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
  • Diego Agurto Beroiza: Archives, Activism, Alarm

    Diego Agurto Beroiza: Archives, Activism, Alarm
    Mar 6 2026
    SummaryDiego Agurto Beroiza is Chilean, HIV positive, and living in London. When someone in his community dies from HIV-related causes, he says, we become incomplete. So he's building a museum. Not a building, but a living archive made of testimonies performed on stage. He calls it the Living Museum of Emotional Archives, built on a simple idea: when someone dies, their emotional archive shouldn't disappear with them.This conversation, recorded while Diego was in Santiago, covers the shadow of Chile's dictatorship over the early HIV response, the experience of being a migrant accessing services in London, and the rising threat of the far right across Latin America and beyond. Diego is direct about what he sees: funding cuts to PrEP in Argentina, conservative victories in Chile, the same playbook spreading across borders. He doesn't think the UK is immune.Diego was an activist before his diagnosis, but receiving his own positive result changed something. He had the knowledge, he thought, until suddenly he felt he knew nothing. Treatment came within a month, but what stayed with him was the memory of his new community, the history of those who came before him, who didn't have what he now has. That history, he believes, must be preserved and performed.Timestamped Takeaways00:02:38 - Chile's dictatorship and patient zero. The coup began in 1973. Chile's first HIV case was recorded in 1984. The dictatorship declared it wasn't a national problem, just one case, just gay people. The bodies from that era are still being searched for today.00:03:29 - Diagnosis changes everything. Diego was an activist before testing positive. He thought he had the knowledge. When the diagnosis came, he felt he knew nothing. His identity shifted. He became part of a community with a different history.00:05:41 - Arriving in London. Diego arrived in 2023 with connections through Terrence Higgins Trust. For others without those links, language barriers and fragmented information make access harder. There's also fear that speaking publicly about HIV status could affect immigration.00:07:20 - Stigma built in the 80s. Chile's patient zero died during the dictatorship. The mass media, closely aligned with the regime, framed HIV as a "gay cancer." That construction of stigma persists.00:09:02 - Diaspora as reinvention. Moving to London allowed Diego to speak publicly about his status in ways that felt impossible in Chile. The legal protections in the UK made a difference. He used his condition to speak politically, in universities and other spaces.00:09:39 - Telling his family. Diego didn't want to tell his mother because she would cry, and he didn't have the energy to explain everything. This year, he finally had the conversation, setting boundaries first: he would explain what happened, that he's undetectable, that he won't die. Questions could come tomorrow.00:11:08 - The far right wins Chile. The week before this recording, Chile elected a far-right president with close ties to Pinochet-era politics. Diego's community is in danger. They know what these politicians think about LGBTQ+ people, about women's rights, about those living with HIV.00:12:36 - Guilt as a weapon. The far right uses guilt, Diego explains. Catholic ideas of sin, the notion that people living with HIV are responsible for their condition and should pay for their own treatment. In Argentina, funding for PrEP has been cut. The same ideas are spreading.00:14:28 - A pandemic returning. If funding is cut and treatment becomes unaffordable, the pandemic will come again. HIV rates are already rising in parts of Europe and Latin America. Nobody wants to call it a pandemic, but Diego believes it could become one.00:15:08 - Why should you pay? Diego answers the question directly: because we are a society. He pays taxes for schools and maternity care despite having no children. Healthcare is collective. One part of the community's problem is everyone's problem.00:16:56 - Conservative strategies are old. The Bible, the family, the same playbook for a thousand years. Queer communities need new strategies, need to think faster. Maybe performance isn't enough right now. Maybe the street is needed.00:18:06 - Why the UK should care. When Chile falls to the far right, it becomes an example for others. Trump's victory enabled others. Argentina, El Salvador, Chile, these are models being watched. The UK is not safe.00:20:30 - Human rights are universal. When one group is endangered, it's a problem for humanity. The genocide being watched on Instagram isn't just Palestine's problem. It's everyone's. The same applies to HIV.00:21:43 - Real action, not hashtags. Diego is concerned about the future. Sharing stories on Instagram and sending hugs isn't enough. Something really active is needed. Connections between groups, between activists, across borders.00:22:12 - Theatre as testimony. The Living Museum of Emotional Archives collects testimonies and performs them. When audiences hear ...
