 Thanks Amy. We would now like to collectively take a moment to acknowledge all indigenous and first people of the land and space in which we live and breathe. For our community at Highline College, we recognize that we are on occupied Duwamish, Coast Salish, Makoshoot, and Puyallup lands. And we want to thank all relations and tribes today as we prepare to hold space as a community. We recognize that all of us are joining this conversation from different areas. So we also want to invite you to reflect and thank indigenous and first people of the land and spaces in which you're coming from. Thank you. Thank you Bob for grounding us this morning. I now have the honor of introducing our presenters for today's session, A History of HIV and Aids in Seattle. Pat Migliar, she, her pronouns helped found both the Babes Network and the now national organization of positive women's network. She has taught in Seattle schools and youth services for many years and currently teaches HIV Aids education to grades five through 12 and at local colleges. Jason Plored, he, him pronouns has worked for LGBTQ community organizations for over 20 years. Prior to his role as project manager for the Aids Memorial Pathway, he served as programming director and then executive director of the nonprofit $3 Bill Cinema. Fred Swanson, he, him pronouns has been executive director of Gay City Seattle's LGBTQ Center for 20 years. He's also on the Human Services Commission in Burien and active with Highline Public Schools, serving on both the Family Action Council and the Advisory Committee for Instruction on Race and Identity. Please join me in welcoming Pat, Jason and Fred to our virtual stage. Thanks so much, Amy. We are really happy to be here. And so we're going to be spending the next 45 minutes or so with you. And we have a slide presentation to guide us. But we'll probably be doing a lot of talking as well as looking at the slides. The way that we have the program set up today. Next slide. You'll see each of us who have already been introduced will have a different section. And so we're going to start with Pat talking about the early days of the AIDS crisis in the 80s and also talking some about the work that she did in organizing support for women living with HIV. And then we'll shift over to me and I'll talk a little bit about the 90s, both the early 90s when I was working in Chicago at Howard Brown Health Center, which is an LGBTQ Health Center in Chicago. And then later in the 90s after Gay City, the organization where I've been working for 20 years was founded, and talk a little bit about Gay City and the work that we do. And then we'll shift to Jason who'll talk about the AIDS Memorial Pathway and how that came together and how it is a reflection on the history of HIV and AIDS in Seattle. So that's kind of what we'll be doing and what we'll be walking through together. So next slide. So we're going to start with Pat. So I'll hand it over to you. Thank you, Fred. Good morning, everybody. Nice to be with you all. Yes, okay, I am unmuted. I hate to be brilliant and be muted at the same time. I'm going to talk a little bit about what the early epidemic looked like and I'll start with how I kind of stepped into the AIDS universe. And I found out that I was HIV positive way back in 1986. I was married, my husband's name was Bob, and he found out before I did that he was positive. And he found out because he had donated blood. And that was the beginning of 85. They started to test the blood supply. And so he was one of the, I think there were 11 people who had been blood donors who had turned up positive. And so then I had to go and test. And I went to lovely Harborview Hospital to the STD clinic and I was very incredibly nervous, of course. And I just, I didn't know much of anything about HIV. I had actually taught sex education in classes previous to that, but that was pre HIV. Yes, there was a time before AIDS. I know that that's hard to believe. So I went in and the test counselor was great. And she, you know, she prepared me. And then there was a week to wait between getting the test and getting the results. And when I went in to get my results, she just said, well, I'm not going to beat around the bush, you're positive. And that was kind of the beginning of the journey. So I didn't know anything about HIV. And so of course, you know, knowledge, power, all that, we tried to find out as much as we could about HIV. And in doing that, we read as much as we could find. And I remember going to the library in Burien and trying to find anything, it was back in the days when there was a card catalog. I remember looking through the card catalog and finding everything that had to do with HIV and then gathering it all up and hiding out in the corner between the stacks so that nobody could see what I was looking at. And what I learned that day and was pretty much you get HIV, you get AIDS and you die. And that was 1986. So it was a matter of trying to find a doctor and trying to figure out who to tell and what was appropriate to tell. Because we all knew that at that time there was tremendous and there's still a tremendous stigma about HIV. And there were people who were losing their jobs and losing their friends when they made when they came out, sometimes they would lose their friends, family, jobs, communities of faith, roommates would walk out, it would be or actually kick the person out usually. So it was necessary that people were really discreet. Now, we were pretty discreet. I certainly know folks who weren't and who told everybody right away that they got their test results and they were positive. And they didn't have very much time to settle into the results before they just told everybody. We told nobody. Eventually we told a couple of friends and that was enough. But then I started to look for a support group. And I called up Seattle AIDS Support Group and I asked when the heterosexual support group met, silence. And I said, well, is there a women's support group? More silence. I said, well, what can you know, what's going on at Seattle AIDS Support Group? And I was told that there were support groups and there was not one in particular for women, but they did have a woman or two that would come to their regular groups, which of course were all men. Bob and I went to a support group where, of course, I was the only woman. And I learned a lot from the guys in that group. We had, after the official group ended, we continued to get together socially. And we would talk about the things that we'd been reading, because we were all reading about HIV to try to find out what was going on. And this was before there was any medication available. And so there were alternative types of medication available. And when I say that goes all the way from really good alternative medicine, naturopathic medicine, all the way to snake oil out of the back of somebody's truck. And people were just grasping at straws, trying to find anything that they could to take to try to slow down HIV. There was a lot of fear. People were afraid of us. And when I say us, I mean people with HIV, which is part of the reason we didn't want to tell our status. I realized then after going to that support group and becoming more involved at satellite support