Positive Leadership

On Thursday June 9,2011 The Minnesota AIDS Project hosted an event at Open Book in Minneapolis, MN.  The event debuted a short film project and follow up panel presentation aimed at increasing public awareness around the importance of continued funding to persons living with HIV and AIDS. … Continue Reading

Weekend Preview Plus – Memorial Day Weekend 2011

Muffins:

Memorial Day weekend is always full of interesting and fun opportunities.  This year is no exception.  I am featuring one item and one on the horizon item this week.  Why?  I am hoping you all have plenty of plans with family and friends already in the schedule.  If you don’t already have plans the best advice I can offer is to get out and go for a walk.  The Twin Cities is a wonderful place (year round) especially in the spring and summer.  It is Memorial Day weekend so the farmer’s markets are open, the bike trails are busy and the sidewalk cafes are in full swing.  Sometimes it is best to just venture forth without a specific plan and see what crosses your path. … Continue Reading

Minneapolis City Council approves Life Time Fitness contract

Life Time Fitness came under scrutiny at the Minneapolis City Council last week because the chain of fitness centers does not offer domestic partner benefits for its employees. For several years, Life Time has had a contract with the city of Minneapolis to provide health and fitness memberships to the city’s police and firefighters, but the contract violated a city ordinance requiring vendors with contracts over $100,000 to offer their employees domestic partner benefits. On Thursday, the city council voted to grant Life Time a waiver from the requirement. … Continue Reading

Lorraine Teel steps down from helm at Minnesota AIDS Project

Lorraine Teel, executive director of the Minnesota AIDS Project (MAP), will step down this month after 20 years at the state’s largest AIDS service organization. Kathleen Corley, who has served as interim executive director at the Bloomington Theatre and Art Center and at Women’s Advocates, will serve as interim director. … Continue Reading

20 Years of Indisputable Leadership

If the city named a day after you, how would you celebrate? By playing croquet?

On Friday, July 23, 2010 the City of Minneapolis declared Lorraine Teel Day in honor of her twenty year tenure as the Executive Director of the Minnesota AIDS Project.  Board, Staff (both former and current), friends and family were present on the grounds of MAP to surprise her with the proclamation.  Billed as Lorraine the Teel 20^th Anniversary Celebration, the activities included a brief program followed by the second-ever MAP croquet invitational.  The crowd mixed and mingled on a delightful summer afternoon to bask in Teel’s 20-year story of success.  Regaling guests with memories of her time at MAP, Teel told a story about her first AIDS Walk after-party.  Walking up the stairs to the party, she was surprised to be a tall beauty in a red dress with shoes to match. Unbeknownst to Teel, it was then-board member and well-known AIDS community activist Dick Voss.  Teel remembers telling him “I don’t know who you are – but clearly, I need you as my fashion consultant!”

Teel’s advocacy skills have not dulled over the decades – based on a conversation with a recent former staff member of the agency, it may have become sharper!  The former employee is in a domestic partnership and his partner was covered under MAP’s policy, but his new employer does not have the same coverage.  His partner was covered by MAP’s policy under COBRA benefits when he left.  After qualifying for the benefits at his new job, he learned that the COBRA benefits may not be extended to his partner (currently unemployed).  In response, Teel took the reins and is currently trying to help the employee find a solution to his partner’s healthcare crisis. It’s just a day in the life for Teel as she tries to ensure that MAP is capable of continuing its long history of progressive and inclusive support of the LGBT community and our needs.

Lorraine Teel is one tough cookie and a force to be reckoned with.  Congratulations Lorraine, on many jobs well done!

Ride, Drink, Pee

They’re back from the ride.  Yesterday the tired but safe Red Ribbon Riders returned from their 4 day, 300 mile journey.  The Red Ribbon Ride (RRR) is now in it’s 8th year and going strong.  Created in 2002 by numerous Minnesota AIDS service organizations who joined together to form the Minnesota Fighting AIDS on Bikes (MN-FAB) non-profit organization which produces the RRR. The RRR was designed to continue what was begun by the Minneapolis to Chicago ride.  MN-FAB includes eight HIV/AIDS service organizations:  African American AIDS Task Force, The Aliveness Project, Clare Housing, Hope House of St. Croix Valley, Minnesota AIDS Project, One Heartland, Park House, and Rural AIDS Action Network.

This year’s ride concluded yesterday on the grounds of the Minnesota State Capitol.  At times, the tearful remembrances of those friends and family we’ve lost to HIV and AIDS became palpable.  The weather cooperated and allowed riders, crew and supporters alike an opportunity to be thankful for another successful year of raising funds and awareness about the ongoing fight against HIV.  With numbers continuing to rise and on the heels of the announcement last week from the White House about the release of the National HIV Prevention Strategy – the ride occurred at a very opportune moment.

