• 3 days ago
Zaddy, queer, guy next door. HIV status: undetectable.
He was diagnosed with HIV six years ago. Now, Richard Hutchinson is reimagining his diagnosis by celebrating the lives of Black, queer men.
Transcript
00:00I just wanted to post images, you know, I wanted to change the world in a way that celebrated
00:09black queer men.
00:13I needed that.
00:14I needed something to save my own life and let myself know that I do have value.
00:23We really wanted to take the stigma of HIV and flip it, right?
00:26Black queer men were tired of fearing HIV, like we can win this thing, but the only way
00:30we're going to be able to do that is if black queer men realize the value that they have,
00:36right?
00:39Even though it has been 40 years since the first reported case of HIV in the U.S., stigma
00:43and misconceptions around the virus remain high, and HIV impacts communities of color
00:48disproportionately.
00:49For Brute, I'm taking you to Atlanta, Georgia, to meet with Richard Hutchinson, who is reimagining
00:53the term HIV.
01:12When I found out my diagnosis, I remember there was a time where I, like, stopped breathing.
01:18I was thinking of so many things, it was heavy.
01:24I was thinking, like, oh my God, how did this happen to you?
01:27Like, you're teaching people how to protect themselves, like, how did this happen to you?
01:30So I felt a sense of shame, while at the same time feeling like I'm going to be good because
01:36I have people who are going to support me.
01:42It's almost like it happened for a reason.
01:47It was like God was saying, like, I need you to use your own lived experience to change
01:51the lives of people who may not be able to speak for themselves.
01:55This is the very first photo that we posted.
02:00It got so much, so much attention, so many people, and they were like, oh my God, this
02:05is like the new age prevention messaging and things like that.
02:10It was a powerful moment for us.
02:13And from there, we just, it's like, okay, people are taking heed to this.
02:16And so then we started doing other pictures.
02:18I can't believe it's been like six years since I've been here, since I moved to Atlanta,
02:26since I've been diagnosed, and since He Is Valuable became a thing.
02:32It's crazy.
02:35He Is Valuable was birthed from my own diagnosis, as well as just realizing the impact of HIV
02:41on the black queer community.
02:42Oh, there we go.
02:43Sound good.
02:44We are a non-profit organization.
02:49How can we create imagery, create experiences that celebrates the holistic lives of black
02:54queer men, regardless of HIV?
02:55Hey, boo.
02:56Hey, there.
02:57Good to see you, in this motherfucking jacket.
02:58You better give.
02:59You better give.
03:00Oh, you smell good, too.
03:01Oh, thank you.
03:02Hey, baby.
03:03I'm good.
03:04In black community, you know, we don't talk about sex, and our parents don't want to break
03:14it up.
03:15Except for this, like, fear-based of, like, you better wear a condom, you better not do
03:18this, you better watch this.
03:19Don't bring no children home.
03:20Don't bring no kids home.
03:21Like, but that's not enough.
03:24It's hard when you don't have anybody to have those conversations with, though.
03:27Those conversations aren't part of sex education.
03:30Nope.
03:31I mean, I think that's where children, we're so, like, afraid to, like, oh, they're too
03:36younger, they this, but, like, if we don't do that, they're going to discover the world
03:39on their own.
03:40Stop being scared, and talk about sex with your kids.
03:44With my first experience, particularly with HIV, which is, like, my cousin, when I was
03:4716, he had HIV, and I didn't know.
03:50I didn't know what it mean.
03:51I didn't know what HIV meant, and he was openly gay, and I just knew my mom and family would
03:56be snickering and making comments about him and talking to him about his back, and imagine,
03:59like, you are, I'm internalizing that, because I'm, like, I don't really know what I am,
04:03but I know that, like, he's reflecting something in me, and I don't really want to say that,
04:07but, like, I hear everyone talking about him, and all my mom would just say, if you think
04:10you're going to be gay, this is going to happen to you, and my cousin died of AIDS complications
04:14when I was, like, 16 years old, and I saw that, and imagine, I didn't even get to come
04:19out.
04:20I had nothing.
04:21Like, I didn't even have sex with a boy yet.
04:22I'm, like, and that's all I know.
04:25That's all that anyone's said to me, like, wear condoms, don't get AIDS.