group, that if there was going to be a group for women that I better get going and start it. So I found a couple of other women with HIV. And we had been talking to like the test counselor and the social workers at Harborview. And they referred women periodically to the group of us. And we started an organization that became the babes network. And babes does not stand for anything in particular. It was when we were getting together at one of the co-founders houses, and we were having bring your favorite takeout potluck. And we were talking about our lives. And of course, the discussion turned to sex. And one woman stood up and people were lamenting not being able to have sex anymore, which wasn't really factual, but that's the way people felt. That's the way the women felt. One woman stood up and she put her hands on her hips. And she said, I was a babe before AIDS and I am still a babe. So that's kind of how we got the name. And this was, I know, it's hard to believe again, this was pre-internet. So once we got a website, it became much more interesting to find out the other organizations that had the word babes in it. Usually it would get flagged if we went on the computer and got found out. So we were a standalone organization for a number of years. And then when it became pretty clear that we were going to lose funding, a lot of funding, not all, but a lot, we became part of the YWCA, which is where we are still located downtown, first in Seneca, and the fifth in Seneca, excuse me. So the atmosphere then was, there was one big AIDS organization in town and lots of little ones. The big one was called Northwest AIDS Foundation, NWAF, NOAAF. And they were kind of the, they had the national recognition and they had the budgets. And so they were, they took on doing case management for people with HIV. And from then back, case management, okay, I'm sorry, I just had a call come in. They took in the case managers, their job wasn't just to manage the person's case. It often was to take their client to the grocery store to go to, certainly go to the doctor's appointments with them and be at their memorial services and speak at the memorial services because there was a tremendous amount of death happening. That very original group that I belong to, I'm the only survivor from it. Bob got sick. He got, and he had to leave his job, which meant that we had to start making explanations about HIV. And mainly because we had to explain why Bob left his job. And so we started telling people and some people understood and continued to be our friends. And some people dropped us and said they never to come around them or their children again. So it was, it was, it was a mixed bag. And some people really just didn't know how to act. And what they did is they just kind of receded and kind of ghosted us. So family was another issue, which was a huge issue back then. I know it still is now, but back then it was, everybody made the assumption that if you were gay, you had HIV, or if you had HIV, you must be gay. And so it was kind of, we were, nobody believed that women could get it, and that people, yeah, it was a pretty, pretty closed environment for trying to come out and for support. And people say all kinds of most interesting or uninteresting things then. And our favorite question is always, but how did you get it? Sex, got it through sex. But we never told, I never told my mother, we told Bob's parents. And Bob died in 1989. He had been part of the early ACT trials. And that was the first medication that was approved to fight HIV. It had some, some people had some really bad side effects from it because it was being given in a very large dose. And, you know, we were just trying to find our way back then. Kind of in the overall picture, as I said, Northwest AIDS Foundation was the big guy on the block. The health department was very involved and was basically in charge of whatever federal money came into the state of Washington and how that was distributed to different agencies. Bob Wood, Dr. Bob Wood is kind of a legend in Seattle Aidsville. He was, he, well, he's still alive. And he was head of the Seattle King County Public Health HIV AIDS Division. And he got, we, we did many projects together. And he was always on the go to list whenever there was a story about HIV. And we would sometimes have to hold our breath because we weren't sure what Bob was going to say. But Bob Wood, that is. My, probably the hardest part for me was all the deaths. And that meant lots of funerals at all times. And lots of, you know, we, we got used to going to funerals every, every week, sometimes a couple of few in the same week. We got to be, when I say we, you know, the friends I had with HIV. And we got to be quite the connoisseurs of where there was a good place to have a funeral. So we'd be talking about where to, where to conduct the service. And people would say, oh, well, let's see, I know that Lefler House charges this much and the aquarium charges this much. So it was kind of funny because we became somewhat of party planners as well. Bob's Memorial was at the, at the Arboretum. And, and there were all kinds. And at that time I used to talk about, and I think it's still somewhat true now, of the funeral of a person who died of HIV, who died of AIDS, and the people who might have been there to take care of them throughout his illness, I'm saying him in this case, were probably his partner and a group of friends, many of whom were gay and lesbian. And what happened when the parents stepped in, when the family stepped in, was very often at the end of that person's life, the family would kick out because they didn't approve of his, this guy's friends, kick them out and they would be sitting at the back of the church. So those were my back of the church people who were usually the folks who were doing the most caregiving for folks with HIV. And if the family didn't like them, they could, because there was no marriage. And so there was no people that had no, there was no recourse, you had to, it was family that was next to kin. So other organizations popped up, it was kind of like Northwest AIDS Foundation had a number of different organizations under them that they helped to fund. And they ranged from organizations like in touch, which was a massage, their massage therapist who gave free massages to people with HIV. And that was an important aspect because so many people were just afraid to touch us. And so that was that was very nurturing. It was, it was very comfortable and it felt good. But it also reassured us that there were people who were willing to touch us without freaking out. There was an organization called volunteers, attorneys for people with AIDS. There was a pet project. There were just, there were lots of different smaller organizations that eventually tended to get absorbed by Northwest AIDS Foundation, which later became Lifelong AIDS Foundation. No, it became Lifelong, yeah, it was Lifelong AIDS. And then it became, it's just Lifelong now. So I think they're trying to get away from their simple, their just being for people with HIV. A big organization that was around in the early days was what one called a chicken soup brigade. And that was to bring food and comfort to folks. And so it was making