NATIONAL GAY MEN’S HEALTH SUMMIT TO BE HELD IN FORT LAUDERDALE AUGUST 25 – 29

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Hundreds of gay men and their allies from throughout the country and beyond will gather on August 25 – 29, 2010, at the Sheraton Fort Lauderdale Airport and Cruise Port Hotel to participate in the 2010 National Gay Men’s Health Summit. The theme of the event is  “Creating a Brighter Future: The Next Decade of Gay Men’s Health” and will be held jointly with the 9th annual Southeast Regional Gay Men’s Health Summit.   Over 250 gay men (as well as, bi, trans men, other men who have sex with men and their allies) will gather to reflect on and celebrate gay men’s lives while working on a brighter future for gay men’s health and wellness.

The summit is open to all and registration has been underwritten for residents of Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach Counties by the Broward County Health Department and the Florida Department of Health.   Pre-summit workshops begin on Wednesday, August 25, and include a panel featuring an intergenerational dialog around gay youth, adults, elders and ancestors; another focusing on body image and weight issues; and a gay men’s leadership institute.

The formal summit begins on Thursday, August 26, and concludes on Sunday, August 29, and features a number of plenary speakers and nearly 70 workshops on topics as diverse as addictions, mental health, HIV, wellness, dating and relationships, and spirituality.  Many of the workshops will address special topics and populations, such as HIV negative youth of color, building community among Hispanic gay men, return to work issues for those on disability, and addictions recovery.  The summit is designed to promote social interaction and fun.  A significant number of the workshops are experiential, such as laughter yoga or meditation, and are intended to be edgy, such as the impact of GRINDR on our community and the use of social media to improve gay health and wellness.  Besides casual interaction with gay men from around the country (and beyond), there will organized social events such as a show and a pool party.

The gay men’s health movement grew from an interest in expanding the scope of gay men’s health beyond (but certainly including) HIV to a full range of other issues that impact our health and wellness.  At the Summit, gay men and their allies will have frank and open dialogue about race, racism, identity and gender politics, aging and class. We will discuss these and other domains and paradigms for thinking about gay men’s health. Our conversations will cover the broad spectrum of interests for gay men with key focus on strengths-based organizing, emerging issues, and other hot topics.
One of the key challenges facing gay men is to ensure that we continue to be involved in the strategizing and implementation phases of Health Care Reform. Another key challenge is to develop creative funding strategies and work alongside key policy makers while we simultaneously work with fellow advocates to shape policy such as ADAP and the National HIV/AIDS Strategy.

Walk-up registration is available beginning at 10:00am on Wednesday, August 25.

MAY 15 ABSTRACT DEADLINE APPROACHES FOR NATIONAL GAY MEN’S HEALTH SUMMIT

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The deadline to submit abstracts for the 2010 National Gay Men’s Health Summit is fast approaching.  See details below.  For more information or to submit your proposal visit www.gmhs2010.com

NATIONAL GAY MEN’S HEALTH SUMMIT 2010

Creating a Brighter Future:

The Next Decade of Gay Men’s Health

August 25-30, 2010

Fort Lauderdale, Florida

Press Release:

The 6th National Gay Men’s Health Summit will gather together gay men (as well as, bi, trans men, other men who have sex with men and their allies) to reflect on and celebrate gay men’s lives while working on a brighter future for gay men’s health and wellness.

In sunny Ft. Lauderdale, Florida hundreds of gay men and their allies from throughout the country and beyond will gather August 25 – 29, 2010, and convene at Sheraton Ft Lauderdale Airport and Cruise Port Hotel to share space together and engage about their exciting work and their lives while they attend the 2010 National Gay Men’s Health Summit. The theme of the event is  “Creating a Brighter Future: The Next Decade of Gay Men’s Health” and will be held jointly with the 9th annual Southeast Regional Gay Men’s Health Summit.

Gay men are creative, strong, and resilient. We have developed our own home-grown social networks, support structures, definitions of community, communities and communal rituals, formulated systems and structures for and around health and wellness- all for and by us.

Gay men continue to create, build and sustain lives that are satisfying and fulfilling, even in the face of formidable obstacles, persistent stigma, and incredible challenges. One of the key challenges we face is to ensure that gay men and their allies continue to be involved in the strategizing and implementation phases of Health Care Reform- our voice will be heard. Another key challenge is to develop creative funding strategies and work alongside key policy makers while we simultaneously work with fellow advocates to shape policy such as ADAP and the National HIV/AIDS Strategy. Gay men face the challenge to fully explore and develop solutions to decrease health and wellness disparities.

