Since last year’s Mandela day, which is always on the 18th of July, STORIES OF HOPE includes portraits about our dear allies of PLWH in recognition of their contribution to ending HIV and AIDS. In August 2023, Jennifer Hopelezz, a truly remarkable HIV drag activist and ally, was induced into the Heroes of Hope gallery.
Almost one year later, while eagerly anticipating the start of AIDS 2024 in Munich on 22 July, we will be looking forward with Jennifer to AIDS 2024 and give her the honour to introduce our newest Hero of Hope who happens to be Jennifer’s family!
Jennifer; when you hear AIDS 2024’s theme ‘putting people first’, what does this really mean for you?
“Well to me, it’s a little bit too obvious because of course that’s what you expect, people first before profits and organizations and businesses. But sometimes that seems to get lost and it all seems about the whole infrastructure around HIV/AIDS that has been built up over the last 40 years.”
Jennifer, from your perspective, what do you think should change to ensure that community-based organisations are empowered to apply a ‘people first’ approach to their HIV response?
“I am always surprised at how little feedback is asked of us as a community group – but also as business owner with sex-on- premise venues. We have a whole heap of experience and information that is not tapped into. We have a totally different perspective to the government organizations, and we also have a certain freedom they don’t have as we are an independent voluntary group.”
Jennifer, you are the mother superior of a large drag family in the Netherlands. To celebrate diversity in the wonderful world of drag, in 2019 you added a new drag house to your family, called Lost Bois. One of your family members is Eric the Dragking. Could you introduce Eric in a few words?
“Eric personifies what our houses stand for. Using the power of drag as a tool of activism, to use the attention you get as a drag performer to get your message across. Because you surely get much more attention when you are in drag! Sex positivity, HIV and AIDS, fighting discrimination-these are really core values of our drag houses and that is what Eric is also about! (He also happens to be one of the best looking kids I have, haha, don’t tell the others!)”
Eric, so nice to meet you and such an inspiring Story of Hope! Why did you decide to do drag and what is your link with the HIV community?
“I decided to perform drag because drag is another powerful way for me to fight stigma and discrimination, and bring change to people and communities. I am living with HIV for 20 years and I know what is like to be stigmatized or discriminated. As Eric the Dragking I can also contribute positively to reducing HIV stigma and improving PrEP awareness in the Queer community.”
Eric, how do you connect your HIV activism with your drag performances?
“I combine my HIV activism with my drag during my performance where I always make sure to be Stomping HIV stigma away. This means that on stage I will be bringing messages of hope for PLWHIV whilst also raising awareness on HIV stigma and access to health services. If together we want to end HIV and AIDS, everyone should know about access to HIV services and prevention and claim it as their right. I like being on stage with artifacts to amplify my HIV activism, it makes people curious and this is a great way to start a positive conversation on HIV.”
PrEP diversity
Jennifer, as a drag activist you are also strongly advocating for PrEP availability and access. How do you contribute to PrEP diversity and what do you think are the key priorities right now?
“We really need to open our focus from not only cis gay men but to women, transgender people and immigrants. That’s why we are so happy that Eric has joined the PrEPNu outreach team because he knows how to reach these other groups that we don’t. All our networking and all our knowledge is based around the gay scene, especially in Amsterdam. But if we are to end HIV and AIDS, then we need to step out of our bubble and reach these other groups as well.”
Jennifer Hopelezz and Eric the Dragking
So Eric, you will be joining AIDS 2024 in Munich, Germany. What will be your key message there?
“During AIDS 2024 you will find me mainly at the Global village, this is where the global HIV community will be meeting and I am hoping to see a lot of my fellow grassroot HIV allies. My main message will be to share the importance of PrEP Diversity. We should always remember that HIV does not care about gender, sexual orientation or ethnic background. PrEP is designed to prevent against HIV for everyone. I am confident that we can end new infections if we make sure to enable access to PrEP for those who need it. That is why #PrEPdiversity is very necessary.”
Eric, following Jennifer’s Story of Hope last year, you feature in this Story of Hope. How important is this for you?