meals and bringing food to folks who were pretty much homebound. And they also provided a lot of emotional support because it comes to your house to bring food. Shanti was a very big organization that was a one-on-one organization. And there really was a need for all of these organizations. And what's interesting and unique is that they were founded by community members who were personally impacted by HIV. They were, people had real stories about how these organizations started. Unfortunately, over the long run, these organizations couldn't all be standalone organizations because it was too expensive. So many of them kind of got absorbed. It kind of became like a little portion of Lifelong or they, many of the organizations are no longer around. Oh, there's still what is around. But that's important to know about is P, is Pocan. Sorry, I was a PCAP, but Pocan, which is People of Color Against AIDS Network, was, has been the primary lead throughout the years of doing the, of making sure that the care and stories of people of color were getting out there. And it wasn't just, sorry guys, it wasn't just gay white men whose stories were out there because that was pretty much the emphasis at the beginning of the epidemic. I'm still around 37 years later. And I'm around because I have medications to take. I have, I'm repartnered. And so I'm, so my life is going pretty well. And, and I had no idea that I would be alive this long. So I blew all my savings a long, long time ago, as many of us did. So I think that that's probably a good start. And like to hand it back to Fred. Thank you. Thanks so much, Pat. So we'll go back to the slide show, I was going to say in a minute, I was going to pick it up there where Pat left off with this idea of people kind of going through their savings. And one of the things that happened, I guess I'm going to go back for just a second and talk a little bit about COVID. And so a year and a half ago, or whenever this started two years ago, I guess almost, one of the questions that came to me a lot and a lot of reporters called and were asking, you know, how is this different than the early days of AIDS? Is this like the beginning of AIDS, where there's this kind of pandemic and no one knows what's going on? And you know, what's so interesting. And what I talked a lot about at that time with reporters, and I think heard a lot from other people who live through the early AIDS epidemic was the biggest difference was we had every system working to try to fight COVID, to try to mobilize against COVID to do something about COVID. And it was not that way at all with AIDS. If anything, you know, Ronald Reagan was president. He made jokes with his cabinet about AIDS. It was viewed as something that gay men deserve, a way that you kind of solved a problem that existed of gay men living their lives. And so I think the biggest difference, while there were some similarities with the nobody knowing what was going on and lots of confusion, the biggest difference was that nobody cared. And it was, you know, when Pat talks about all these organizations that started in community, the reason that they started was because the government was not showing up. Nobody cared about the people that were dying of AIDS. No one cared to find a way to test for AIDS. The HIV test, I don't think came out until 85 or 86. It was just that nobody cared. And so you had an entire generation of gay men who passed because of HIV and AIDS. And the only people who cared were our community members. And oftentimes we were rejected by our families. So I mean, it was really a dark, dark period of time. And, you know, to hear Pat, your story about, you know, and within that. So all of the stigma that was keeping gay men from getting the support and help that they needed was then compounded by the fact that you weren't a gay man. And so you had all of that stigma, but then also this, you know, kind of, you know, peculiarity in the time of being a, you know, a woman in a straight relationship living with HIV and not having places for support or not having people who recognize that. So, you know, really, I'm so glad that you could share your story, Pat. And I think it's so important for people to really imagine what it was like in the 80s where you were going to, you know, a different funeral every week. Sometimes two funerals a week. The Seattle Gay News was just filled with names every week of all of the people dying and just what a tragedy and what an awful time it was. So on the note of kind of people getting their lives together, you know, Pat, as you were saying, many people in the 80s living with AIDS knew that they were going to die. And so in order to get their lives together, there were biomedical companies that would buy your life insurance. And so oftentimes people couldn't work anymore. So they would no longer have income. They would sell their life insurance so they would have money to live on. They would go through all of their life savings. And that's kind of, I guess, where I entered the picture in terms of my professional work around HIV was in the 90s. And I was working in Chicago at Howard Brown Health Center, which is the LGBT Health Center, also a big HIV services provider in Chicago. And the people that I worked with and the people that I, and at the time I was doing HIV testing and men's health work. And the folks that I ended up, the friending and being in their lives, were all in that place of essentially preparing to die. And for those of us who came out in the 80s, there was this sense of not only were you kind of challenging your parents' assumptions about who you were or any of those things, but for many of us, and I'll just say for me personally, it was a decision kind of to accept that your death was inevitable. That being gay was so associated with dying and so closely associated with HIV and AIDS. It was really hard to imagine that that wasn't going to be the inevitable kind of future. And I was really convinced, in spite of efforts to make healthy choices and all that stuff, that I would not last past 30. And I think many of us at that time just really, that was kind of what we thought was our future. And so around 95, combination therapy hit and it really changed everything as it related to HIV. And so all of a sudden you had an actual effective treatment. And so the outlook for people with HIV and the outlook for people with AIDS was really different. And what was interesting about that time, a lot of the people that were close to me had this odd experience of having prepared themselves to die and then having to actually metabolize or figure out the idea that they may actually live. And a lot of people didn't make it through that. And I'll just speak specifically a dear friend of mine, Lee Merrill, who moved in with me in Chicago. He was part of this back to work program that many places including Howard Brown where I work set up because you had people who had been out of the workforce for a long time. And then all of a sudden they were getting healthy again. And so it was like, okay, well, we need to retrain you for jobs so you can get a job again and you can get back into the work field. And anyway, that's how I met him as a part of that program. And one of the things that was