TheColu.mn has been following Minnesota’s HIV situation virtually since our beginning and yesterday was a reminder that we need to continue.  The attendance and ridership were both down from previous years, suggesting that there may be truth to the assumption that the average US citizen does not perceive HIV and AIDS to be the critical health threat it continues to be.  Despite the lower number of participating riders the goal of $400,000.00 was nearly met.  Theresa Fetsch, Executive Director for the RRR announced at the closing that nearly $350,000.00 had already come in.  In past years money has continued to come in even after the ride concludes so the final count is not yet available.  The eight benefiting agencies will no doubt put the funds raised to good use and the ride will be back again next year.  Thanks in part to the riders mantra of Ride, Drink (referring to plenty of Gatorade and water), Pee – all riders made it through the entire trek safely.  There was one minor health concern on Saturday with a rider being pulled for dehydration but they were later able to resume the course.  For more pictures of the opening and closing ceremonies click on the image above.  Congratulations to all of the riders, crew and supporters for a ride well done!

RECLAIM rising from the ashes: LGBT youth clinic provides holistic mental health

After the 2008 stock market crash, many non-profits died untimely deaths, including a few local LGBT social service organizations. Thanks to a big boost from its supporters, one organization has not only survived, but is starting to thrive, and is looking for volunteers to help it expand by offering an integrative medicine clinic offering services like acupuncture and massage to its current clients.

RECLAIM started out as a project of Face 2 Face, a St. Paul organization providing integrated mental health, medical, and case management services to homeless and underserved youth and families in the Twin Cities area. Psychologist Janet Bystrom ran a mental health practice and several support groups at Face 2 Face, including one for youth exploring their gender identities, that she was forced to close when Face 2 Face’s donations and grant funding took a severe hit in early 2009.

“Most places do not provide mental health services for queer youth,” Bystrom told TheColu.mn last year as she was resurrecting her former practice as an independent organization, called RECLAIM, calling ordinary youth mental health services insufficient, because LGBTQ youth frequently don’t see such places as friendly environments. “The only way you can get those kids to come is to do outreach and say ‘hey, you are welcome here.’”

At the time, Bystrom was working with $35,000 in monetary donations and $40,000 in in-kind donations such as computers like volunteer time spent doing clerical work to get RECLAIM going, a combination that’s continued to reap rewards for the organization by helping keep administrative costs under control.

Less than a year in, Bystrom and two masters-level interns are already swamped with providing mental health counseling to around 20 to 25 LGBTQ youth every week, around 60 percent of whom have no health insurance, and with running several support groups on a wide variety of topics including gender identity exploration – tremendous growth she attributes to the community. “I can’t really believe where we were a year ago; I can only take partial responsibility,” Bystrom told TheColumn. “It’s really a testament to the volunteer time people have committed and to the young people themselves” who’ve helped get the word out about RECLAIM’s rebirth.

“We’ve started having to turn away people because we’re so saturated here,” Bystrom said. “It’s really unfortunate.”

In the interim, Bystrom said, she and RECLAIM’s volunteers are exploring how to providing professional development opportunities to mental health professionals of color, and on building an integrative medicine clinic for RECLAIM’s current clients, funded by a $15,000 grant from the Rainbow Health Initiative funding office space and some materials.

Integrative medicine, said Dr. Timothy Culbert, head of the large Integrative Medicine Clinic at Minneapolis’ Childrens’ Hospital, is “a philosopy of care that takes the best of all available options…We customize treatments to each individual on the basis of their own needs and preferences.”

“We really want to work with the body and facilitate the body’s natural healing capacities,” Cuthbert told TheColu.mn in an interview. “We also want to work with kids to teach them holistic self-care techniques” that can work alongside traditional Western medication or psychotherapy.

According to Diane Long, a massage and healing touch therapist and the volunteer coordinator for RECLAIM’s integrative medicine clinic, told TheColu.mn that the clinic will be offering a wide range of care options designed to compliment and amplify the psychotherapy clients are currently receiving for a wide range of issues, including smoking cessation and healing the scars from violence and sexual abuse.

So far, Long said, clients’ responses to experimental “clinic evenings” at RECLAIM’s offices have been overwhelmingly positive, encouraging them to expand the program.

“The clinic is a way for youth to sample different modalities, and find out what works for them,” Long said, “It’s going to be very youth-directed,” in keeping with the spirit of integrative medicine.