“I am very grateful to be given this opportunity. In 2021, when Stories of Hope was launched, I shared that I was the first Burundian female to play the Indonongo here in Europe. Back then, Eric was not out of the closet yet. I realise that talent is like champagne, it cannot be bottled up, it has to released to be shared and enjoyed fullest. So today I am so proud to share Eric’s talent, the first Burundian and Dutch Dragking living with HIV and open about it. I hope that my HIV dragtivism will be an inspiration for PLWHIV who are still in the closet and also to serve as an example for those who think that life is over after an HIV diagnosis. I am living proof that HIV will never take away your talent!”
Are you talented and never let HIV stigma stand in your way? We are looking for talents to share their experience during World AIDS day on the 1st of December 2024.
Get in touch if you would like to share your story with the global HIV community!
I have been visiting Japan and Korea over the past 5 weeks. That is why you haven’t heard from me. I would like to share my learning from those two countries. Whether I go on holidays or to conferences in other countries, I am always interested to learn the culture, the history and curious about how the local HIV community is doing and connect with them.
My curiosity is mostly on what or how they are doing to fight HIV stigma. Is there any prevention in places, are migrants being helped or do they seek any help, is there PrEP awareness and is it available to anyone, is ‘Undetectable is untransmittable’ (U=U) known to the HIV community and public and are healthcare professionals empowering patients with knowledge of U=U? All these questions always come to my mind, and I make sure I search for answers by connecting with locals’ organizations and HIV activists.
Please bear with me, this is probably the longest post ever, but it is going to be interesting, I promise!
OSAKA
My first stop was Osaka in Japan. Before my travel I connected with Daisuke Fukusho, the only Japanese person open about living with HIV so far. He connected me to an organisation based in Osaka called Dista, a community center to learn and exchange about health, HIV and other sexually transmittable conditions. It was very inspiring to see what the community does for Queer people in and around Osaka. Dista is a very safe places where volunteers and the Queer community, including people Living with HIV, come and meet up for chats, movies or drinks. You cannot know who is living with HIV, people are not open.
With Chef Niji at Dista
I really enjoyed my encouter with Niji Sabou, a Chef cook from neighbouring Kobe. He organizes the social event I visited to help people living with HIV to meet and have social contacts. As an excellent host, he prepared a Sake collection and some good food and served this to the people to generate talks in a very informal way. Niji is organising these kind of events at Dista with a little support from the Kobe Municipality. This is already such a big help to fight loneliness and create a culture of understanding. I found this such a beauiful way of how allies of the local HIV community provide help to us, thank you Niji for a memorable experience!
I noticed that at Dista, none of those we met is open about their HIV status. To me this signals that HIV stigma still has a huge impact in Japan. Even for leaflets on U=U they would still use a modeling agency to find beautiful models to help them in the campaign. And while inform on PrEP is available through a beautiful leaflet, it still focuses on Men having Sex with Men (MSM), women are not yet mentioned. PrEP as an effective prevention approach has not yet been brought to scale; There is only one specific doctor who deals with the PrEP users, the Japanese government is still in the approval stage on PrEp. So in reality PrEP is still only used by people who can afford it and dare to approach the doctor for an appointment.
When I asked about how migrants are part of HIV prevention and how they reach organisations such as Dista, I was actually told that there are still a lot of issues to connect to them such as language barriers, affordability of PrEP and HIV care, etc. Still a lot of fights to win! The good thing is that by only talking to my new friends at Dista, where they confirmed they have never really considered engaging with the migrant community and that they found this a good idea, I do believe I have planted that first seed of the importance of reaching out the migrants as well as increasing PrEP awareness. Thanks you for your hospitality Dista!
TOKYO
The week after I was in Tokyo where I finally meet my comrade in fighting HIV stigma in Japan. Daisuke invited me to Akta, another community center. From here Daisuke does most of his HIV activism. I guess there is an advantage in being open about his status as he can then connect with the local and global HIV community.