really rough was this idea of how do I shift from, I'm kind of ready and prepared and I've made peace with saying goodbye. And then all of a sudden maybe that's not what's going to happen. And you think that people would be overjoyed and they would be elated. And I think a lot of people were and most people probably were. And also it was a really complex feeling. And if you can imagine just the inevitability of your departure and preparing for that. And then all of a sudden, wait, I have to shift gears and maybe I'm going to live and can I trust that? And how long will this medication last? I mean, it was all brand new. And so anyway, so Lee's what brought me to Seattle because he was from Seattle and he moved back to Seattle. And so I came out here in 2001 to take the job at Gay City. Gay City had been around since 1995 so we can go to the slides now. Gay City got started in the next slide. Can we actually go to the next one? Yeah, there you go. To the idea of, well, it's kind of a new era and we need to help build connections between and among gay men in this context of we actually have a future. We actually have lives that are valuable and we need to figure out how to do that and how to live in healthy ways. It was initially started really in response to lack of funding to support healthy community building among gay men. And so we had these large community forums where we talked about issues that were impacting our lives. And it resulted in this organization that was essentially our first tagline was building a community stronger than HIV. It was really just intended to build those healthy connections. In the 2000s, we added HIV testing. Before 2004, there was an organization called the Seattle Gay Clinic that got started in the 70s doing testing for syphilis and gonorrhea and chlamydia. Volunteers doing that out of country doc. That organization lasted volunteer run the entire time until 2004, where they asked us to take on their work and we expanded then our HIV testing program. And it was the first five day a week and it's now evolved to six days a week in English and Spanish, HIV testing, STI screening. Also in the 2000s, several other organizations came together with Gay City. The old LGBTQ center came to us asking us to take on their programs because they were shutting down and Verbena, which was the queer women's health organization, also shut down and we were able to take on some of their work. And so the 2000s for us that first decade was really about growth and lots of organizations kind of bringing their work to us as they shut down. And then in 2012, we opened our current space, which was our first attempt to build an LGBTQ center that included all of the wellness programming, the HIV services, as well as an arts program. We have the largest collection of LGBTQ literature in the Pacific Northwest in a library, a lending library. And then we had a coffee shop and a variety of things. Of course, COVID really put a damper on a lot of that. We had to shut down a lot of our programs. We shifted to virtual for helping people with health insurance and resources and things, but we have been testing the entire time and also added a PrEP clinic. We're opening a new center early next year, and so we'll be growing, continuing to grow. And then can we go back a slide? Sorry, I think they were in a different order than I imagined. And so you can see now just who we are. This is our mission. Gay City cultivates access and connections to promote self-determination, liberation and joy. Our values, advocacy, accessibility, intersectionality, sex and body positivity, stewardship and transparency. And then our vision is that we are the definitive hub for LGBTQ individuals seeking affirming and responsive resources, wellness and community. A lot of the work that we've done over the past couple of years has been expanding our youth advocacy work. We are in Highline Public Schools in Seattle Public Schools and do a lot of work supporting young people. We have a diversion program with the City Attorney's Office in Seattle to help young people avoid prosecution. So a ton of stuff, really good work. And then of course we most recently were asked by the AMP to further their work, and so I'm going to shift over to Jason and maybe we can advance a couple slides and move to Jason's presentation on the AIDS Memorial Pathway. Thanks Fred. Thanks Pat. Yeah, the time we have left, I just want to talk a little bit about the AIDS Memorial Pathway and how that came to be. As has been talked about, there is an important and wide-reaching history that's happened in Seattle and King County and in the state of Washington around HIV and AIDS. And Seattle being a second wave city, it wasn't hit immediately by HIV and AIDS as much as New York, LA and San Francisco were. And so the result of that was a lot of folks in public health and a lot of communities kind of saw what was happening and were able to prepare a little bit for the pandemic as it hit the city. And in response, organizations that Pat mentioned were formed, communities came together. There was a general model formed, the continuum of care, which were organizations working together to provide support, to identify folks, to help with testing for folks to know their status, and then once they were diagnosed to be able to provide living support and care all the way through to hospice and eventually when folks passed. So there was a lot that happened and some that was unique and some that was just remarkable and borrowed from other cities and of course folks I think Pat sort of mentioned too that had to deal with how their families responded and some people moved to the city to be with friends and not with biological family because of necessity. Some people moved from the city back to smaller towns to be with family in some situations. So anyway, there was a rich and complex history and there's been attempts to make sure that we all remember that. In the mid 90s, a city council member at the time talked about there was an effort to create an AIDS memorial and it eventually it did not happen. There's actually a short video on our website did not happen and there's many reasons for that and there's many reasons why people don't want to remember the history of HIV and AIDS. There's folks from outside the community who are indifferent, who don't really care to remember and there's also folks within the communities that feel like it's too painful and you know didn't want to revisit that but so at the time in the 90s it definitely was very like emotions are raw and it became difficult to make that happen. It wasn't until about 20 years later in 2015 when folks came together again and realized that there's an important history here. We cannot forget how AIDS and HIV has affected us, how folks have responded and and a reminder that it's not gone. So there's this idea that since the mid 90s when therapies became more effective and then into the 2000s and most recently with treatments like PrEP that are preventative that there's significant strides being made to reduce and combat HIV and AIDS but it's not it's still with us and that's an important thing to remember as well. So if we go to the next slide and I'm going to give a quick I'm going to kind of go through these