LOS ANGELES — For Plus magazine’s September/October issue, the publication announced its curated list of the 75 Most Amazing HIV+ People of 2016. This year’s edition of the annual list includes everyone from activists to artists who all have one thing in common: they are fighters and advocates for a more informed community. Topping this year’s list is famed American author and editor Kevin Sessums, who helped shape personality-driven culture with his famed one-on-one celebrity profiles that have graced numerous magazine covers. The list also includes Chandi Moore, one of the breakout stars from E!’s I Am Cait, who as an HIV-positive trans woman co-founded Trans Girls in Action Divas.
With so many incredible people to include this year, the September/October print issue contains 16 of this year’s 75 influential names. Visit HIVPlusMag.com to read about the rest of this year’s standouts.
Select quotes from the interviews with Kevin Sessums and Chandi Moore are featured below:
Kevin Sessums
Tell us about finding out you are HIV-positive.
“I was coming off a drug binge in South Beach, where I had a pied-a-terre, and came down with the textbook symptoms. I got tested and heard the dreaded words, ‘You are HIV positive’ from a doctor who was a stranger to me. But I guess that made sense- since it was a stranger no doubt who infected me – because my drug sex was always with strangers. Oddly, the diagnosis didn’t make me get sober, but pushed me deeper into my addiction, because I thought I had nothing else to lose. It wasn’t until several years later – after I had indeed lost it all – that I began my journey toward sobriety. I think part of my addiction was the grieving process for my HIV-negative self. That was the death that occurred: my HIV-negative self was no more. But my HIV-positive self lives on – and is a much better and honorable and empathetic self because of it. I wish I could have gotten to this place of acceptance and living a more honorable and sober life without having to be HIV-positive. I won’t lie about that: I wish I were not positive. But that has not been my journey. It is a journey that continues. And I am grateful for it.
You’ve written about being sexually abused, saying that, “Violation – not love, not intimacy – would be what I would come to seek sexually the rest of my life.” Do you still feel like you seek out violation?
“I don’t seek it out anymore, no. I barely seek out sex of any kind – especially recreational sex. What changed is that I got sober four years ago. Also, I turned 60. I have had lots, and lots, and lots of recreational sex in my life and it just doesn’t hold the same appeal to me that it once did. The kinkiest thing I can think of right now is intimacy and monogamy because what we consider kinky is often what is outside our experience and those are two things I’ve always had problems with. Now that I’ve turned 60, I find those two things enticing.”
Chandi Moore
What people really love about you on I Am Cait is that you talk about the difficulties you’ve had in your life. Is that something you share with the kids that you work with?
“I definitely share that with the kids that I work with because trans women of color are not only more likely to contract HIV, but they’re more likely to be murdered as well. Promoting being tested and being comfortable with yourself is something that is very near and dear to my heart. My heart goes out to all those people in Orlando. I just hope that the good thing that comes out of this, not that any of it is good, is that our community can unite, and not separate. We need to come together.”
LGBTQ youth suicide is a big issue as well.
“It just makes life difficult when you’re thrown out on the street, thrown out to the wolves, set up, basically, to contract HIV, because you have to survive out there on those streets. Survival sex is very prevalent in our community. It’s very challenging trying to keep yourself motivated to be your authentic self when you live in a society that judges you.”
What does it mean for you to do HIV outreach to kids now?
“I enjoy doing outreach. We have a group called B3, which is for HIV-positive youth, and we also have LIFE, which is for gay, straight, bi, trans youth in between the ages of 12 and 24. [I’m] able to get out there and have those one-on-one conversations with them, passing out condoms … PrEP is something that we’re definitely encouraging our youth to look into right now. I like seeing the smiles on [the kids] faces, when we can get them to smile, because a lot of the youth that we deal with are homeless. Sometimes they’re not having a good day, and … you kind of have to meet people where they stand. That’s why I’m sure a big hugger of everybody that I come in contact with. Because you never know what that hug will do, how that will change someone’s momentum in their day.”
Read Plus’s full profiles of The Most Amazing HIV+ People of 2016 now at:
http://bit.ly/AmzPoz2016
