Letters to the Editor
HIV-Positive and Straight
I have just finished reading the interview Rob Larabee did with Jane Doe. I feel that as the Co-Chair of the Vermont People With AIDS Coalition, I must clarify some of Jane’s statements.
The VTPWAC was formed in 1989 to be a voice of advocacy for people living with HIV Disease. From our inception, we have been an organization which has sought to provide a nurturing and caring environment where people living with HIV can network and communicate their successes and failures with fighting for our lives. Our board has almost always included gay and straight members.
When Jane approached our board in the fall of 2000 and asked if we could sponsor a series of social events for heterosexuals only, I explained to her that we could not create an event that was exclusive to only one demographic group. The Coalition has always made its events open to all persons living with HIV and AIDS regardless of sexual preference. We strive to be inclusive and not exclusive of anyone living with HIV disease. We have also had many returning heterosexuals and straight couples over the past 12 years. Today our retreats are about 50 percent gay and 50 percent straight persons in attendance.
Jane did not tell you that when it came time this past fall to complete our application for federal prevention grants that I told her that this was the time for us to attempt to put together a grant that would allow us to have events that targeted heterosexuals only. I then worked with Jane and a couple of other heterosexual people to design a program that would provide education and social opportunities for people that were living with HIV and thinking about returning to the dating scene or those living in a relationship where one is HIV+ and the other HIV-, to reinforce the hypervigilence it takes to keep the negative loved one safe. The Vermont Department of Health only funded the portion [of the grant proposal] that was to take place at our annual retreat for people living with HIV. I then took the proposal, which was my intellectual property, and gave it to Twin States Women’s Network so that we could co-write a grant application to a private charitable foundation so that we could at least complete the portion of the project that was pertinent to heterosexuals.
Another point that Jane makes is that she only felt comfortable at our retreats when we offered a heterosexual support group. We have offered such a group at every one of our retreats for quite some time. I cannot tell you when we started this practice but I am sure that it has been for at least the past 6 years of the 12 we have been doing this work.
I continually remind my gay board members that even though Jane’s way of phrasing her concerns tend to turn us off to what she is saying, that there is a kernel of truth in what she says and that we need to keep our eye on what she is saying and not how she is saying it.
D. Lee Works, Ph.D.
Co-Chair, Vermont People WITH AIDS Coalition.
Feminist, Period.
So, Karen Karin. It’s presumptuous for you to regard me as your “new friend” as you mentioned in your article “Drugs and Economics” (May) based on the fact we’ve had exactly one and only one conversation in which we disagreed vehemently. But what galls me is that you felt free to fling a vicious slur my way in one breath and decide I’m your friend in the next. You called me a “feminazi” (a “stereotypical” one at that). Calling me a Nazi in any context whatsoever is an outrageous insult especially because I am Jewish and was, of course, deeply traumatized by the Holocaust. (I can hear it now. “Oh those feminists have no sense of humor.”)
Get a grip, Karen. First let’s hear an apology, then let’s hang out for more than ten minutes where your politics don’t make me want to gag, and then we’ll talk friendship.
Crow Cohen
Burlington
The Last Word, Period.
I am writing to you today because I am truly appalled at the responses to John Castaldo and Chuck Kleteckas letters. Some of your readers took this opportunity to launch a personal attack against two men who in my opinion have the highest integrity and a great deal of passion for the rights of gay and lesbian Vermonters. I am in disbelief when I read a comment by a writer that implied that both men were filled with “self-loathing and internalized homophobia.”
These attacks were obviously written by people who rarely leave the city limits of Burlington or dare to stand up in Montpelier and fight for our rights. Mr. Castaldo and Mr. Kletecka are more than just two gay men from Waterbury, they are leaders in this state who use their influence and effort to further our rights. Mr. Kletecka was present virtually every day in Montpelier during the civil union battle and continues to work behind the scenes fighting the hatred and propaganda spewed by TIP and Nancy Sheltra. These two men have done more for Vermont’s gay community than most gay people. These two are not the ones you should be attacking, you should be thanking them.
As for the picture, I didn’t see it. I gather that is the reason I can’t find OITM locally in Waterbury anymore (and I guess I am a little glad, because I don’t want to be associated with that kind of image). Don’t get me wrong, I love Drag Queens and I think Yolanda is great. However I “dare” to have the opinion that being gay is much more than sex, sex, sex, and having a picture of a big dildo-wearing drag queen on a community paper offends me personally.
To the editor of OITM, I would ask you to think about your readers who may have lost the opportunity to pick up your paper locally because of this picture. Personally I don’t care about that wacko Nancy Sheltra and what she thinks about the paper, but I do care if it’s no longer available in my community.
Paul O’Kane
Waterbury Center