quickly just in the in the interest of time but we do have a website that I just want to mention. There's a website the amp.org AMP or thgamp.org and there's a there's a history of a general history around HIV needs but then there's also a history about the formation of the memorial that that you can be viewed there as well. But the AIDS Memorial Pathway this community group that started with a city council member Tom Rasmussen who was very supportive of this project and wanted Seattle should be a site for an AIDS Memorial convened some community members and that grew into a community action group and over the last six years that group has made this memorial reality. So it was dedicated in June it's located on Capitol Hill so right above the light rail station and that plaza in the community room of the station house the community housing station house building and then also in the north edge of Calendarsen Park next stuff. So let's go to the next slide here. Being in Capitol Hill of course is really important because many of the organizations that that Pat mentioned were based on Capitol Hill it was the center of the the queer community especially in the in the late 80s and 90s and so it was an area it has a lot of meaningful connections to the history of HIV and AIDS. So the goal set up by the the community group were to use public art to create a physical place for remembrance reflection to share stories about the epidemic in the community responses and then to stand as a call to action and a reminder that we still need to end HIV AIDS stigma and discrimination. Next slide. The artwork as I mentioned is is in this location on Capitol Hill. We're thrilled that it's right above the light rail station because it makes it accessible for folks to go to. One of the things that's unique about Seattle's memorial is that it is in a in a highly trafficked invisible area of the city it's in one of the densest neighborhoods of Seattle and not in a tucked away corner of the city or in a small setting in a park and so it's really putting the values and issues of the AIDS Memorial front and center and accessible to a lot of folks. So and there's different emotional aspects. What that's one of the other things I really love about this project is that we didn't want it to be very monolithic but one of the artworks is called Monolith. We wanted the memorial to have you know diverse perspectives and then also to really connect with different emotional connections. Yes there's sadness and grief but then there's also the memory of folks that brought so much creativity and exciting things to do our lives and there's also the lessons of people stepping in and helping each other in this you know in the most dire times of crisis so so anyway there's a lot to feel connected to. So next slide. One of these pieces is in the community room like I mentioned in the station house building. It's not open all the time and currently they're not reserving the room because of COVID but you can view it from the outside of the room. Stormy Weber made this to restore missing narratives of working class, activists, healers, leaders, witnesses and ancestors lost the AIDS crisis. It really brings focus and highlight to Black people and Black women who were affected and often were some of the the strongest advocates for helping folks through the crisis. So let's go yep one next slide please. There's four artworks at the first. The second is Christopher Jordan's and I'm going to miss everybody which is a speaker made of speaker forms which is real connection to the social spaces where people were learning about HIV and also caring for each other. It's a positive sign shifted on its access to make an HIV X which really is this idea of connecting the communities and not keeping folks you know separate HIV positive and negative but to really bring them together and to acknowledge the reality that if one person is infected then we're all infected and need to respond to HIV and AIDS. Next slide please. Civilization did these pieces called we're already here. They're sculptures shaped as protest signs that carry messages that were were in actual demonstrations through the 80s and 90s and you know messages that were really important then are still relevant today and connect with a lot with this region's broader history with social change and community actions. So and these are set throughout the area so they're kind of a visual and conceptual connection through the other pieces and then next slide please. The final piece is ribbon of light that's still being constructed we're almost there it's almost done but there'll be illuminated glass pieces within the northeast corner of the park and they're more reflective and there's words inscribed in each of these glass pieces to help people sort of connect to their feelings in history. Next slide I think there's just two more. To share stories obviously forums like this are really helpful but we've also gone through and interviewed dozens of folks in those videos are on our website and bring highlight to folks in communities and histories that that aren't often told so there's a lot of videos there you can view on on the amp website and next slide. Now the thing that's almost done you can download the app now but we have an app so that there'll be a an actual tour that will kind of take you through this area with with information history there'll be interactive elements with the artworks and there will even be a names tree so like a tree that will have sort of elements that kind of leaves that fall off and float to the sky as names are read to kind of remind us of all the folks that have been lost to HIV and AIDS but there this you can download it now there's some very basic interactions and then in a month there's going to be a lot more interactivity and information on the amp app and then I one is there one more slide I think that's the end oh so yeah so we created the community group came together to create this memorial and then we planned to pass this on to an organization that could really maintain it and continue into perpetuity and so Gay City is that organization and so now Gay City has really taken that on the physical artworks are owned by the city of Seattle they're in the permanent artwork collection and Gay City's the entity that'll be ensuring that the website and the app and events like World AIDS Day will happen on site I think there's one more slide yeah that's it so the amp.org is our is the website you can access all this information there's a Facebook and Instagram page as well and the YouTube channel has more of the videos which are actually hosted on the website but you can view them there as well that's it oh right oh Fred did you have one more thing to say go for it okay thank you so much that was Pat and Jason and Fred all of that your stories and learning about the the amp and everything that's going on with there I feel like there's a lot of really rich stuff I see people in the conversation saying oh I gotta schedule my trip up to Capitol Hill so I really appreciate that okay oh I'm in the dark here now we'll come back everyone we are going to get started with our Q&A with our presenters so remember that you can add questions in the Q&A feature at the bottom of the