04:30To me, that's how I feel like we're going to fight HIV, by breaking out of our shells
04:36and being, like, you know what, we're here, period, and we're here with every bit of ourselves
04:42and looking good doing it.
04:45That vulnerability, that authenticity is what we need if we really want to save ourselves.
04:56I live here in Atlanta, but I'm a Jersey boy at heart.
04:58I moved here when I was 25.
05:01I always knew that I was different.
05:03You know, I've always had a sense of, like, I want to change the world.
05:08I think at five years old, I realized that I had, like, these feelings for, like, people
05:12that looked at me, meaning guys, but I didn't know what that was.
05:17I remember just praying and crying at night and not being able to sleep as a kid, just
05:21wishing and praying that this feeling or whatever, this curse or whatever you got on me, just
05:26take it away.
05:28My mom didn't want me to be gay because what she knew, gay was that you're going to get
05:33HIV and you're going to die.
05:36And that's the story of so many of black queer people, it's like, being gay is equivalent
05:41to, like, AIDS and dying, and that's a traumatizing way to navigate your identity.
05:51So now I'm waiting for my doctor to come in.
05:53So what we do is usually we go over my labs from the last time that I came, three months
05:58ago, to check my viral load and make sure that I'm, like, still undetectable, also to
06:04make sure that, like, no STDs or STIs, to talk about my liver and kidney function and
06:11other things, like, that may, you know, may have been brought up to our attention due
06:16to blood work.
06:18And, yeah, just to check in with her and see things are going good with my treatment.
06:29Various treatments are now available for those living with HIV to manage the virus and reach
06:33undetectable levels, meaning it cannot be transmitted.
06:36There are also effective preventive medicines like PrEP, a daily pill that reduces the risk
06:40of getting HIV.
06:42But data shows that there are still major inequities that exist in accessing treatment
06:46and care.
06:47Come on.
06:49So I'm going to meet with one of my friends, Darion, to talk about our doctor's appointment.
06:53I had a doctor's appointment earlier this week, and he had his today.
06:56And so we're just going to check in to see how it's going, how life's treating us, and
07:01what's going on with our HIV treatment.
07:04Come on, let's go.
07:06How you doing?
07:07I'm good.
07:08So you, were you just, you came from your doctor's appointment today?
07:11Yes!
07:12I was still tired, got off work at one o'clock, but I made it, I'm tired.
07:17What time was your appointment?
07:18Nine o'clock.
07:19Oh, see.
07:20What did you talk to your doctor about?
07:22She said, do I have any sexual active partners right now?
07:25I said, no, not really.
07:27I need some.
07:28You said, no?
07:29Yes!
07:30Are we lying to our doctors?
07:31No.
07:32I haven't been out there like I used to do.
07:33But she said, are you sexually active?
07:34No, she said, do I have any sexual active partners right now?
07:40I said, no.
07:41Huh?
07:42I haven't had sex.
07:44I haven't had sex.
07:49Have a great day, honey.
07:50HIV is not just about like, getting people treatment, because treatment exists, but like
07:55everyone doesn't have access to it.
07:57So that's a social justice issue.
07:58So like, yeah, the cure may come out, but that don't mean you're going to be able to
08:01afford it or access it because, you know, we low income people who don't have access
08:06to health care, they're not going to be able to get access to the cure.
08:10How much is that going to cost?
08:11Because imagine, the HIV meds is like $3,000 a month, so how much would the cure cost per
08:16person?
08:17Because like, when life gets hard for me, I feel like I'm more blessed than like most.
08:23But like, when I have to focus on work or do multiple things just to survive, sometimes
08:28you forget to take my medicine because I have other priorities.
08:31Like, it's about survival as opposed to like thriving.
08:33Yeah, we got a lot of work, still a lot of work to do.
08:36So you want that sandwich or no?
08:37Yeah, I do.
08:38Okay.
08:40See you.
08:41See you.
08:42Have a good day.
08:43You too.
08:45When we talk about the medical industrial complex, a lot of black and brown people have
08:51been traumatized by those institutions.
08:54So that puts us more at risk for things like HIV and poverty and high unemployment rates
09:01and, you know, lack of education and access to education.
09:04All of those things, those type of social injustices are, you know, HIV is often the
09:08result of those things coming together and meeting at this intersection and just, bow.