At the Summit, gay men and their allies will continue to have frank and open dialogue about race, racism, identity and gender politics, aging and class. We will discuss these and other domains and paradigms for thinking about gay men’s health. Our conversations will cover the broad spectrum of interests for gay men with key focus on strengths-based organizing, emerging issues, and other key hot topics. Gay-identified Trans men will certainly be a key area of dialogue with a focus on discovering, dreaming and agenda setting for gay transmen. We will also broach an intergenerational conversation around youth, adults, elders and ancestors, and the impact of a loss of a large part of a generation as a result of the AIDS epidemic with discussion of how to move forward together. We will look into an expansive research agenda to ensure a holistic approach that is also culturally responsive and appropriate toward gay men and their health and wellness.

We will explore our individual, collective and inter and intrapersonal sexual health through interactive workshops, laughter, and play- a journey of past, present, and future.  We will review and use the Gay Men’s Health Agenda to guide national efforts around political action and local organizing and rallying. The Gay Men’s Health Agenda will seat its first National Steering Committee in collaboration with its Leadership Core. We will continue to think outside the box, challenging and expanding social categories and promoting culturally appropriate and responsive directives with novel programmatic approaches.

 

The Gay Men’s Health Agenda 2009: Making our Voices Heard

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As the new administration in Washington massively shifts national priorities, an opportunity has presented itself for the LGBTQ community to speak up and to be certain that our long-neglected healthcare needs are both recognized and addressed.

The Gay Men’s Health Agenda   is a significant document which grew out of a grassroots effort within the gay men’s health movement. After soliciting comments from gay men around the country, a draft was presented for feedback at the Gay Men’s Health Summit in Seattle in October, 2008, and the final version has now been published.

The Agenda is significant because it urges policy makers to recognize that the health care needs of gay men extend far beyond HIV/AIDS, and include mental health, substance abuse, external and internalized homophobia, and a sometimes appalling lack of cultural competency of many health care providers in recognizing and appropriately treating the health of the gay, lesbian, and trans community. This is even more vital as the federal government is now drafting "Health People 2020," which will serve as a roadmap for spending priorities over the next decade. Gays and lesbians have been virtually absent from federal health priorities. This Agenda pushes for change.

Recommendations specific to gay men’s health include funding and expanding social, behavioral, and biomedical research; developing and collecting data on sexual orientation and gender identity in federal research; funding campaigns to combat homophobia, biphobia, and transphobia; and eliminating bans on "promotion" of any type of sexual behavior, which impairs effective health campaigns. Other recommendations include creating strategies to combat health disparities, funding sexual health and wellness, and removing barriers to health care for transgender people.

Similar efforts for lesbian health include the Lesbian Health Fund of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association. Health care disparities continue to grow for all of us in the LGBTQ community. These efforts are an important step in making our voices heard. Whether you participate by contributing to a similar document or by calling or emailing your representatives, be sure yours is among them!

SOUTHEAST REGIONAL GAY MEN’S HEALTH SUMMIT TO BE HELD IN FORT LAUDERDALE

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Gmhs2003_altlogo     While all eyes were on Denver in recent weeks, nearby Boulder was approaching the tenth anniversary of another historic convention: the first National Gay Men’s Health Summit. In 1999, hundreds of gay men gathered in Colorado for workshops and community-building that focused on gay men’s health and wellness. The Summit was a grassroots effort bringing together like-minded gay men and their allies to both acknowledge our problems and find solutions that drew on our creativity and honored our ability to help each other when nothing or no one else was forthcoming, as we famously did when AIDS struck our communities.

The gay men’s health movement grew out of resistance to a national trend of increasing moralistic condemnation of gay men and lesbians. This was further compounded by an unintended consequence of the AIDS crisis: a persistent reframing of gay men, their sex, and their lives in negative, pathological terms. This negativity pervaded even well-meaning efforts, such as HIV prevention programs, which were often based on fear and control, and which, ironically, have been rejected by many gay men resulting in a rapid increase of high risk sexual behavior.

The image of the flawed homosexual is both internalized by gay men themselves and is expressed in all types of media. Out-of-control gay men are often inaccurately portrayed as a menace to the society (remember the new strain of drug-resistant HIV set off by the promiscuous gay meth addict in New York? Or the panic about MRSA carried by gay men and spreading into society-at-large in San Francisco? Both proved false.)

The gay community certainly has serious problems ranging from addiction to epidemics of sexually transmitted diseases, but portraying us and everything we do as pathological, or at best sadly pitiful, is increasingly destructive. The LGBTQ community has an amazing gift for healing both ourselves and our communities. The gay men’s health movement seeks solutions grounded in affirmative concepts of health and wellness.