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    29 mins
  • Garry Brough: Peers, Passion, Perseverance

    Garry Brough: Peers, Passion, Perseverance
    Feb 27 2026
    SummaryGarry Brough grew up in a Welsh mining village in the 1970s and 80s, where being different meant being singled out. He was teased and tormented daily, long before he knew he was gay. His father, the local football team manager, kept trying to take him to matches. It never took. At eleven, Garry dropped Welsh and took Italian, reasoning that a foreign language was his ticket out. He assumed the rest of the UK was as suffocating as the valleys. Perhaps another country would be better.London, when he arrived, was transformative. Within two weeks, he was at Camden Palace in makeup and satins, watching a psychedelic goth diva, and nobody looked twice. He went out six or seven nights a week and drank at every one. By his final year of university, it was falling apart. A lecturer gently asked if drink might be a problem. He detoxed, got sober, then relapsed after his HIV diagnosis in 1991. He was 23. The prognosis was five years.In 1995, the bruise that wouldn't fade turned out to be Kaposi's sarcoma. His CD4 count was 84. The Aids diagnosis arrived four years before he was supposed to die. He'd done everything right, and it hadn't worked. On his 30th birthday, a birthday he was never meant to see, Garry started combination therapy. Within days, he felt more alive than he had in years.The decades since have been spent building peer support infrastructure across the UK, from the Bloomsbury Clinic to Positively UK to the NHS. Garry now works on Fast Track Cities, the initiative aiming for zero transmissions, zero deaths, and zero stigma by 2030. He recently got married. The 23-year-old who couldn't imagine being loved would never have believed it.Timestamped Takeaways00:02:15 - Growing up in the Welsh valleys. Garry describes an insular community with fixed expectations. Boys became miners. They married their childhood sweethearts from the next street. He didn't fit.00:03:16 - Teased before he knew why. Long before Garry understood he was gay, his peers recognised difference. The daily torment started early.00:06:20 - Finding others. At seventeen, Garry met people from neighbouring towns who were going down to Cardiff at weekends. There was suddenly a group with something in common, and it was liberating.00:08:21 - Italian as an escape route. At eleven, Garry chose Italian over Welsh, reasoning that a foreign language would take him further from home than anywhere else in the UK.00:09:45 - London, week two. At Camden Palace, in satins and makeup, nobody pointed or shouted or spat. The sense of belonging was immediate and lasted for years.00:12:38 - Drinking as escape. From sixteen, alcohol released Garry from fear. In London, with clubs every night of the week, the drinking escalated. By his final year, he was passing out nightly.00:15:09 - Detox and relapse. A lecturer suggested drink might be the problem. Garry detoxed medically, got sober for a year, then convinced himself he could drink normally again. Within three days, he was back to lunchtime drinking.00:16:04 - Testing every year. From 1985, when the test became available, Garry went annually. Friends thought he was mad. He wanted to know.00:17:26 - The positive result. In February 1991, eight months sober, he assumed everything would be fine. It wasn't. He traced it back to those final chaotic weeks of drinking before his first detox.00:19:45 - Five years to live. The doctor laid it out plainly. Two to three years before symptoms, another couple after that. Garry was 23. He decided to finish his degree.00:22:18 - Planning the end. Garry told friends and family he wouldn't allow himself to become bedridden and nurse-dependent. When it got bad, he would take his life. He wrote a living will.00:23:22 - Miserable drinking. After graduating, Garry started drinking again, but this time it was solitary and joyless. After six months, he asked himself: do you want to die drunk and miserable, or have five years of life?00:26:42 - Watching friends disappear. The early to mid 90s was the peak. Young men with walking sticks. People you saw deteriorate. The phrase "so-and-so's in hospital" became commonplace.00:30:01 - The Aids diagnosis. In 1995, a bruise that wouldn't fade turned out to be Kaposi's sarcoma. Garry's CD4 count was 84. Combined with the candidiasis already present, it was an Aids-defining diagnosis. He had spent four years doing everything right. It felt like a cheat.00:33:26 - The long-term survivor quiz. Reading American newsletters, Garry found a list of twelve qualities associated with longer survival. He ticked eight. He resolved to get all twelve.00:36:48 - Seeing someone rise from a deathbed. A friend meant to be dying walked into a bar saying he was going dancing. He'd started the new combination therapy in hospital. Garry went to his doctor.00:38:16 - Treatment on his 30th birthday. Garry insisted on making it to thirty on his own terms, with chemotherapy alone. On his birthday, he started the new drugs. Within days, he felt more ...
