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Lord James Rendell
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HIV Activism
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By Federico Hernández Plasencia, Madrid, Spain, December 2011.
(A SHORT HISTORY OF HIV ACTIVISM IN SPAIN)
"Some associations have become a kind of colossus where the same faces say the same things and repeat the same patterns year after year, with no renovation of members, speakers, messages or managers. They seem to be there just to obtain public or private funding to keep going on paying salaries to their technicians".
THE BEGINNINGS AND CONSOLIDATION OF THE ASSOCIATION MOVEMENT
In Spain, as well as in the rest of Europe, the people's response to the fight against HIV/AIDS was articulated by the end of the 80's by groups of citizens in almost all important cities of the country. These groups were formed by people living with HIV/AIDS, their relatives, healthcare professionals, social workers and political activists.
At that time, a majority of people affected were IDU's (intravenous drug users), also their heterosexual partners, followed by men having sex with men, and sex workers. This supposed that the composition of the first NGO's and groups of activists was plural, including all kinds of affected people. So, no groups were aimed solely at gays MSM, or for IDU`s existed, which was different than in Northern European countries and in the United States.
In fact, gay groups and associations at that time did not want to get involved in fighting HIV/AIDS, since they feared the stigma this illness would add to what they called the gay community. In Spain being gay all related to a certain gay lifestyle: cinema, fashion, theater, arts, tendencies..., all that, was the fashion in a kind of cultural renaissance and splendor in a young fast growing democracy. There was no point at all about these stories of HIV to ruin their party. (Unfortunately, it did). As an anecdote, I can say that, in Madrid, the majority of gay bars, gay sex-bars, saunas, etc. refused condoms or leaflet distribution or any educational activity. Only one gay bar in Madrid helped in this: Rimmel Bar, surprisingly, a gay bar owned and managed by heterosexuals, that is still open every night in the City center.
Meanwhile, in big cities such as Madrid, Barcelona and Bilbao, the germination of these first groups were attached to some healthcare services, and notably by some health care professionals concerned and socially motivated, whose help and support was very important during their first steps.
In Madrid, the first citizen's committee that begun working to fight HIV/ADIS was "El Ciempiés" (The Centipede), leaded by Manuel Trillo, a notable character: IDU, gay, ex-seminarian (although he did not conclude his career as a priest), lottery seller and social worker in a catholic mission in poor neighbourhoods of Madrid. Together with Manuel (Manolito), was Hector Anabitarte, journalist, communist, an Argentinian that escaped from Videla's dictatorship as a political refugee in Madrid, in 1977. Anabitarte founded in Buenos Aires, in 1966, the first gay movement in South America, Nuestro Mundo (Our World), a courageous and politically oriented group. They expressed themselves in a monthly clandestine paper named also Nuestro Mundo.
Anabitarte was a worker in the Postal Service of Buenos Aires, and a member of the Argentinian communist party (banned and prosecuted by the dictatorial regime). Being out as a gay man meant he was expelled from the communist party in 1968, and also that he lost his job in the Postal Service.
These two very interesting characters started El Ciempiés with the collaboration of Ms Concha Colomo (a healthcare professional of a municipal health center: "Centro de Navas de Tolosa", a center that specialized at that time in STDs (This center still leads the first line of confidential and anonymous attention to people affected by STDs and HIV: diagnosis, counseling, statistics.., in the central Madrid city area). There's a film named "La Vida Alegre" (The cheerful life) which reflects, with humor, the beginning of this experience. The filmmaker is a reputed Spanish director: Fernando Colomo, who is the brother of Concha Colomo.
The first testimonies of people living with HIV Spaniards heard on the radio, and watched on TV programs came out from people participating in El Ciempiés 'initiatives. El Ciempiés was the foundation stone of the Comité Ciudadano Anti-Sida de Madrid (Madrid's Citizens Group to Fight HIV/AIDS), and also of the Comité Gay de Madrid, COGAM, and Manuel Trillo was member and founder of both associations.
Manuel Trillo, ?Manolito?, died of AIDS in Ecuador, South America, in 1998, being 37 years old. He went there with his boyfriend, since one of his dreams was to visit and travel to South America, a wish he achieved. In 2011 the Gay committee of Madrid (COGAM www.cogam.es ) made a tribute to Manuel Trillo with a conference and the edition of a booklet containing some paintings made by his boyfriend Gerardo Gutiérrez.
Hector Anabitarte continued his work in gay and HIV/AIDS activism during all the 90's and nowadays collaborates with many Associations of Migrants and Civil Rights in Madrid area, and is a journalist.
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