To get involved with the clinic, Long said, integrative medicine practitioners should contact RECLAIM. If you want to help out, but don’t know the first thing about healing touch, chiropractic therapies, nutrition, physical therapy, or other types of care that fall under the integrative medicine umbrella, you can donate money or some of these items:

- Gift cards to The Wedge or other area co-op supermarkets provide healthy food for Clinic evenings
- Gift cards to Office Max to purchase items for display and filing
- Gift certificates for Massage Warehouse for supplies
- Portable massage table or massage chair
- Donations of goods or services for an on-line auction to be held at the end of July

Though controversial, HennCo HIV ads will continue to grace area bus stops

Despite rumors to the contrary, Hennepin County officials say they are not pulling back from its HIV prevention advertising campaign. Ads were placed in bus shelters last year along Minneapolis’ Hennepin Avenue and at several bus shelters in other parts of the city carried HIV-prevention messages targeted at all Minnesotans, including several aimed specifically at gay and bisexual men. Last month, a source in the LGBT community tipped TheColu.mn off to a vociferous complaint about one ad on Minneapolis’ Nicollet Island, which allegedly caused Hennepin County to request that the offending advertisement be taken down by bus shelter owner CBS Outdoor.

David Brummel, the Hennepin County Program Supervisor overseeing the ad campaign, confirmed that a Hennepin County resident had indeed filed a complaint with their county commissioner, Jeff Johnson, regarding the ad at a bus stop across the street from Minneapolis’ De La Salle High School, a private Catholic school. The ad, Brummel said, was part of the county’s ongoing “You May Be ___” ad campaign, designed to increase Hennepin County citizens’ awareness of HIV risks by encouraging people to ask their sexual partners about their HIV status. The caller, he said, took issue with both the ad’s subject matter and the way it was presented.

Brummel suggested that rumors about the county backing away from the “You May Be ___” campaign were based on the ads’ recent disappearance from bus stops. This was due, Brummel explained, to the contract’s expiration. Hennepin County had bought ad space from CBS Outdoor between September 7 and November 1, 2009. Because no other buyer had come forward, CBS Outdoor had left the ads in place until recently, when Brummel said that a new buyer had purchased the ad spaces in question.

However, Johnson, the Hennepin County Commissioner who fielded the complaint, told TheColu.mn that he agreed with the caller, saying the ad ”may be appropriate for a gay magazine…but I thought it might be a little too over the top” for bus stop posters.

The ad featured two shirtless men lying in bed together with the phrase “You May Be In Love, But You’re Not Immune From HIV.”

Johnson said he contacted the managers of the “You May Be ___” campaign, and they worked together to craft a solution to the single caller’s complaint. He said that since managers planned on change the ads as part of this year’s ad campaign, he requested that the campaign team find a new graphic for the poster that would still help the campaign reach the same demographic as the offending advertisement. Johnson denied that he was closely involved in any subsequent decisions about the ad campaign.

“I didn’t have an interest in following up, demanding an OK for whatever new graphic they chose,” he told TheColu.mn.

The ads will re-appear on bus stops either in this month or next, Hennepin County spokesperson Luanne Schmaus told TheColu.mn, as the county’s grant to continue the program had recently been renewed.

“We’re definitely not giving up on advertising,” Schmuas said.

Books: Sex Sure Is Fun With This New, Illustrated Handbook

At its heart, Sex is Fun: Creative Ideas for Exciting Sex is exactly the kind of book one would give a bisexual younger sibling in their late teens or early 20′s, who’s just starting to explore sex and who’s still figuring out what they like. It gives a good, pan-sexual overview of a wide range of sex techniques and practices, and demystifies some things like dental dams, role-playing and BDSM, giving you enough information to stop being scared or grossed-out by something, and then want to go try it! It’s also illustrated, graphic-novel style, with a smattering of anatomical diagrams to help clarify the finer points of g-spots and prostate glands. Authors Kidder Kaper and Laura Rad even addresses themselves to people going out for a casual hook-up, with lots of genital grooming tips that are sure to be appreciated by your trick, and the authors’ lighthearted, but mature take on sex mirrors the teaching styles of some of the best sex educators I’ve had the privilege of learning from.

Perhaps the best part about the book – beyond the illustrations – are worksheets included at the end of almost every chapter, giving the reader a structured way to practice the self-exploration and self-awareness that Klapper and Rad place at the center of a healthy sex life.