screen and Bob and I will be asking some questions I have one to start us off with while we are waiting for some questions to come in I'm really curious Jason as you were sharing about the artwork that is in the memorial pathways how was the how were the art pieces and the artists selected and decided on for the final product yeah that's a great question yeah I kind of ran through quickly there I didn't get to talk about that so one of the really great things about the project that was really good foresight was creating a master art plan so kind of going into the project and knowing that we needed sort of sort of a cohesive vision and so the first artist brought on was Horatio Law there was a call to to select a lead artist to do the master art plan we worked in conjunction we also connected with the Office of Arts and Culture so we had support from them and and a system in place to do that so so Horatio came on board looked at the opportunities that the physical spaces that were available for artwork identified those in the plan and then talked about the general themes that that the project wanted to to address as well and so that plan that was an 80 page plan identified like six or seven different areas and and issues different issues in order he did a lot of interviews with folks connected to the history of HIV and AIDS different organizations so that coalesced into for our opportunities so we knew that we wanted to do something within the community room space something on the plaza something that would connect both those spaces and then something in the park the we convened four different selection panels we knew that each one in we identified not only where those those artworks would be but also what emotional aspects we wanted them to to relate to so in the plaza of course we wanted you know we realized that being in this very populist area that we the plaza is where the farmers market is it's the out front of people's doorsteps a lot of people live in those apartments and so the artwork we didn't want something to be you know aggressively depressing or or tragic in that sort of space so we knew that we wanted those artworks to really connect to the history of activism and also celebrating you know life and what people creativity that people brought to to to the world and and then in the park where there was a quieter you know an area where people could be more reflective and in grief that would be a better place for those those artworks so knowing the our opportunities we called them the center piece the connecting artworks the park artworks and the community room we went through the selection process and we were fortunate to have folks that were really more or less local to the region we did do some national cause but it became clear pretty early on that we wanted people that that had direct connections to this this area and so Horatio being the lead artist was able to select an opportunity to to do and so he was commissioned to do the the park artworks and the more quiet and reflective aspect Christopher Paul Jordan who is a young queer artist of color based in Tacoma who's now actually in Connecticut at the Yale masters getting his masters at Yale School of Art did the centerpiece artwork Stormy Webber was selected to do the community room artwork which which is all those portraits that we talked about and then civilization did the connecting artworks so they were given a broad parameters to work with and then they really the artists themselves with support from the community group focus those in so that we knew that we could touch on a variety of issues that report. Great thank you very much I have a question as well I have a question related to HIV for any of the panelists one of the most tragic challenges in that HIV response has remained unchanged for decades and that it said HIV disproportionately affects people in vulnerable populations that are often highly marginalized and stigmatized how can we better support those populations the word that comes to me is vote is that that we have become more involved on a on a larger scale I work with women across the country who and certainly women of color in the south and certainly trans women all over the US have been disproportionately affected by HIV and what we do at positive women's network is we do voter registrations and you know and we have different different chapters in different cities and we phone bank nationally so I think become more involved in your your political spectrum and vote vote vote yeah I can just add on to that I totally agree with you Pat and then also even in places like Washington state where we are relatively progressive we still have significant problems I was on a call last night about the way that that insurance works in Washington state and essentially if you have Medicaid so if you are poor and have apple health your options for treatment for HIV are different than somebody who has private health insurance and so even in a state like Washington where you have a relatively progressive legislature relatively progressive you know governor we still have these problems that are inherently linked to capitalism where with Medicaid you know you have to fail with one drug regimen that's cheaper before you're allowed to use the more expensive drugs and so something like that is just you know absolutely ridiculous and I think it's a reflection on kind of even in places like Washington where you have people who are you know aware of kind of the complexities there's still a lot of work to do and that's the other piece that I would just add to it is there is tremendous complexity you know people have very complex lives and so HIV isn't the only thing that they're dealing with and so you have to really think about how do you provide care that is accessible how do you make sure that people can get there how do you make sure that people have childcare if they need it how do you make sure that the providers are able to receive them with dignity if somebody is undocumented or somebody you know how do they get care how do they get access to health insurance how do they get access to the things that they need if you're trans you know are you also being able to see a provider who can provide the gender care that you're looking for and is that going to be a priority over your HIV care so I mean it's very very complicated I think the the big thing is just trying to figure out what are the barriers between somebody being able to access the health care they need and and how do you how do we as a society and then how do you as a service provider break those barriers down and try to make make it as easy as possible for people to get the support they need. Thank you Pat and Fred we do have a question in the Q&A and I'm going to kind of add on to it the question is can HIV and AIDS be cured and I'm just interested if you might be able to share anyone might be able to share a little bit of sort of insight into kind of current state of research and development and that those sorts of things. Do you want to take that Pat or well I'll start you can wrap it up actually HIV has been cured in a couple of people first person was Timothy Ray Brown and he was known as the Berlin patient and it was a very it was dangerous it was risky