At the closing in Boulder back in 1999, a call went out to continue these gatherings both at a national and regional level. The call was heeded and now the seventh Southeast Regional Gay Men’s Health Summit will take place in Fort Lauderdale from November 7–9.  Nearly 200 men from around the southeastern United States are expected to converge for networking, workshops, and a lot of fun during this exciting weekend.

 

These are gay and bisexual men of diverse backgrounds, who share a common interest in promoting better physical, spiritual and mental health. Participants will represent urban, suburban, and rural areas from throughout the southeast. Men of color, gay youth, and gay men who have never before participated in formal health promotion efforts are especially invited to join the Summit.  The program will include plenary sessions, workshops, and social activities designed to increase health awareness and a greater sense of community.

 

Break out sessions will be organized around four conference tracks: health and prevention, community building, relationships, and personal development. Workshop topics range from serious to light, including sex and intimacy in crystal meth recovery, living with HIV, spirituality and the gay community, and one called “You call that a swimmer’s build?” about “creativity” in Internet profiles. There will be several plenary dinners with nationally-known speakers, including Chris Bates, Director of Health and Human Services Office of HIV/AIDS Policy in Washington, D.C.

Would you like to participate? Workshop proposals can be submitted online until September 22. There are a number of scholarships available to make the Summit affordable to everyone. See the website for registration and scholarship details.

In my practice I hear a nearly-universal complaint about a lack of community outside bars and clubs. Here is an opportunity to have a great time and experience other gay men in an affirmative and powerful weekend. Join us!

Southeast Regional Gay Men’s Health Summit

November 7-9, 2008

Embassy Suites Hotel

1100 Southeast 17 Street

Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33316

 

 

The Truth About Gay Men’s Health

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“Gay men are healthy,
happy, and life affirming. We’re creative, strong, and resilient; more than
almost any other male population, we think outside the box, take responsibility
for our actions, and care for ourselves and others. We know how to get what we
want and we know how to create lives that are satisfying and fulfilling.”

 With these
words Eric Rofes, the late gay health activist, began an article on the gay
men’s health movement in the White Crane
Journal just three years ago.  Are these words still true? Were they true then? Today we are bombarded by grim statistics on
rising HIV rates, alarming amounts of syphilis and other sexually transmitted
diseases, the lives of partners and friends ruined by meth and other
substances, and a disquieting acceptance that its okay not to talk about our
health status with our sex partners. 

 Are we
healthy, happy, and life affirming? I
admit that one can easily get discouraged. After twenty plus years of AIDS crisis mode, much of the celebration of
gay life and gay sex that began after Stonewall has been diminished. Gay sex today is often seen as something to
be feared, contained and controlled. Many
gay men are viewed by society at large (and unfortunately by some other gay
men) simply as vectors of disease who are hypersexual, tweaked-out, and
potentially destructive to themselves and anyone around them. Society views many of us as complacent at
best, and pathetic at worst.

 We need to
reject this narrative of pathology. Like
any stereotype, it is simplistic, polarizing and personally destructive. Are there gay men who are sexually reckless? Of course, but judging and shaming accomplish
little. Much of this behavior was caused
by feelings of separation in the first place. Let’s start sharing information about issues that are important to all
of us, such as how to discuss serostatus, or use a condom, or know the facts
about safer sex, or how to heal “taught shame.” It’s happening already, at forums like those sponsored by Out in the Open or at groups at the
GLCC, or at many other locations.

 What about
Tina’s rampage? I probably have worked with more individuals caught in the
vortex of crystal meth than anyone in this community, yet of all the men I have
been privileged to know, not one planned to venture into the darker realms they
experienced on meth.  Like most of us, these men sought to increase
their confidence, feel sexually desirable, overcome their inhibitions, or
experience increased sexual intensity. Sound
familiar?  Pretty normal?  It’s not the person who is bad or shameful; it’s
a very nasty drug that hijacks sexual desire and clear thinking, often with
disastrous personal consequences.

 There is,
of course, a need for responsibility and accountability. Both personal and community health and
wellness are something that each of us must create. Solutions can’t be found in avoidance or
demonizing. As a community we experience
way too much divisiveness: negative versus positive; older versus younger; those
who “party-and-play” versus those who don’t. By identifying what unites us as gay men, what we all share, we can
generate strength and healing.

 Are gay
men really creative, strong, and resilient? Absolutely, yes. Can we think outside
the box? Of course. Many of us have witnessed such resilience in
other times and places and it’s happening here again. Gay men, our allies, agencies, churches, and
a host of other organizations are actively working together to create a
healthier and stronger community. I’ll
be writing about some of these challenges and solutions in the months to come
and I invite you to join us in creating personal lives and communities that are
not only satisfying and fulfilling, but in Eric Rofe’s words, healthy, happy,
and life affirming.