What creates “community"? This is a question that was on my mind the other night at AccolAIDS, as I sat surrounded by warmth of spirit, laughter and fantastic people at BC Persons with AIDS Society’s fundraising event. I was so happy for the people who were nominated for their work, and tickled that some true friends got to take the stage and speak about what they do with amazing dedication. What I saw in that room was a mix of PWAs, health care providers, pharmaceutical reps, donors, and other community folks who are both paid staff and volunteers. This mix of people and passions creates supportive, kind, educational nets that the weary can fall into when necessary. Nets that provide firm enough footing to take another step. Nets that provide a wall to back up against when you need a vantage point for perspective.

(more…)

When I started in this work 16 years ago, there were few treatments and little hope. But people are resourceful thinkers, and alternatives to medicine were hot. Meditation groups, yoga, and the power of positive thinking were just a few things that were embraced. Having a life threatening illness that often meant a rapid death with little help from Western medicine challenged people to get their minds around these different approaches. For some it meant getting clean from drugs or alcohol, for others it meant looking at unhealthy relationships and deciding to leave them. Through these changes, there were people who came to the notion that “HIV was the best thing that ever happened to me.”  But there were also those who didn’t reap the perceived benefits of learning they had HIV.

(more…)

“Our gender (as transgender and transsexual people) is … invalidated, insulted, and hated. We are denied personhood because our gender is not heteronormative enough: Proper men do not want to become women, and proper women do not become men….”  writes Lisa, of Questioning Transphobia.  

Lisa’s words well describe the discrimination that many trans women face: the message that they’re not "right" in a fundamental way, or so says mainstream society. When it comes to women-specific services, the discrimination against trans women can be particularly pronounced, and many trans women are left without services because they aren’t "women enough."

(more…)

I’ve been reminded recently that grief is a huge thing. That might sound strange, working in the field I do, where grief can be an ongoing presence and often is. HIV diagnosis can prompt grief for any number of reasons- an abrupt change in expectations and hopes, recognition of multiple losses in relationships and health. Of course death brings with it many emotions, and often grief is at the forefront. Grief is an inevitable part of life, and a particularly inevitable part of being in the HIV community. Before the dramatic changes in life expectancy that HIV treatments brought to the industrialized world, deaths were far more common and frequent. Grieving was woven into the HIV community by necessity.

(more…)

Last week’s retreat was another huge success and many women came away connected and recharged, according to the evaluations. Retreats are unlike any other thing we offer. They are a whole weekend of symbolic unpacking by a variety of women with a range of life experiences (one attendee commented on the diversity of women and how well everyone got along). Women unpack their sadness of being diagnosed and feeling they can never look at life with hope again. Women can unpack their worries about going on treatment and how it might affect their bodies. Women unpack their long-term experiences with HIV, how they have made changes and stayed healthy. Women unpack their vulnerabilities and their successes, and share them.

(more…)

This weekend a group of women will head to Bowen Island to learn about HIV treatments, HIV and medicinal marijuana, the law and HIV disclosure, terachings from the sweat lodge, and have some fun. It’s retreat weekend, and for three quarters of the women going, it will be their first time on a retreat. It’s not easy to meet a bunch of strangers and talk about your diagnosis, but year after year, women do so and come back smiling. We’ve been offering retreats for 15 years now (we’ve even developed a Retreat Planning Toolkit to help other organizations), and we’ve learned that providing a safe space for women to connect and learn about HIV can change people’s lives forever.  

(more…)

In 1996, the audience at the International AIDS Conference in Vancouver heard about Highly Active Retroviral Therapy (HAART), a combination of drugs designed to limit the replication power of HIV and revitalize the immune system. HAART became the standard of treatment in the developed world, and a combination of three or more drugs with dizzying dosing schedules required tables and timers to make them effective. But HAART changed the shape of life for people with HIV. Flash forward: putting drugs into combination formulas lessened the number of pills, eased up on the scheduling challenges and some side effects. We are now in an age where HIV is often billed a chronic manageable illness, although class, race, gender and geographical differentials defy this as a universal term. Even here in treatment-rich BC, not everyone who qualifies is on treatment. The reasons why go beyond medicine.   

(more…)

I’ve been thinking for a while now on this entry: women and food. Women grow food, buy food, make food, provide food, and clean up when others are done eating. They decide what other people will eat and when. When food is scarce, women tend to go without so others can eat. Some women can’t eat enough to fill their hunger. For others, anything feels like too much. Food can delight us, trouble us, and torment us. So how to write a “simple” entry about HIV and food?

(more…)

 
The road to Positive Women’s Network has twists and turns for many women. They might carry our phone number with them for months before they make their first call. Or they might phone anonymously, asking about HIV itself, treatments, our programs, measuring their comfort with meeting in person. Some phone soon after diagnosis or drop-in. Everyone has their own way of dealing with their diagnosis. But if we’ve seen one thing over the years, connection with other women makes dealing with it a little lighter.

(more…)

 Here we are again, January at Positive Women’s Network. I  haven’t heard any  big personal  resolutions, but everyone here is dealing with the details of everyday life that makes a difference for women with HIV. We’ve set our dates for retreats for the year, so that ‘s good news. Women who have never met anyone with HIV will have a chance to meet peers who’ve been positive for years. Women who live in isolation will be able, for a weekend anyway, to be as open as they wish. Sangam’s set the schedule for the support group, which has been going in one form or another for eight years.  Stacie’s back at Outreach after a break for the holidays. And I am working on the program for SpringBoard, our annual day conference held in honour of International Women’s Day.  

(more…)