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    1 hr and 6 mins
  • Angelina Namiba: Motherhood, Mentoring, Movement

    Angelina Namiba: Motherhood, Mentoring, Movement
    Feb 20 2026
    In 1993, Angelina Namiba was finishing her finals at Manchester Metropolitan University when she fell seriously ill. Her GP suggested an HIV test. She took the referral paper, put it under her bed, and didn't go. When he wrote again, underlining "strongly" in red, she went for the test but never collected the results. She already knew what HIV looked like. Her brother, studying in London, had been in and out of specialist wards with Kaposi's sarcoma, meningitis, and epileptic fits. He died at Mildmay Hospice. She was terrified.Eventually, pre-test counselling gave her the courage to try again. A friend from secondary school in Kenya called and said: ring me when you get the result. Whatever it is, I'll be there. Angelina tested positive in her early twenties, believing she had perhaps six months to live.She didn't die. She took a job the same week as her diagnosis to keep busy whilst waiting for the end. That decision, and the peer support she found through organisations run by gay men who already knew how to do this work, kept her going. In 1998, she had a daughter, born HIV-free thanks to treatment during pregnancy. She went on to co-found the 4M Network, training mentor mothers to support women through the pregnancy journey. And with four other African women living with HIV in the UK, she co-authored Our Stories Told by Us, a book reclaiming the narrative from statistics and tragedy.Timestamped Takeaways00:02:09 - Before diagnosis. Angelina was focussed on her university finals. As a foreign student from Kenya, she needed to justify the fees her mother had paid.00:03:11 - The spirit of Harambee. In Kenya, communities come together to help those in need, whether for school fees, funerals, or weddings. This collective spirit shaped Angelina's approach to peer support.00:04:41 - The test she didn't take. After her GP suggested an HIV test, Angelina put the referral under her bed and went to the library to look up hepatitis B instead. HIV felt too frightening to face.00:06:32 - No information for women like her. Everything Angelina had seen about HIV featured white gay men. The image of Freddie Mercury on the tabloids after his death. Men getting ill and dying. Nothing aimed at African women.00:07:55 - The letter underlined in red. When Angelina still hadn't gone for the test, her GP wrote again, underlining "strongly" in red ink. That scared her enough to go.00:10:09 - What she already knew. Angelina's brother had been diagnosed before her. She watched him develop Kaposi's sarcoma, meningitis, and epileptic fits. He spent his final year between specialist wards and died at Mildmay Hospice. This was her understanding of HIV.00:11:24 - A friend at the end of the line. Before going for her results, Angelina's school friend from Kenya said: call me whatever happens. Knowing someone was waiting made it possible to face the news.00:12:40 - Two ways to take it. Diagnosed in her early twenties, Angelina decided she could either go negative or make the most of her remaining time. She chose the latter.00:13:24 - Finally, another woman. A friend came to Angelina with news of her own diagnosis. Angelina's response: yes, finally, another woman in London living with HIV. Her friend took her to support groups.00:14:47 - Learning from gay men. The main support available came from organisations led by gay men who already understood stigma, illness, and mutual aid. They welcomed the women and showed them how to do support work themselves.00:16:43 - Stigma and silence. Many African women were being diagnosed but not accessing services. Internalised stigma, fear of judgement, and the taboo around talking about sex kept them hidden.00:18:25 - "How did you get HIV?" Journalists kept asking this question, trying to place her in a box of guilt or innocence. Angelina eventually answered: I got HIV not because of what I did, but because of what I didn't do. I didn't use a condom. Like millions of other young people.00:21:57 - Pregnancy and motherhood. In 1998, Angelina had a daughter, born HIV-free thanks to treatment during pregnancy. Guidelines then required caesarean section and no breastfeeding. She kept a week-by-week pregnancy diary for her daughter to read.00:23:57 - Eighteen months of waiting. In those days, babies were tested repeatedly until 18 months old. Only then could mothers breathe a sigh of relief.00:25:01 - Her daughter now. Angelina's daughter is a singer-songwriter. She can be found on Instagram at @realhamzaa.00:26:33 - The 4M Network. Angelina co-founded this perinatal peer mentoring project. 4M stands for My Health, My Choice, My Child, My Life. It trains mentor mothers to support their peers through pregnancy and beyond.00:27:37 - Why mentor mothers matter. A mentor mother has walked the journey before. She understands the anxieties, the domestic violence some women face when disclosing, the immigration issues, the poverty. She can hold your hand through it.00:29:52 - Breastfeeding and choice. With ...