it was a procedure that would not be recommended or at all for general population of people with HIV. I get involved sometimes with the the ACTU the AIDS clinical trial unit and there there are definitely trials going on I we we have a impractical cure for AIDS but the big thing that it showed is that it can happen so that really was a big boost to end the the other person is I believe he's from England anyway he was I've met him on a call before but there's I don't know we've been we've been looking for you know for so long so Michael Llewell is the person to talk to about. Yeah I mean I think that the the miraculous thing about treatment right now is that you know there is kind of this functional cure in as much as people are able to be successful on treatment and so provided someone is able to get access to medication and take that medication and it's easier and easier for people to take a medication from for most folks it's one pill a day and there are new injectables coming out where you can get an injection I believe it's for a month or that that people are working towards so there is now really good hope for those who have access to treatment that they can get treatment the other kind of really remarkable thing about the treatment is it it makes you not infectious and so historically even when people were on treatment successfully there wasn't the the you didn't get the virus to the level that the current medications can get it to which is undetectable so what that means is as long as you stay in your medication successfully and you don't have any other mitigating factors that are going to make your viral load pop up you are no longer able to pass HIV on to someone else if you have if you have HIV and you're successfully on treatment which is I mean which is a breakthrough both in terms of preventing HIV but also preventing the stigma that so many people with HIV live with which is this notion that there's somehow this vector of disease and that defines them and so I think it's you know that's remarkable the other thing that we have is HIV medications that people who are not infected with HIV can take every day that's called PrEP or pre-exposure prophylaxis and you basically take two HIV medications in one pill take it every day and then if you're exposed to HIV you don't actually get infected and so that's the other kind of remarkable thing with with treatment nowadays there's been vaccine research for decades we still have no no vaccine that's been effective but you know I think there's a lot of hope in a vaccine and there's there's a lot of a cure research happening and a hope for a cure that's more you know that that actually we could use in a widespread way and and both of those efforts are a lot of that is happening in Seattle at Fred Hutch a lot of that that research is happening right here and so there's great ways to learn more about it. Yeah and I just want to say I put in the link in the chat to a story on the AMP website with Dr. Hans Peter Keam who is working at Fred Hutch and talks a little bit he talks a little bit about the you know efforts to to cure HIV and gene therapies that are they're being done he mentions Timothy Ray Brown which interesting fact was from Seattle was treated in Berlin but initially was a Seattleite so yeah it's it's been fascinating around the the all the connections to our region and our state as you think about HIV and AIDS and the global impact that some of the organizations are doing too so anyway I just wanted to mention that I put that that link to that story if you want to learn a little bit more about that. Great. Thank you all of you our next question HIV and AIDS have had such a significant impact on the LGBTQ plus community although I often find that younger folks in the career community including myself have limited knowledge about its history. In addition to AMP what are ways you all think we can continue to keep the conversation going and honor the memory of those we lost? I'll jump in and say I think that media is a real important way to do that and I think that the diversifying media is a really is an important recent development of that so so we you know the AMP was created and as I mentioned before is in a very visible location because we really want it to be a significant reminder for folks so that it's something that can't just easily be avoided and pushed aside and so these memorials we're not the only city that has an AIDS memorial there's a new one being created in West Hollywood there's a long-standing one in in Los Angeles in Echo Park most many major cities have an AIDS memorial of course San Francisco is the national AIDS memorial so so those physical things are very important I think that television series like It's a Sin which was on HBO and Pose of course has been a real series for for folks for younger folks especially to have an understanding and a touchstone around the history of HIV and AIDS so those those television shows and those those films I think that have that have been created in the past but then also are currently are coming out now I think continuing to to create that content and have folks you know come at it from different perspectives too right like the the angle that Pose has on presenting communities that have been overlooked in the history of HIV and AIDS and popular media is important and it's a unique community that was you know seen it's not just about HIV and AIDS but it has that important element within it so there's many other issues that it talks about the intersectionality I think of all the of the history of HIV and AIDS and it's not just one thing that it's that it's affected many people in many communities and I think that's what we we need to support so so yeah so finding those those films and TV shows and sharing them with folks and preventing presenting forums like this where people can do presentations and talk about that or even just do a screening I think is is really important I guess the only the only thing I would encourage people World AIDS Day is December 1st and so this year we'll be having a presentation at the amp so right there by the Capitol Hill likes a light rail station that's a lot of words at four o'clock in the afternoon on December 1st we're going to have a couple of poets reading some of their their poetry about their experiences with HIV and AIDS and I think you know art in general is a great way when before COVID we had a performing arts season and one of the shows that that we did was specifically about the experience of black folks in Seattle black queer and trans folks in Seattle and their experiences with HIV and AIDS and we'll continue you know once things open back up again you know I'm across my fingers you know we'll continue to bring together stories and and local artists that have perspectives and stories to tell so that's another way most of that most of those presentations are going virtual and so we will be doing another arts season this year but it'll be online so I'll also make sure and pass that information on when that happens and almost always there's some story or or narrative related to HIV and AIDS it's such an important part of our history. Also on World AIDS Day there will be a an exhibition they it's not at the Bill and Melinda Gates