Cricketers show their support to persons living with HIV

Players from England and South Africa took time out of their busy schedules this week during the ICC Champions Trophy 2013 to visit organisations in England and Wales and to show solidarity with persons living with HIV. England players James Tredwell, Ravi Bopara and Jos Buttler visited Terrence Higgins Trust and The Food Chain in [...]

GLASGAY! 2013

Scotland’s annual celebration of LGBT culture.  Festival runs:  9 Oct – 9 Nov 2013 Founded in 1993, with appearances by Sir Ian McKellen and Rhona Cameron, Glasgay! celebrates its TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY in 2013.  The central theme to the programme will be “LEGACY”.  We will celebrate the particular legacy that gay, lesbian and transgendered artists have [...]

Book – THERE’S A BUG GOING AROUND

By Robert Silman and Steven Froelich This novel was written in the 1990s at the height of the AIDS scare when the gay community particularly, faced the paranoia that surrounds a life-threatening incurable and untreatable disease. One of the central ideas of the book was, then, a piece of science-fiction: the novel asks why one [...]

Study highlights needs of growing older population living with HIV

A University of Salford study with charity the George House Trust has highlighted the North West’s growing population of older people with HIV and the lack of services for older HIV-positive gay men. The development of antiretroviral medications has meant that people with HIV are living longer lives and many can expect to live well [...]

Hep C Info

If you are familiar with NAM’s patient information materials, hopefully you already know about our popular series The basics. These illustrated leaflets explain key health messages in a straightforward, accessible way and are designed to support conversations between professionals and the people living with HIV in their care. Now we’re delighted to announce the publication [...]

GAY HUMANISTS UNSURPRISED AT THE HOMOPHOBIA OF THE NEW POPE

The UK gay humanist charity the Pink Triangle Trust (PTT) is not at all surprised that the new Pope is as homophobic as the previous incumbents. Pope Francis I strongly opposed legislation introduced in 2010 by the Argentine Government to allow same-sex marriage, calling it a “real and dire anthropological throwback”.  In a letter to [...]

BEYONCE ENCOUNTERS . . . PEP (Post Exposure Prophylaxis)

  ‘Do you have any water?’ Pete asks in the A&E department. It’s a Sunday evening, and most of the people still queuing up here are casualties from Saturday-night revelries. We’re all being punished for our weekend excesses, it seems. There are people with bust lips and broken limbs. People in wheelchairs and on crutches. [...]

Condom use has stopped over 80,000 new HIV infections among gay men

Research by the HPA and UCL published in PLOS ONE will show that consistent condom use by gay men has stopped over 80,000 new HIV infections between 2000 and 2010. The research provides an unprecedented insight into how HIV prevention measures have shaped the epidemic and quantifies the direct impact of condom use by gay [...]

I AM DIVINE – EUROPEAN PREMIERE

The 27th BFI London Lesbian & Gay Film Festival (LLGFF) is back at  BFI Southbank, London with a festival of 11 days and a new look programme that’s packed full of films, special guests, events, workshops, and music (14 – 24 March 2013). Opening Night is a great new documentary I Am Divine about the [...]

Book Review

   ‘All Right Now – Life, Death & Life Again’ By Andy Fraser with Mark Hughes Perhaps only our older readers will know who Free were – a group of young musicians, who, in their own way, personified the musical highs of the 70s. Their major breakthrough hit, All Right Now became an anthem of [...]

Donna Summer – RIP

  There have been many ‘diva’ disco singers – some worthy of the name, others mere pretenders. Donna Summer was the real deal. Her first hit was I Feel Love and her voice, coupled with the electronic Giorgio Moroder production sent disco music into the realms of DISCO. Yes, that dance music that everyone was [...]

The Community Campaign launches a new era in advertising

    56 Dean Street is offering members of the gay community the chance to design an innovative HIV or sexual health awareness campaign. 56 Dean Street, the award-winning Soho-based HIV and sexual health clinic, is launching a competition to tackle HIV and sexual health awareness amongst gay and bisexual men. Named, The Community Campaign, [...]

Gay men can now donate blood?

  Health Ministers announced recently that the rules regarding the eligibility of gay and bisexual men to donate blood have changed. The new policy allows gay and bisexual men to donate blood if they have not had oral or anal sex with a man in the last year. Previously all men who had ever had [...]

The day before pill

Recently announced results from two studies reveal that a daily antiretroviral tablet taken by people who do not have HIV infection can reduce their risk of acquiring HIV by up to 73%. Both daily tenofovir and daily tenofovir/emtricitabine taken as preventive medicine (PrEP – pre-exposure prophylaxis) can prevent heterosexual transmission of HIV from men to [...]

Books: August 2011

Players Two By Rick Day Like in the first volume the predominating stylistic device is the cool aesthetic appeal, reduced to the basics, that sets the focus completely on all these athletic guys. The intimacy of Day’s pictures is unique; he always goes for direct confrontation—eye to eye with his models! And these men are [...]

Friends of Dorothy

Over a thousand supporters turned out for Terrence Higgins Trust’s Walk for Life 10k fundraising event recently, including celebrities Beverley Knight, John Partridge and 4 Poofs & A Piano. The event was the 22nd year of the Walk for Life, which this year had a Wizard of Oz fancy dress theme. Hundreds of walkers set [...]

Alert gay men at risk of STIs

A major UK-wide scheme to notify partners of gay men diagnosed with sexually transmitted infections (STIs) is to be piloted from this month. The Sexual Health Messaging Service is developed by GMFA, the gay men’s health charity, in collaboration with seven GU clinics, and the gay dating websites Fitlads, Gaydar, Manhunt and Recon. The scheme [...]

Thousands of HIV-positive people have undiagnosed Hepatitis C

13,000 people who are living with HIV in the UK may also have Hepatitis C but not realise it, according to a new report published in the Journal of Viral Hepatitis. That represents nearly 70% of the total estimate of people with HIV and Hepatitis C in the UK. The report is based on a [...]

Review – Holing the Man

Holding the Man Holding the Man became one of the most successful Australian stage productions in the last few years breaking several box office records. It looks at what it was like to grow up gay in Australia of the 1970’s and indeed is based on the memoir of Timothy Conigrave. From being the gay [...]