aids activism – Queer Silicon Valley

Peter Johnson

April 5, 2021April 3, 2016 by Steven Peck

Days after the 1993 Walk for AIDS in downtown San Jose, the Mercury News ran an article that illustrated just how devastating the epidemic was in those years.

“As the fourth annual Walk for AIDS drew near, every visitor to the bedside of Peter Johnson had to make a pledge. “He was dying and he was asking people to sponsor him,” said his mother, Helen Johnson. “On Monday, Peter Johnson—down to 100 pounds from his normal 150, 6-foot-1—confided to his friend Bob Clayton: “It’ll be a chair-athon for me (Sunday).” I said, ‘Fine. We’ll all push.’”

Regrettably, Peter Johnson didn’t make it to the annual fund-raising walk for the disease. He died of AIDS on October 13, 1993, just under two months after his 30th birthday.

Throughout his illness, Johnson drew strength from the support of his family. His mother, Helen, volunteered at Aris alongside him and walked in the AIDS Walk with him every year. She continued to walk for many years after Johnson’s death.

Johnson had graduated from Overfelt High School in 1981. He was diagnosed with HIV at the end of the 80s and shortly afterwards began volunteering with Aris. By early 1991, he was a member of the Aris board with the group’s executive
director Bob Sorenson telling the Mercury News that Peter was “one of our best interpersonal ambassadors.”

In 1992, he was appointed to the County AIDS Commission. He attended every commission meeting, even those where there was not a quorum present. Sadly, his time on the commission was too short.

Bob Clayton

April 5, 2021April 3, 2016 by Steven Peck

James Robert Clayton, known to everyone as Bob, was born in 1934. He was working for the Social Services Agency in 1981 when a man seeking help walked into his office suffering from a new and unknown malady. The man was one of the first county residents with AIDS. For the rest of his life, Clayton would be at the forefront of the Santa Clara County effort to deal with the disease and care for its patients.

In 1985, Clayton opened his home as the first AIDS residence in the county. In March of that year he helped form a weekly support group for AIDS patients that initially called itself “Freedom from Fear.” By January 1986, that group had incorporated as a nonprofit and become the Aris Project.

In 1994, Clayton received national recognition when he was presented with the Family AIDS Network’s National AIDS Caregiver Award. His nomination announcement noted that “Bob cries easily, never afraid to share his grief with other caregivers. Yet, he talks about the pain he carries each day as a ‘small price to pay’ for the rewards he has found reaching out to other people in need. Bob talks about each of the people he has been a caregiver for as a proud parent talks about their child- with love and unconditional acceptance.”

One of the highlights of his life came in 1996 when he carried the Olympic torch in San Jose as it made its way to Atlanta.

At the time of his death in 2003, Clayton was serving as interim director of ARIS.

Helen Miramontes

April 5, 2021April 3, 2016 by Steven Peck

Helen Miramontes’ nursing career began in 1972 in Kaiser Santa Clara’s critical care unit. It later continued at Valley Medical Center where she worked for 20 years, ultimately as a nurse supervisor.

Her involvement with AIDS policy and services came about because of her family. In the 1980’s, one of her sons was openly gay and suffering from alcoholism. “In the beginning, she sort of got into it because she needed to know what this is about because (my parents) thought I was going to get sick,” said her son David Miramontes during an interview with Ken Yeager in October 2018.

David’s twin brother, Jonathan, was also gay but still in the closet at that time. He would ultimately die of AIDS in 2006.

The epidemic was not the first time that Helen had gotten involved in a cause. “My mother was involved in the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War movement, and the migrant farm worker movement in the 60s. I remember being next to her with my siblings, all six of us, listening to Cesar Chavez,” said David Miramontes. “She always said that social work helped her really get started doing AIDS work.”

She developed one of the first train-the-trainer programs that addressed the need for cultural competency in HIV/AIDS care. The course provided nurses straight-forward information, focusing on the role of stigma, ignorance, misconceptions, and intolerance in undermining treatment and research toward a cure. She explained the course’s direct approach by saying, “You don’t change attitudes with slides and didactic lectures.”