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    44 mins
  • Alexander Cheves: Sex, Sovereignty, Survival

    Alexander Cheves: Sex, Sovereignty, Survival
    Feb 13 2026
    SummaryAlexander Cheves grew up on a 500-acre farm in rural Georgia, raised by evangelical missionary parents who blocked gay websites and warned him that choosing this "lifestyle" meant choosing death. At sixteen, he decided to come out anyway, convinced he was trading a long life for a brief, honest one. He tested positive for HIV at twenty, in 2013, during his final year of college.What followed wasn't the manageable adjustment the medical timeline might suggest. In the six months after diagnosis, Alexander fell into a depression so severe he nearly didn't survive it. He went through a period of manic sex without disclosure, behaviour he's since written about with unflinching honesty in his memoir My Love Is a Beast. He later learned from infectious disease specialists that this response is statistically common, though rarely discussed.This conversation covers Alexander's decade as a sex worker, his move from Atlanta to New York to Berlin, his relationship with drugs and nightlife, and his views on HIV criminalisation and personal responsibility. He talks about friends who didn't make it, including one who died after "bug chasing" and never sought treatment. And he reflects on turning thirty, an age his father once predicted he wouldn't reach, and discovering that life only got better from there.Timestamped Takeaways00:02:25 - Growing up isolated. Alexander describes the 500-acre farm, the Christian parental blockers, and arriving at college in 2010 believing gay life still looked like 1985.00:05:18 - Choosing death over the closet. At sixteen, Alexander made a conscious decision that a brief, honest life was preferable to survival in hiding. He wrote a 13-page poem debating it with himself.00:09:37 - The closet is unendurable. Alexander reflects on why so many queer men choose perceived shorter lives over staying hidden. The daily anxiety of concealment, he argues, is a form of suffering that cannot be sustained.00:12:20 - College and consequences. With no sex education from his parents, Alexander went wild. He was in and out of the student health clinic constantly. In hindsight, testing positive at twenty was no surprise.00:14:43 - The drive to the clinic. When the clinic refused to give results over the phone, Alexander knew. The six months that followed were the hardest of his life to survive.00:16:05 - 2013 realities. Pre-PrEP, pre-U=U. Doctors worried about medication adherence in young patients. Alexander was told disclosure was entirely his responsibility.00:18:04 - No one would touch him. Overnight, his sex life ended. The only partners willing to engage were older men who understood HIV. These "gay daddies" saved his life.00:19:52 - The manic period. Alexander describes anonymous, strategic sex without disclosure in the months before medication. He later learned this response is clinically documented, though he'd thought himself uniquely transgressive.00:24:22 - Sex work and healing. Alexander spent nearly a decade as an escort, learning that many clients simply wanted someone to talk to. The loneliest were often older men who'd lost everyone in the plague years.00:29:02 - Drugs, loneliness, and gay culture. Higher rates of substance abuse among gay men, Alexander suggests, stem from isolation, societal trauma, and a culture built in spaces of consumption.00:30:17 - Harm reduction, not abstinence. Therapists at Gay Men's Health Crisis in New York focussed on moderation. Combined with daily meditation started after diagnosis, Alexander found a relationship with drugs that works for him.00:36:09 - The friend who didn't make it. A fellow sex worker and friend, into bug chasing, caught HIV deliberately and never sought treatment. Alexander believes shame killed him as much as the virus.00:41:01 - HIV criminalisation. American law still places responsibility entirely on the positive partner, even in consensual encounters. Alexander argues this is outdated, weaponised, and ignores individual agency.00:45:48 - Bareback culture as safe space. In spaces where everyone shares responsibility, status becomes irrelevant. For Alexander, these environments were healing.00:50:38 - Surviving past thirty. Alexander's father predicted he wouldn't live beyond thirty. When that birthday came and went, Alexander realised he'd never planned for a future. He moved to Berlin to live the life he hadn't imagined.00:56:38 - Shame as disease. Alexander rejects the idea of "good shame." He believes shame kills people, and the only antidote is self-love, however hokey that sounds.01:06:08 - On the other side of nihilism is joy. Life has no meaning, and that's liberating. Black holes will swallow everything eventually. In the meantime, there's no reason not to enjoy it.01:09:51 - Remembering Sean. Alexander recalls a gay couple in Atlanta who gave him a room for almost nothing. When one of them, Sean, died of cancer in his forties, the community came together. Sean was one of many gay elders who provided shelter when a ...
