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HIV: The Morning After

HIV: The Morning After

By: Dan Hall
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 An oral history and public-education audio archive documenting the lived experience of people living with HIV in the UK. The series captures testimony at a moment when institutional memory, peer support, and long-term survivor narratives are being eroded, despite medical progress. Led by Emmy award-winning documentary producer Dan Hall, the project is building a long-form archive of recorded testimonies for public, community, and educational use.Copyright 2026 Dan Hall Hygiene & Healthy Living Science Social Sciences
Episodes
  • “Jan”: Borders, Belonging, Becoming

    “Jan”: Borders, Belonging, Becoming
    Mar 27 2026
    SummaryJan describes himself as a global citizen. He is Turkish, Kurdish, gay, and HIV positive, and he's had to come out about each of those identities separately. Growing up in Ankara, he learned early to hide parts of himself. Kurdish was spoken at home but never taught to the children. It was too dangerous, too divisive. By fourteen, Jan had figured out that status and achievement could compensate for ethnic complexity. By the time he realised he was gay, he understood that no amount of status would protect him. His ticket out was a scholarship abroad.The plan worked. Jan got his master's degree in the United States, had a job lined up, a future mapped. Then Covid happened. He lost his visa, his right to work, and found himself back in his parents' flat in Ankara, confined with them for 34 days straight during lockdown. A casual homophobic remark made him snap. He came out as gay in the middle of a pandemic, in a 70-square-metre flat, with nowhere to go.He had arrived in Turkey with two weeks of PrEP left. There was no way to get more. When lockdowns lifted briefly, he met someone, asked if they were on PrEP, was told yes, and chose to have unprotected sex. Two weeks later, burning with fever, convinced it was Covid, he tested negative twice before realising it was HIV. The healthcare system was overwhelmed. Hospitals wouldn't admit non-Covid patients. Jan had to fake having Covid just to get through the doors. A doctor saw him in her personal time, sleepless after a night in intensive care. He borrowed money from friends, persuaded a pharmacy to release medication before state reimbursement came through, and took his first pill in a park, crying with relief.Jan's voice has been altered for this episode to protect his identity. He is not yet out to his parents about his HIV status. He is still learning what it means to him.Timestamped Takeaways00:02:14 - Three identities to hide. Jan grew up in Turkey, a country of hidden diversity. Kurdish was spoken at home but not taught to the children. Being gay added another layer. Being HIV positive came later.00:02:50 - Forced assimilation. The Turkish nation-state was built on a new meta-identity. Armenians, Greeks, Arabs, Circassians, Kurds—all were expected to sacrifice their past to be accepted. You learned to be overly apologetic, to over-tolerate hate remarks.00:06:28 - Growing up in Ankara. A boringly stable place, very safe, but suffocating for a young gay person of mixed ethnicity. Jan went from school to home, avoiding the other kids. It felt too exposing.00:08:29 - Status as armour. Up to fourteen, Jan focused on hiding his Kurdish identity through achievement. Power and status could compensate for ethnic complexity. Then puberty arrived, and he realised sexuality couldn't be hidden the same way.00:09:25 - The scholarship. Jan worked hard for a scholarship to go abroad. He felt doomed if he stayed in Turkey as a gay man. Freedom required leaving.00:10:18 - Covid takes everything. Jan had his master's degree, a job lined up, plans. Then the pandemic hit. He lost his visa and had to return to Turkey, back to the same environment he'd fought to escape.00:10:56 - 34 days in 70 square metres. Confined with his parents during lockdown, a casual homophobic remark made Jan explode. He came out as gay. The world was doomed, people were dying, and the people who were supposed to love him were saying something offensive about who he was.00:12:15 - Two weeks of PrEP left. Jan had been on PrEP in the US. In Turkey, it was nearly impossible to access—expensive, available only in select pharmacies in Istanbul, unknown to most doctors.00:14:55 - Risk perception shifts. When you're deprived of touch, when nobody has held you with care, your risk perception changes. You start questioning less. The conversation about PrEP became performative: do you miss intimacy? Do you want this moment where two bodies connect?00:18:39 - Convinced it was Covid. Two weeks after unprotected sex, Jan was burning with fever, convinced he was bringing Covid home to his parents. He asked them to leave. The tests came back negative. Twice.00:20:28 - The phone call. A private clinic ran sexual health tests. Hepatitis C was negative. The HIV result was sent to public health authorities. Jan knew.00:21:21 - Alone at home. The first time HIV hits your body, it feels horrible. Jan sat down and cried, then got up and asked himself: what have I actually lost? If he could get medication, nothing.00:25:26 - On the state roster. In Turkey, once public health confirms your status, you're in the system for life. It affects everything, including mandatory military service. HIV-positive men are exempt.00:25:52 - Faking Covid to get through the door. Hospitals wouldn't admit non-Covid patients. Jan pretended to have Covid to get past security. The clinics were ghost towns. The doctor who finally saw him was sleepless, zombie-like, but attentive for two minutes. It was enough.00:29:06 - Ten ...
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    51 mins
  • Eli Fitzgerald: Identity, Isolation, Integration