As she became nursing’s “go-to” person about HIV/AIDS, she also served on a host of committees and boards, including Santa Clara County’s AIDS Task Force. As chair of the Task Force I got to know her and saw firsthand the dedication and passion she brought to her work.

In 1993, Miramontes became an Associate Clinical Professor in UCSF School of Nursing’s Department of Community Health Systems. She taught and mentored faculty and students and was involved in the UCSF AIDS Research Institute. She continued her public service on numerous local, national, and international boards. In 1995, she was appointed to President Clinton’s Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, serving on both the research subcommittee and executive subcommittee on international issues.

Miramontes retired from UCSF in 2000 as Full Clinical Professor and relocated to be closer to her children in the Las Vegas area. Her activism continued there. During this time, she also cared for her son Jonathan. She died in May 2016, six days shy of her 85th birthday. Her name, and Jonathan’s, have been inscribed on the Circle of Names at the AIDS Memorial Grove in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park.

Bob Reed

April 5, 2021April 3, 2016 by Steven Peck

Bob Reed moved to the South Bay from Idaho in 1982, the year before Santa Clara County’s first HIV infections and AIDS deaths were recorded. He first read about the infection that became known as AIDS in 1981. Even though he was a nurse, Reed continued to have unprotected sex and embrace an “eat, drink, and be merry lifestyle,” as he describes it, for the first half of the 1980s.

By 1986, he knew he had HIV. That was confirmed with a terse phone call from his doctor after he got tested. He recalls the doctor saying only “you’re HIV positive” and then following that with “You’re a nurse so you know what that means. Call me if you need anything,” and then hanging up. The entire call lasted less than two minutes.

Reed recalls even then, five years into the epidemic and the year after Rock Hudson’s death, there was still a tremendous amount of ignorance about HIV and AIDS in the county.

His doctor told him he would be dead within six months. His apartment manager worried that he might infect other tenants just by living in the same building. In a hospital lobby, he helped himself to a bowl of popcorn put out for patients but was then reprimanded for contaminating it and making it unsafe for others.

Like many HIV/AIDS patients, Reed internalized a tremendous amount of self-loathing and felt at the time that he deserved a certain amount of this mistreatment.

A turning point came when he began receiving services from the County’s Early Intervention Program. Under the leadership of Marty Fenstersheib, it was one of the few dedicated HIV/AIDS clinics in the nation at that time. It did not do a significant amount of advertising. He learned about it the way most patients did, through word of mouth. He described its services as “life-saving.”

Ultimately, Reed would spend three years working as a nurse at the clinic. His personal experience as someone living with HIV made him especially effective. This was particularly true in the years before the AIDS cocktail became widely available, when an HIV diagnosis was considered akin to a death sentence. Reed provided an example for so many others in those years just by living his life and doing his job.

In 2004, Reed became a member of the County’s HIV/AIDS Planning Council for Prevention and Care, now known as the Santa Clara County HIV Commission. He has been elected co-chair of the commission on two separate occasions.

Reed says overall Santa Clara County is an “exemplary” place to live for the LGBTQ community, and the County’s response to the HIV/AIDS crisis was one of the best in the nation. “I’ve lived here since ’82, and I’ve stayed here because there are no villains.

Karl Vidt

April 5, 2021April 3, 2016 by Steven Peck

Karl Vidt moved to Santa Clara County in 1969. When the AIDS epidemic began in the early 1980s, he did not pay much attention to it, believing it was “something affecting people in San Francisco.”

Vidt became much more aware of the disease and the toll it was taking in 1985 when he joined the board of the Metropolitan Community Church, one of the first denominations in the South Bay to provide a welcoming and inclusive atmosphere for the LGBTQ community. Coincidentally, the church became the original home of the Aris Project the same year that Vidt joined its board.

Despite his work with the church, Vidt did not get tested until 1989 when he learned that he was HIV positive. He remembers being “just numb” after getting the news. He says that the tester who told him he was positive, Sandy Gudino, was kind and spent more than an hour with him answering questions and giving him information.

Vidt told few people about his diagnosis. “I just picked up and went on.” However, by 1991 he had gotten sick and was taking regular medications. In the fall of 1992, he came down with Pneumocystis carinii, the strain of pneumonia that had been closely associated with the AIDS epidemic since the early 80s.

