April 2004, Man of Mautner Speech

Thank you Kathleen for that far too kind introduction!

"Why should we as men, and as gay men in particular, support lesbian health issues and the Mautner Project in particular?"

The answer is quite simple - my mother, sister and all my friends would kill me if I didn't. In addition, is there a person alive who has managed to say "No" to Kathleen DeBold and survived to tell the tale?

One of the joys of the last few years has been seeing the number of men who have started to or increased their support of Mautner. When the Mautner Project was founded back in 1990, you could count the number of male supporters of the organization on one hand. Now, wonderfully, there are a great many. "Who's come a long way baby?" In this case, I think it the men.

When Kathleen told me of this honor it started me thinking of my own progress, both as a gay man and as an activist.

For many of us of my generation, and I was certainly no exception, coming out in the late 70's we seem to have missed the dynamic of the men's and women's communities working together in the 60's and early 70's. Certainly by the early 80's I was comfortable in my oblivious little middle class life in the suburbs of Washington and other than the occasional donation to Whitman Walker and volunteering to stuff envelopes at the Gay Rights National Lobby, I was totally unaware of the greater struggle going on around me.

All that, of course, was shattered by the advent of AIDS and I watched in stunned disbelief as my friends and lovers started to die. It was only as the grief and anger grew that I realized that all politics are local and, thanks to folks like Jay Fisette, Sally Micheal, Jim Graham, Pat Hawkins, Mary Farmer and others that I started to learn just how oblivious I was.

I also realized how extraordinarily lucky I was. Despite living with HIV, I was surrounded by friends and family who loved and supported me and their support allowed me to start becoming involved in all aspects of activism. The changing point, however, was when a group of my friends organized ACT UP/DC and I think Patrick Moore in his book, "Beyond Shame - Reclaiming the Abandoned History of Radical Gay Sexuality" expressed best what happened.

He said "If there were ACT UP members who were embraced as stars they were (the) women. Many of ACT UP's men were enthralled for the first time in their lives by women. Older men who had lived through the 1970s gay/lesbian split found themselves working in concert with their female counterparts for the first time in a decade. Younger men who had never taken women seriously were forced to confront their misogyny. Women who had been activists since the 1960's trained younger men who had never been politically involved. And finally the men of ACT UP saw that women were actively participating in saving the lives of men when they could have easily remained sympathetic observers." "I want to acknowledge that my political awareness has come mostly from women and I thank them for their generosity in continuing to care about the lives of gay men"

If you look then, and even today, the political and social landscape of AIDS has been dominated and strengthened by women, predominantly lesbian. These were folks who had no reason to help us other than that it was the right thing to do and without their leadership and support, I, and I think many of us, would not be here today.

It was only in the early 90's, when a tiny support group for Lesbians with Cancer called the Mautner Project was founded that some girlfriends of mine started talking about the issue. I was used to being enraged by the politicization of the science of AIDS but what I didn't realize was the level of misogyny throughout the medical profession. Just as scientists were discouraged from examining the specific medical needs of gay men, lesbians were even more marginalized. Unverified but frightening statistics seemed to swirl around, such as "if a woman doesn't lactate by the age of 30 she has a vastly increased risk for breast cancer" and that pap smears were not as reliable as previously thought and should be conducted more often than recommended. I then began mentally to add up the number of women, again primarily lesbians, I knew who had had breast cancer or cancer scares and realized that this was a serious problem.

The majority of my friends were dykes. The majority of my acquaintances were women. And yet, at the same time I realized, while they were helping me, I was doing nothing for them. I realized then that supporting Mautner was not just an important thing to do; it was the only and right thing to do.

The actions of Susan Hester and all these other extraordinary women both here and in New York brought the issue of women's health care to our attention and yet, I remember attending one of the very first Mautner Project dinners and being one of the only men there.

The issues of sexism and racism within our community were the main reasons that ACT UP declined and while not as overt and prevalent as they were then, they continue to be an issue to this day. I think that the majority of us in this room consider ourselves feminists but it is up to us as gay men to set the example for our friends and associates. We are surrounded by so many important organizations doing extraordinary work and the demands on our time and money seem endless. There's HRC, the Victory Fund, GenderPac, GLAAD, Lambda Legal, SMYAL, NGLTF, SLDN, GLSEN, Whitman Walker and the initials are endless. How on earth do we decide which is more important to us at any given time?

Throughout history, humankind has struggled to define what is called the Ultimate Ethical Standard. No one has ever really come close and at the end of the day, we all have to define our own epistemology.

All I know is that if I am able to look at myself in the mirror in the morning as I shave and think to myself "you done good kid", then I am somewhat pleased with myself. Needless to say, there are too many occasions when I face myself and cringe somewhat. However, we have an obligation, as men, to support our sisters and we must ensure that our support is unwavering and never again falls by the wayside.

The writer John Stoltenberg commented some time ago "I think its important to recognize the fact that gay liberation began much closer to an understanding of the fact that queer men are stigmatized because they participate in the inferior status of the female in a patriarchal sexist culture"

Thankfully, this situation will not stand. Amazing women like Kathleen Debold are bringing us back together as a community so that we can stand and fight together. I'm proud to call Kathleen along with many of my friends who are here "sister". It is up to us as a family to look after our sisters just as our sisters look after us. After all, we are, and will always be, in this together.