So what’s not to like? As mentioned above, Sex is Fun doesn’t dwell on single subjects (except role-play), which will certainly be aggravating if you’re hungry for more information. And while the book does cover all kinds of pairings, and most chapters have at least one non-heterosexual couple depicted, it’s not a queers-only book. If you’re really put off by the sight of sex you don’t prefer, stick to more specific books (I certainly saw more vulvae in a day reading this book than in a year of porn site pop-up ads). Personally, I think Klapper and Rad erred in leaving out advice on how to be a good top to a man during anal sex: I’ve heard of – and had – one hookup too many where the other guy was completely wrapped up in how good his penis felt, and was completely oblivious to how the bottom felt. Beyond butt sex complaints, I also take issue with the authors’ laser-like focus on couples sex. For all the tips on how to be a good lover, and all the worksheets goading you into talking with your partner about your deepest fears and desires, Klapper and Rad don’t touch multiple-partner sex, and how to discuss it with your partner.

Even with these gaps, Sex is Fun still manages to be an excellent basic guide to sexuality. There’s a little something for every one, and while it’s best suited for newbies, you’re still likely to find information, advice, and a sex game or two that you haven’t seen before, even if you’ve been around the block a few times.

Sex is Fun: Creative Ideas for Exciting Sex, by Kidder Kaper and Laura Rad, Illustrated by Josh Lynch, 214 pages. Avery Books. $20.00. Sold locally at most book stores, and at the Smitten Kitten, in Minneapolis.

From The Editor’s Desk: Lavender Gets it Wrong on HIV disclosure

In its last issue, Lavender magazine ran a “public service announcement” about Daniel James Rick, a Minneapolis man that police say has had unprotected sex with other men without disclosing that he is HIV-positive. TheColu.mn feels that Minnesota’s largest LGBT publication not only missed an important opportunity to provide context to the case but also furthered the stigmatization of HIV-positive Minnesotans.

Lavenderuncritically printed its article as a “public service announcement” at the request of the Minneapolis Police Department without context. It doesn’t discuss scientific research that, according to Keith Horvath, an HIV prevention expert at the University of Minnesota’s School of Public Health, shows that only around 5 percent of HIV-positive men in America pass that disease on to a sexual partner every year. The police’s case against Rick — which still has to be proven in a court of law — is a rarity among HIV-positive men.

If the charges against Rick are true, then he would certainly have done a selfish, negligent, and generally reprehensible thing in knowingly transmitting a disease to someone else. However, when the laws governing the transmission of HIV were enacted in the early-1990s, the world of HIV was a different place. Today, a 35-year-old HIV-positive American man with the aid of medical treatment can be expected to live to age 73 on average, according to Horvath.

According to police and Lavender, Rick is charged with “Assault in the Third Degree—Knowing Transfer of Communicable Disease.”

The effectiveness and feasibility of such laws are surely up for debate and you can read the statute for yourself.

The World Health Organization, supported by a growing body of academic research, has came out in 2006 against laws that criminalize HIV, saying that such laws stigmatize those living with HIV and discourage people from getting tested for the virus. The vast majority of people who test positive for HIV take steps to ensure the virus isn’t passed on to other. And criminalizing the transmission of HIV will also create an atmosphere of fear where people may avoid getting tested.

Furthermore, the Lavender’s story fails to mention that, in each case where Rick has been charged, there was at least one receptive partner who did not demand that Rick use a condom. In at least one case, according to court documents (PDF), the alleged victim was drunk at the time of the encounter and was removed from the Saloon by staff because he was overly intoxicated.

“No” always means “no” is not enough when sex is concerned. People have to have the ability to say “Yes,” and the allegations against Rick are serious if proven true beyond a reasonable doubt. But we also know from years of research that intoxication with drugs and alcohol are implicated in new HIV infections among gay men with some studies reporting the incidence as high as 60 percent.

Whether intentionally, or because they weren’t aware of the facts and issues surrounding the transmission of HIV, the publishers and editors of Lavender ran a story that misrepresented HIV-positive gay and bisexual men as predators to be avoided, not the largely responsible friends and brothers they are. In doing so, they not only stigmatized members of the Minnesota LGBT community who they theoretically serve and missed an opportunity to challenge the growing acceptance of risky sex practices in our community, but they hurt the rest of us by spreading attitudes that directly harm HIV prevention and safe sex education efforts statewide.

The facts are that HIV can be avoided by using condoms correctly and consistently, and they are especially important with partners you don’t know.

Lavender’s editor did not respond to my call asking for more information about why they decided to publish this story, but as the largest LGBT publication in Minnesota, I hope they made an informed decision with the best interests of the community at heart, even if the available evidence suggests otherwise.