In 1993, he developed an infection in his eyes that eventually led to his blindness in December 1996. Throughout the early 90s, Vidt survived with virtually no T-cells whatsoever. Luckily, by the mid-90s his T-cell count began to grow with the introduction of new medications. This led to an overall improvement in his health. He got his first guide dog in 1999, which significantly improved his self-sufficiency and mobility. He was able to play an active role in the community again and continued working at Metropolitan Community Church as the half-time church
administrator.

Vidt also threw himself into the thick of the fight against HIV/AIDS in the South Bay. He joined the Santa Clara County HIV Planning Council for Prevention and Care in 2002. He spent multiple years as chair of its Care and Treatment Committee. He also served a stint as the chair of its Planning and Resources Committee. In addition to his HIV Planning Council service, Vidt also served on the City of San Jose’s Disability Advisory Commission and spent four years as chair of the Santa Clara County World AIDS Day Committee.

Vidt says all of the volunteer service is just his way of contributing to the health care system that he believes has taken such good care of him since his diagnosis. “There was a time when I thought my parents would have to take care of me. Who would have guessed that now I am taking care of my mom,” he said.

In 2008, Vidt received the Leslie David Burgess Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his service to HIV/AIDS prevention and care, along with being a shining example for others with HIV/AIDS.

ProLatino

September 30, 2020February 1, 1992 by queer silicon valley team

The first meeting of ProLatino was held in February 1992 at the Billy DeFrank Center. Thirteen people attended. The group formed out of the need for a safe environment for gay Latinos to meet and discuss their community, health, and HIV/AIDS. J Alejandro (Alex) Campos Vidrio was the first president of the group, and Omar Nunez was vice-president.

Alex organized meetings every other Tuesday, asking participants to bring a new person with them at each meeting. The group grew from 13 to 27, then 38, and kept going from there. Eventually, they couldn’t fit in the original meeting rooms. They moved to the main ballroom in the Billy DeFrank Center’s Stockton Avenue location. Sixty people came to each meeting and participated in a variety of events.

Although forming ProLatino was a huge step in the direction of healing the LGBTQ+ Latino community, Alex’s goal of creating a safe environment was still not met. Working with Esperanza Garcia Walters, they wrote a grant proposal to host a retreat for the LGBTQ+ Latino community, which they received. The first retreat was held at a Catholic center in Mission San Juan Bautista with 30 gay men participating. Discussions included breaking down institutionalized and cultural homophobia, and the layers of growing up gay in a community that rejected them. They heard stories like being dragged by a horse through their hometowns in Mexico for being gay, or wanting to commit suicide because of their sexuality. These were shared in a safe space with a focus on healing. The retreat was so successful that over time they offered as many retreats as they could afford, which is what Alex had set out to accomplish.

The initial years were very busy. In 1993 they were invited to be part of the San Jose gay parade, the first Latino group to march in it. Members who did drag were embraced as a way to show that no one from any part of the LGBTQ community was excluded. ProLatino worked with other LGBTQ organizations to be more welcoming of the Latino community. At ARIS, for example, they worked to create the group “Entre Hombres” for gay Latino men who were HIV positive. They produced information about AIDS in Spanish, the only such literature available.

Alex remembers the Latino community had the idea that if you were gay, it makes you part woman, which makes you less than a man. “This idea makes you feel and think that you don’t deserve much, but ProLatino broke through those barriers,” he said. Alex made sure to reach out to other groups, including Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, and others. “Our group felt safe because it wasn’t led by a white man–it was led by peers in the community,” he said.

In 1996, the group became a 501(c)(3) with a board of directors and co-chairs to run the organization. Omar Nunez was one of only two people who remained active with the group from the time it formed in 1992 until it went out of existence around 2011/2012. He remembers the retreats fondly. “They were open to everyone who wanted to attend, and people came from all over the Bay Area. Many of the men who attended were immigrants who only spoke Spanish. The retreats created a safe space for them that they had never experienced. It was very empowering.”