    Eli Fitzgerald: Identity, Isolation, Integration
    Mar 20 2026
    SummaryEli Fitzgerald is 26 years old and has never known life without HIV. There is no before and after, he says. There just is. He was taking seven pills a day as a child, alarms set for morning and night, unable to leave for school until he'd taken his meds. When the regime dropped to three pills, it felt life-changing. Those pills became his one certainty, the one thing he had control over.Eli came out as a trans man at around the same time he was navigating adolescence with a diagnosis he couldn't tell anyone about. The waiting list for gender-affirming care was six to seven years. There were no role models, no one to look up to who had been through both. The isolation was profound. In the school playground, friends made jokes about AIDS without knowing what they were saying. Eli kept his secret completely hidden.At some point, the lack of control over everything else led Eli to try to control his HIV in the only way available: stopping his medication, missing appointments. It's explained to him now as similar to how eating disorders work, that same impulse toward self-determination through self-harm. He got through it, found his people through CHIVA and the HIV sector, and eventually turned the isolation into advocacy.Today, Eli works as a peer support integration manager and advocates nationally and internationally for trans people living with HIV. He's clear about what's needed: full integration of gender-affirming care within HIV services. The research shows that trans people with access to hormones and surgery are more likely to stay on medication, more likely to remain undetectable. If we're not allowed to be ourselves, he asks, what makes people think we're going to look after ourselves?Timestamped Takeaways00:02:05 - No before and after. Eli has always had HIV. There's no differentiation between one life and another. He just is HIV positive.00:02:41 - Childhood resilience. When you're very young and know you have HIV, there's an innocence to it. It's just a diagnosis. Then you get older, hear jokes in the playground about AIDS, and realise it's much bigger than you understood.00:04:05 - The secret. Eli never told any school. It was just a secret you kept, completely hidden. But within healthcare, his team became family, always answering questions, making appointments fun even when he was grumpy.00:05:27 - Logical family. HIV clinics work hard to make you feel loved, not in spite of your HIV but because of it. Society tells people with HIV they're isolated, unlovable. The clinic becomes a foundation of trust.00:06:16 - Coming out as trans. Eli came out at fifteen or sixteen. The waiting list for gender-affirming care was six to seven years. There were no role models, no one who'd been through both HIV and transition.00:07:26 - Why role models matter. They give you hope that there's a future, that you'll be okay. Without them, you're stuck in an isolation cycle, thinking you're the only one. It erodes self-confidence.00:09:15 - The pill regime. As a child, Eli took seven pills a day, morning and night. You couldn't leave for school without taking your meds. When it dropped to three pills at night, it was transformative. Those pills became his certainty, his one constant.00:10:32 - The news about life expectancy. Eli was in Liverpool when the news broke that people with HIV can expect a normal lifespan. It was crazy, he says. Suddenly: we're going to be fine.00:11:11 - Normalising mortality. Before that news, Eli had just accepted life might be shorter. You still had things to do. Go to school, watch TV, eat. Nothing really changes in that sense.00:12:00 - Struggling with school. Between sixteen and eighteen, Eli couldn't stick with education while navigating being trans, going to college, working out what came next. His heart was always in advocacy, in wanting more for his friends and peers.00:13:26 - Two stigmatised identities. Being trans and HIV positive felt like sitting on a 3D wobbly fence, or being a ping pong ball. But the only thing you have control over is your HIV.00:14:52 - Stopping medication. When everything felt out of control, Eli turned to the one thing he could control: his HIV. He stopped taking his meds, missed appointments. It wasn't good, but it was his.00:15:31 - Why people stop. There are many reasons. You can't face HIV, life is derailing, you don't want to be a person who takes meds. It works like an eating disorder, that element of control through self-harm.00:16:45 - Pills at parties. As a teenager, Eli would go to house parties with pills wrapped in tinfoil, looking like he was hoarding drugs. He'd sneak off to the toilet so no one would see.00:17:49 - Unanswered questions. Trans people living with HIV ask: will I be okay? Will I be allowed surgery? Can I take hormones? Will I be allowed to be myself? Will HIV stop me reaching my goals?00:19:18 - CliniQ. The trans sexual health and wellbeing service makes you feel seen. They understand, they listen, they have ...
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    37 mins
  • Silvia Petretti: Peers, Power, Persistence