Center unfortunately because they're closed because COVID but a program I've been involved with is is called Through Positive Eyes and it was a group of like a dozen people from Seattle it's been done all over the world in different cities and we basically were given cameras and told to go out and tell our story and so we have stories and pictures and it's a pretty we're all gonna we're actually all gonna participate in that and so that will be World AIDS Day and it is virtual and it's through Positive Eyes and I will send links out. Thank you so much those are really great resources I think that we have covered all the questions that we've gotten so before we wrap up I just wanted to offer a chance if any of our panelists if you had any things that we missed that you wanted to make sure that you shared with our community before we wrap up. I think that that's good I'm sorry I'm putting in a link oh maybe somebody else found it I put in that link Pat to through Positive Eyes because yeah I think that's really an important thing that and it's it's been unfortunate that it hasn't been an in-person exhibition this year as it has been in other cities but but it is online and they're they're providing talks with with artivists so folks who are activists and artists that can talk to to groups so you can arrange to have like a small group presentation or you can look at it online. Yeah I'm thrilled that the amp has come together I was I love that it really was intentional in wanting to provide diverse perspectives not only from the artists that that is that are their their look but also in terms of like what it's providing in terms of an important history that needs to be remembered so so yeah so it's online you know through the website you can go visit the the the artworks in person and again I'm thrilled that the work that Fred and Gay City is doing is going to help sustain the amp and and you know enhance it even more so World AIDS Day is a great opportunity to to remind people around HIV and AIDS so use your social media and hopefully you'll be able to go to some of these events that Pat and Fred talked about. Yeah we did actually have one more question pop in I'm sorry I just cut you off the map if you wanted to before we ask that go ahead all right I think Bob's going to ask it I'll put your muted Bob. Thanks it's a great affirming question for our panel. Loss and struggle are prominent parts of this history What are some ways you all have experienced joy and pleasure in your work and lives to give you sustenance for making good trouble? For me it's the people the the connections there are many laughs that happen in support groups it's not just and I mean throughout even in the very bad old days the humor was dark it continues to be dark but the people and just the connections so that has that's definitely helped me be able to deal with you know my losses is that there's still a sense of community left and that we can you know we can come together times like this but the losses were inevitable and are inevitable because people still are dying of HIV and that's I think that's a pretty thing pretty important thing for people to remember I agree with you Pat I mean I feel like for every story of loss there's also a story of people coming together either to support that person as they as they leave as they depart but there's also stories of survival there's also stories of you know incredible odds that people have beat and ways that community has made an impact so I mean I think for me it's really about as you were saying those connections the connections to the other people who are equally invested and and who are making a difference and you know that's a big thing for me I also have too many pets and so pets are also helpful I think dogs and cats dogs cats and children they they're all helpful as well and we've got too many of them over here yeah I would just one thing that we talked about in the prep for this this presentation Fred and I were discussing that of the age that the age of gay man that we are or another friend had had described as a bridge generation and we really the gay men just older than us were the hardest by the epidemic you're completely caught off guard and the gay men just under us really don't know this history they you know the you know not always through any fault of their own just like you know it hasn't been taught in schools you know the specifics people know what hiv is maybe medically but they don't know the social and historical impact that that the pandemic had and so uh so I think it's a it's a responsibility that we have to help bridge that that gap to the folks who have experienced it and the folks that don't know about it and really want to and so that brings uh that brings happiness to me to be able to bring art um you know art and stories to communities and bring those communities to to art and so I did that with uh with the with the queer film festival and the in the core $3 cinema which has a festival coming up next week or actually starting this weekend um and that those film festivals are a great way to kind of keep those stories out there and and to engage with audiences so so that brings joy to me um being able to and and with this project being able to play a role in helping make it a permanent part of our city um I've seen families that uh you know walk through that plaza and young kids ask their parents like what is that protest I mean what is silence equals death mean and they're starting to have those conversations and ooh that just that makes me feel so good that that there's that happening I I miss being able to go into classrooms in person and have that that uh face to face with students um and I feel like it's part of my responsibility when I go out to talk about living with HIV that there's a history lesson involved um and yeah and I so I I definitely I definitely missed that um so maybe I'll see you in a classroom sometime soon or at this rate it might be your children amazing thank you all for sharing that I love that we got to end a question on sort of that um that aspect of joy and uh Fred I love the idea yes we all have our pets I think that's one of the the things about zoom as we've like started to get to see and know everybody's pets in our spaces so that's been really fun um thank you all so much for being part of this I um I think we everybody here learned a lot and really got to appreciate your stories and so thank you so much for being here thank you for everyone who attended as well um we are approaching I can't believe at the end of LGBTQIA plus week which will be tomorrow we have two events to wrap things up so um first off we will have um senator marco lias who'll be sharing at 11 a.m queer politics post marriage equality and then at three o'clock we will finish our week with a film viewing of kumahina and um yeah so we hope you can join us for both or one of those events tomorrow and um again if you can share your feedback about this event um with that link there we really appreciate it it really helps um us tell the story of the events that we're sharing so thank you once again to our presenters pat jason and fred for sharing all of your time and knowledge with us today um and thanks everyone we hope you have a great day