The workshops put on by ProLatino were very popular. They provided a place separate from the bars where people could get to know each other. “There was a tremendous void for the Latino community,” said Omar. “Here we were, almost a majority of the population, and there was nothing for us. ProLatino filled that void. It provided social and cultural programs, along with AIDS prevention services. Along with retreats, we did exhibits, education, art, theater, and parties. I’d say we had a couple hundred people a year attend our programs, resulting in well over a thousand gay Latinos connecting to our group.”

“It was an interesting and wonderful time,” said Omar. “People were ready and willing to do something for their community. It was a very unique period. I haven’t seen that type of community spirit since. It may never happen again.”

In 2005, Omar ran the program “Vida y Salud” (Life and Health) for gay Latino men with HIV.

In 2010, he was hired at the Santa Clara County’s PACE Clinic, a county-run clinic for HIV/AIDS patients. As a Community Health Outreach Specialist, he does outreach for the clinic, education for new patients, and interpretation services for doctors.

In 2000, with the support of Miquel Perez, David Castro was elected president of ProLatino. He remembers it as a tough time to get program funding because of the stiff competition for dollars. Since ProLatino had become a non-profit, they were able to receive grants from the state to provide HIV/AIDS services to the Spanish-speaking community. “Neil Christie was very supportive of us and he wrote a request for funding for a new support group,” David said. The center, which would become the Neil Christie Living Center after Neil passed away from AIDS, is where ProLatino began to have educational programs for the Spanish-speaking community. Eventually, due to lack of funding, The Health Trust began to manage the center.

The blending of ProLatino as a social group and the non-profit “Grupo ProLatino de San Jose” proved to be problematic, especially since David was advocating for both. Eventually, the non-profit lost its financing and no longer had money to pay staff. David then left the board and moved to Arizona in 2005 where he attended college and got a BA in Spanish and English translation and interpretation and continued to work on his master’s degree.

David has fond memories of the services that ProLatino provided to the Spanish-speaking community. “I used to get calls from married men with children who learned they were HIV positive, and it was difficult for them to handle their personal life. They only spoke Spanish so they didn’t know which way to go or what to do, and many wanted to commit suicide. I would meet with them after work and we would talk for hours about everything that was going on. I would eventually get them services, and I felt very good about that.”

ProLatino members together at an event

Drag Queens at a ProLatino event

ProLatino members together at an event

ProLatino members marching together with flags and banners

ProLatino members in a group photo together

ProLatino members at Walk for AIDS event

ProLatino members at an anniversary event

ProLatino members marching in the Pride parade

ProLatino members walking with various flags from Latin American and Afro-Caribbean countries in Pride

Image of Pro Latino members holding banner in gay Pride parade

Alejandro Campos

September 30, 2020January 1, 1989 by queer silicon valley team

In the late 1980s, J Alejandro (Alex) Campos Vidrio was a 21-year-old gay Mexican college student at San Jose. Like most Latinos, he grew up in a homophobic community, where he found that the stigma of being gay and the stigma of HIV was widespread enough for him not to come out. One of his friends had been in a relationship with someone who tested positive for HIV, so he accompanied him to the free clinic for an HIV test.

At the time, Alex knew nothing of the disease. In a counseling session, a nurse asked him a series of questions to determine if he was at risk. Before that, Alex had not told anyone he was gay, but when the nurse asked the question, he confirmed his sexuality. Because he was gay, this put him in the high risk group for HIV, so he took the test.

Two weeks later, he arrived at the clinic alone to receive his results: he was negative. The visit was so short that he stopped the nurse from leaving the appointment to ask her how he could help his Latino community get informed about HIV and learn how to protect themselves. The nurse explained there was no program for that at the time and suggested he get involved in creating options for his community. So he began volunteering. It was there that he met nurse Esperanza Garcia Walters and nurse Maria who would assist him in spreading awareness to the Latino LGBTQ community.

Alex’s first volunteer event was at Stanford University’s Walk for AIDS. Although he was there to help, he kept a distance between himself and the leaders with HIV, still scared of attracting the stigma of HIV. The walk, and how many people participated in it, made an impact on him.

Alex began attending a meeting of gay men in the Latino community at Club St. John on Mondays. Over time, he brought condoms and pamphlets and offered HIV counseling. Outside the meetings, participants didn’t even acknowledge each other for fear of being identified as gay.