    Silvia Petretti: Peers, Power, Persistence
    Mar 13 2026
    SummarySilvia Petretti came to London from Rome in 1986, aged twenty, fleeing grief after her mother's sudden death. The plan was a two-week English course. She never went back. London in the late 80s was vibrant with clubs, music, warehouse parties, the summer of love. She settled in Brixton, fell in love with Afro-Caribbean culture, studied African languages and arts, and began promoting drumming and dance.In 1997, while in Rome caring for her father who had Alzheimer's, Silvia contracted cerebral malaria on a trip to Senegal. In hospital, recovering slowly, a nurse offered her an HIV test at the bedside, no counselling, no privacy. The result was positive. She was thirty years old, alone, and told she might have one or two years to live. Her first treatment regime was eighteen pills a day, some with food, some without, alarms set through the night. The drugs were toxic. Skin flaked. Bodies deformed. You didn't know, she says, if AIDS was going to kill you or the medication.For months, Silvia told almost no one. She felt unlovable, untouchable, toxic. While her friends were getting married and planning futures, she was planning her funeral. Then a doctor at St George's Hospital suggested she visit a support group called Positively Women. Walking into that room, seeing women of all backgrounds living well with HIV, changed everything. Within six months, she was volunteering. By 2001, she was working there. Today, she is Chief Executive of Positively UK, the organisation that Positively Women became, leading peer support services embedded in NHS clinics across London and beyond.Timestamped Takeaways00:02:19 - Rome to London. Silvia's mother died when she was twenty. Grief brought her to London for what was meant to be a two-week English course. She stayed.00:03:22 - 1980s London. The city was vibrant with clubs, warehouse parties, the acid house scene. For a young woman from traditional Rome, it had everything to offer.00:04:09 - Brixton and African culture. Living in Brixton, Silvia fell in love with Afro-Caribbean culture, blues parties, squats, artists. She studied African languages and Yoruba culture.00:05:21 - Malaria and diagnosis. In 1997, Silvia contracted cerebral malaria in Senegal. In hospital in Rome, not recovering, a nurse offered an HIV test at the bedside with no counselling. The result was positive.00:07:13 - Terror and shame. There was no information, no support. Silvia told no one and cried for weeks. The first six months are a blur of trauma and shock.00:08:29 - Thirty years old. Silvia was working multiple jobs, trying to save for a master's degree. She had no financial stability. Everything around her said this was her fault, that she was shameful, unlovable, untouchable.00:10:34 - Invisible as a woman. In 1997, HIV was still framed as a gay disease. There was nothing for women, no condoms given, no conversation about what came next.00:11:02 - Eighteen pills a day. Silvia's first regime included drugs like Invirase, Ritonavir, and DDI. Some needed food, some didn't. Alarms through the night. Impossible adherence. You didn't know if AIDS or the medication would kill you.00:12:57 - Body dystrophy. The drugs caused fat redistribution, deformed bodies, thin arms, enlarged stomachs. Women stopped being asked if they were pregnant. For women, whose appearance is so often tied to value, it was devastating.00:14:39 - Fragile and toxic. Silvia felt her body was hosting the enemy. Her future was gone. While friends planned weddings and children, she planned her funeral.00:16:51 - Back to London. After her father died, Silvia returned to London with £100 and a virus. She hadn't told her brother. She was grieving, lonely, and very low.00:17:16 - St George's Hospital. A doctor named Davidson saw Silvia regularly. For 45 minutes each visit, Silvia just cried. Eventually, the doctor suggested antidepressants and a support group called Positively Women.00:18:19 - The first support group. Walking in, Silvia couldn't believe it. Women from Africa, women with children, a crèche. Everyone looked well and lively. She kept asking: are they all living with HIV?00:19:17 - Learning to live. Slowly, attending regularly, Silvia heard women discussing dating with HIV, something she couldn't imagine. She learned her eighteen pills could become two. A peer told her to demand better treatment from her doctor.00:20:40 - Women's invisibility. Women are 52% of people with HIV globally, over eighteen million, yet most research is done on men. Treatments had worse side effects for women because they weren't studied on women's bodies.00:22:20 - Speaking up as a woman. Socialised to be quiet, to not speak about her needs, Silvia found it hard to contribute in meetings dominated by articulate British-born gay men. She advocates for critical mass: at least three women in any room, so voices can be heard.00:24:38 - Sheila and Janey. Positively Women was founded in 1987 by Sheila Gilchrist and Janey Davis, women who ...
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    51 mins
All stars
Most relevant
Fabulous interview. I found it very moving and informative. Highly recommended. I feel that I gave a better understanding of AIDS in the 80s/90s.

A must listen podcast

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