostitutes or injection drug-using
women...I'd see numbers like 1 in 100,000 and I would think, God,
I'm not part of that. I don't fit in that category.
You know...that's not me. That's not me. So, I was really
shocked.
It's not 1 in 100,000, or, maybe it was then...
SK: Where did you get tested?
AH: At an anonymous test site in the Castro. A friend
of my mom's and mine was going.
He said, I'll make an appointment for you.
Oh, I said, okay.
When I was 19, I had gone to a doctor here in San Francisco to
ask him about getting tested...and he said, Oh, well, I can
tell by looking at you that there's a 99% chance you're negative...
SK: Really!?!
AH: Yeah! And he's well-known...but he looked at me...I
mean, it still happens, things like that...
SK: The doctor looked at you?
AH: He looked at me, and he saw white, middle class, intelligent
young woman...he didn't see what he thought was someone with HIV...and
I was infected by then, you know, but I had no idea, and I didn't
get tested. So, that was another reason why I [assumed I was negative]...I
mean, no one had ever brought it up to me about getting tested.
I'd go to clinics for other STD's, you know, like chlamydia, and
no one would ever say anything about HIV to me.
SK: How did they notify you?
AH: When you get tested anonymously, you go, you get a
number, you get your blood taken, and then you go back two weeks
later. I went in person, and there was a counselor there, so she
told me. My mother [and her friend were] outside in the car, because
they [assumed] I'd be out in a minute, you know.
And, it was interesting, because my mom's friend, he's a gay
man, but he was negative, 'cause he practiced safe sex. And we
all thought, well, if it would have been anyone, it would have
been him, but it was me. Just because we're thinking of labels,
not the reality of one's behaviors.