At that time, Alex began seeing a Catholic Latino. One weekend he joined him on a retreat, which emphasized that participants were in a safe environment and would be protected by their peers and a higher power. The retreat changed his worldview: He wanted that kind of space for the gay Latino community to gather.

After he returned, he approached the Billy DeFrank Center, asking to host a gay Latino community night. They quickly turned him down, saying he was too young and not serious enough. He kept trying. Through his volunteering at the clinic, Esperanza Garcia Walters invited him to have dinner at an HIV patient’s home. He became close friends with the couple, and the dinner became a weekly gathering of friends. Alex and others fixed up the house, making it brighter, more comfortable, so it felt like a safe space. They called him “Chispa,” meaning “spark,” because he made them feel more alive.

Alex continued to pass out literature and condoms, attempting to connect with his community. His efforts were met with resistance; he was kicked out of many clubs and restaurants for doing so. He attended a meeting at the Billy DeFrank Center, voicing concerns that literature wasn’t available in Spanish for the Latino community, that they had neither a safe place to congregate nor resources away from the public. The DeFrank Center finally offered him space on Monday nights. Campos made a flyer inviting folks to “come and share with us,” as a way around using stigmatizing words like “gay” or “HIV.”

For the first meeting in 1992, Alex made 25 folders with pamphlets of information, condoms, and other resources. Thirteen people showed up, beating his own expectations. Attendees asked him to hold another meeting, so he spoke to Mark and was approved. The meetings were scheduled every other Tuesday. Every person attending committed to bring one more person with them to each meeting. This was the beginning of ProLatino.

In 1998, Alex decided to step down from ProLatino in order to take care of himself. He moved to San Francisco and joined the HIV Prevention Working Group of the State of California, traveling across the state, gathering data and analyzing trends in the virus’s spread.

In 1999, Alex went on vacation to Hawaii and according to him “never left.” He attended the University of Hawaii and worked at the School of Medicine as a director of the Pre-Health Career Corps. Due to the pandemic, he has not been working since March 2020.

One of Alejandro Campos’s proudest moments working with ProLatino came while attending a conference with the Department of Education in Hawaii in 2011. He learned about LLEGO’s (National Latino/a Lesbian and Gay Organization) opportunities for the LGBTQ+ community and attended a workshop about retreats. The Hawaiian group cited what they learned about retreats from a San Francisco group, which they learned from a Bay Area local, who turned out to be Campos. This moment validated all the work he did through ProLatino. His ideals had spread throughout the country, even making it to Hawaii. — Alejandro Campos

Jeff McGee AKA Kelli Collins

April 2, 2021December 31, 1971 by Steven Peck

Jeff was an integral part of the gay community in the 80s and 90s. His performances as Kelli Collins in innumerable drag shows raised thousands of dollars for many causes, primarily for early AIDS victims who had no financial or medical support at that time.

Jeff moved to the South Bay in 1981. It wasn’t long after arriving in San Jose that AIDS became a tragic reality for the entire community. Jeff began to attend and host fundraisers with the Imperial AIDS Foundation to help support awareness.

Before long, he found himself more deeply involved with the community and started doing drag and performing at various events at The Savoy, TD’s, Club St. John, Mac’s Club, Buck’s, and any other venue whose doors and hearts were open.

Fundraising for the AIDS victims united lesbians and gay men, and also enabled much needed financial help for so many victims of this then-misunderstood disease.

While fundraising for the Imperial AIDS Foundation, he was asked if he’d be interested in joining a group of entertainers, fundraisers, and club personalities in the South Bay community by becoming part of a group representing the Imperial Court System, a nationwide organization.

The South Bay chapter of the Imperial Court System was called the Imperial Royal Lion Monarchy (IRLM). The figureheads of the organization were called Emperors and the Empresses. Jeff accepted the nomination for Empress, and in 1990, as his stage persona Kelli Collins, was crowned Empress 20 of the Imperial Royal Lion Monarchy.

The AIDS crisis continued, so the fundraising and the generosity of the community, both lesbian and gay alike, came together and supported the fight against discrimination, AIDS and many other issues of the day. There was a true sense of community during those times. Everyone opened their hearts and their wallets and joined forces to get done what needed to be done.