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    1 hr and 16 mins
  • Chris Smith: Diagnosis, Discovery, Defiance

    Chris Smith: Diagnosis, Discovery, Defiance
    Feb 6 2026
    SummaryIn 1987, Chris Smith received an HIV diagnosis and was told he might have months to live. His doctor's advice? Learn to live with uncertainty. Thirty-eight years later, he's the Chancellor of Cambridge University.This episode traces Chris's journey through the darkest years of the epidemic whilst serving in the heart of British politics. He recounts the moment he came out as gay at a Rugby rally in 1984, his hands shaking, only to receive a standing ovation twenty seconds into his speech. He describes navigating Section 28 debates whilst secretly managing Kaposi's sarcoma and the brutal side effects of alpha interferon. And he shares the unlikely deal he struck with the Sunday Times that eventually led to a phone call from Nelson Mandela.Chris reflects on what it meant to carry a secret whilst holding public office, the transformation that combination therapy brought, and the friend he lost in the late 80s whose memory still stays with him. His closing message is characteristically direct: be yourself, be unafraid, and tell your story in your own way.Timestamped Takeaways00:02:23 - Coming out at Rugby, 1984. Chris describes the moment he decided, mid-rally, to publicly declare his sexuality. A thousand people stood and applauded before he'd finished his first sentence.00:07:32 - Public attitudes shifted faster than politics. Chris observes that ordinary people coming out in their families, workplaces, and neighbourhoods drove change more than any politician or celebrity.00:10:13 - The terror of early awareness. News of the virus filtered through from America. Government tombstone adverts amplified fear rather than understanding.00:12:41 - "Learn to live with uncertainty." Chris's doctor delivered this advice in the days before AZT. It became a guiding principle for the next four decades.00:15:14 - Section 28 and finding love. Amid vile parliamentary speeches, Chris spotted an attractive young man across a committee room. They ended up living together for 24 years.00:17:56 - Kaposi's sarcoma arrives. The visible marker of AIDS in films like Philadelphia appeared on Chris's body, though thankfully not where the public could see.00:19:07 - Alpha interferon hell. For a year, Chris oscillated between feeling like he had severe flu and feeling normal, all whilst maintaining a demanding public role.00:22:01 - Combination therapy changes everything. Suddenly there was hope. Side effects disappeared. Viral loads became undetectable.00:25:19 - The Sunday Times deal. A journalist discovered Chris's status. Rather than fight it, Chris negotiated: hold the story, and when he was ready, the paper would have the exclusive.00:28:55 - Mandela calls. Two years after the deal, inspired by Mandela's speech at his son's funeral, Chris went public. The next morning, a note on his desk read: "Please ring Mr. Mandela."00:35:07 - Living with uncertainty today. Combination therapy has transformed the nature of uncertainty, but no one yet knows what 38 years of living with HIV means for the decades ahead.00:36:16 - Remembering a friend. Chris recalls visiting a friend in his final weeks, a man once full of the joys of existence, now shrivelled and gaunt. The shock of seeing him was greater than losing him.00:37:36 - The postcard to the world. "Be yourself. Be unafraid, and tell your story in your own way."Guest BioLord Chris Smith was elected MP for Islington South and Finsbury in 1983. He became Britain's first MP to voluntarily come out as gay in 1984, the world's first openly gay cabinet minister in 1997, and the first UK MP to publicly disclose living with HIV in 2005. He is currently Chancellor of the University of Cambridge.ResourcesTerrence Higgins Trust - tht.org.uk - UK's leading HIV and sexual health charityNational AIDS Trust - nat.org.uk - Policy, campaigning, and supportPositively UK - positivelyuk.org - Peer-led support for people living with HIVHIV i-Base - i-base.info - Treatment information and advocacyThe Food Chain - foodchain.org.uk - Nutrition services for people living with HIV in LondonThe Food Chain (Patron: Chris Smith): https://www.foodchain.org.uk
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    41 mins