09:16For me, I don't know what it means to be like, gay in Atlanta without Joe.
09:21It's literally people fly into town and this is the spot.
09:26It's kind of sad.
09:27You know, it's not like a fancy place, like a super fancy place.
09:29But I feel like that's the point.
09:31But it's like, it's where the girls come.
09:34It's our cheers, where everybody knows your name.
09:36Exactly.
09:37This is the model.
09:38This is the walkway.
09:39You can meet new friends.
09:40You can take some shots, meet new friends.
09:43If this bar could talk, they would talk about me so bad.
09:51One in two black gay men are going to contract HIV in their lifetime.
09:56We are more than those numbers.
09:57We are more than just this projection, right?
09:59And the projection means that if we do nothing, if we do nothing different, if we do nothing
10:04that's more innovative, if we do nothing that, you know, really impacts community,
10:08those projections will become a reality, right?
10:10And so that's what birthed this idea of like, we have to find some innovation on how to
10:14engage our community around this topic.
10:16Because this one in two doesn't have to be true.
10:35No, I'm looking at it.
10:49I use gay dating apps.
10:52You might have heard of them, like Jacked, Grindr.
10:56Mine says like Paz, like Zaddy, Queer, Guy Next Door.
11:01And I put status positive undetectable because I'm a person living with HIV.
11:05And, you know, as of my most recent doctor's appointments, I am HIV undetectable.
11:11I mean, like my viral load is so low that I'm unable to transmit HIV to someone else.
11:20Now, there have been times where some people have came at me and said, like, why would
11:23you share this?
11:24Like, that's personal.
11:25Like, or probably have denied me.
11:28There are people that, you know, who are completely against people living with HIV and they will
11:32put it out there.
11:33When people create that type of language and that type of environment, like what does that
11:37mean for like prevention, right?
11:39What does that mean for like getting people tested?
11:41Because people now are going to feel guilty or don't want to be associated with that.
11:45So that's going to make me less likely to want to get tested because I don't want to
11:47know what my actual status is because I don't want to have to tell people that I live with
11:51HIV so they can criminalize me, you know, demoralize me, you know, dehumanize me because
11:56of my status, which makes our work of like trying to get people into care and trying
12:01to get people to get tested or on PrEP harder because of that type of stigma.
12:12So I'm packing to get ready for the photo shoot.
12:17And what's really going to be exciting is that we're going to be replicating some of
12:20the first photos for the campaign.
12:24I smell good.
12:38One, two, three.
12:40Raw.
12:41Raw.
12:42No, this is actually a large, so that's yours.
12:44Okay.
12:45This is what I'm wearing.
12:47My body part's going to be out.
12:50Okay.
12:51This is an extra large.
12:53This is stretchy.
12:54Richard is a...
12:55This is an extra large.
12:56What do you have?
12:57It says extra large.
12:59Okay, so you...
13:00Yeah, that's a lot.
13:01Oh, yeah, that's mine.
13:02Oh, shit.
13:05You let me know.
13:06Y'all come over here and tell me.
13:08Your cape's got to be out.
13:09People might think that, you know, black queer men like love to be naked, but some of us
13:15struggle with like body positivity.
13:18And so, like, doing this is not even just for, like, the sake of excitement sometimes.
13:22It's a journey for us to, like, do stuff like this.
13:25Like, I have to get myself together in the bathroom to, like, tell myself that it's okay
13:29for me to wear this and that my body is okay.
13:33This is nerve-wracking for me, but we're gonna...
13:40One of our things is to create positive imagery of black queer men.
13:49Your sexuality is demonized.
13:51You're told that it happens in the dark.
13:53You know, you're doing things behind closed doors.
13:55You don't know how to celebrate that if you've never seen it.
13:59A lot of us have struggled to love ourselves for that, right?
14:02A lot of us look in the mirror and have not been able to look and say, you know, I love
14:06my body.
14:07I love my sexuality.
14:08I love the way I'm shaped.
14:09I love my eyes.
14:10I love my lips.
14:12We can celebrate that while, you know, getting our community the services that they need.
14:17We can celebrate our bodies and our sexuality while we change the world.
14:23Yeah.
14:26Like, you're trying to make him feel like the best thing in the world.