My curiosity of how things are organised at Akta was the same as in Osaka. Here also, overcoming HIV Stigma is a major obstacle as there are virtually no people that want to open up about their HIV status. When I asked Daisuke what his drive is, he responded “To keep on fighting HIV stigma, I was encouraged by you”. I felt very honoured and proud to see how what I stand for, fighting HIV stigma, got me to connect with such a strong and motivated activist on the other side of the world!
At Akta, Tokyo, with Daisuke
I had so many questions when we started our discussion on how the Akta community centers work. They agreed that HIV stigma is there and they still do not yet have a proper way to fight it since everyone is still in the closet. Also, a lot of the materials I got in Osaka is there and more, like folders with beautiful anime which they use for their campaigns. When it comes to U=U, the materials mostly target MSM. And again on none of the materials people Living with HIV are featured. This is a real set-back as I believe a message on HIV stigma and prevention becomes so much more powerful if PLHIV such as Daisuke could feature in it instead of hired models. As in Osaka, women are not yet in the picture when it comes to HIV stigma and prevention, despite the great will of organisations such as Akta.
Daisuke confirmed that the government is not yet ready to scale through more open campaigns on important prevention programmes around U=U and PrEP. I mentioned to Akta that without this mix of stigma reduction, U=U and PrEP, we can forget about ending HIV and AIDS in 2030. I also shared with them some initiatives on tackling HIV stigma, for example Stories of hope, and how Eric the Dragking raises awareness on PrEP diversity. We conclude that it’s up to us to bring the change in our HIV community, and that without ending HIV stigma there is no ending HIV and AIDS. They are going to work hard to bring these changes. I am proud to be their inspiration and enjoyed Akta’s wonderful reception a lot!
Korea is a vibrant country! Staying in Busan and magical Jeju island before heading to Seoul, gave me an opportunity to switch from my beautiful Japan experience to soaking in Korean culture, food, nature, and social events. And it also helped me to practice to learn a little more Korean before meeting the Seoul HIV community. And just like in Japan, being able to speak a few words, make a little joke in the local language, really helped me to break the ice and light up the room.
My first day in Seoul was already very special as I arrived on the 1st of june which was the day the Gay Pride was organised. Despite some resistance from Seoul authorities, the queer community did manage to organise a beautiful parade and invite a lot of organisation to show what they are doing within the Queer community. While there were some organisations focusing on HIV, mainly around testing and condom use, none of the 60+ booths had information on PrEP available. That was quite an eye opener to me.
Before even traveling to Korea, I already connected with the amazing Jay who is a HIV activist and also an artist and singer. For him it was very important that once in Seoul for me to try and meet many HIV activists and Korean HIV organizations. So through him I got to know Tari. My first encounter in Seoul with Tari was at a Queer community party which was part of Seoul’s Pride celebrations. And this was a very unique party organised by ChinguSai (Korean Gay Men’s Human Rights Group) who really made a legendary effort to organise a queer party open to all genders. I decided to introduce Eric the Dragking here and we had a truly amazing evening.
Proudly posing with the SHARE team
A few days later I met Tari again, together with her colleague Na Young, at SHARE “Center for Sexual right And Reproductive JusticE” where I was invited to share work experiences between our organisations. I noticed that we had so many priorities in common; Fighting HIV stigma, discrimination and criminalization, education on HIV and Prevention and fighting HIV injustice. SHARE is very committed to sexual reproductive health, health-related reseach, training and education on sexual right, and supporting women and girls on abortion.
In the end we had a lot of fruitful discussions on how the local HIV community can be empowered to lead. They stressed the need for the Korean government to change their strategies and discuss with grassroots organisations working on health and HIV about what they need and help them to break the inequality that exist between women and men. SHARE also particularly supports sex workers to seeking their right to do their work. Especially this part of the key population are being criminalized and put in harm because of their work. I agreed that this is similar to what I have seen in Burundi where sexworkers are often underprivileged. In solidarity I shared a supportive video message of courage and to cheer up the Sexworkers who are being forced to be removed by local government.
A highlight of my time in Seoul was a joint meeting with five organisations, including SHARE, Chingusai, Haengseongin which is a Solidarity group for LGBT Human Rights of Korea, Action-al which is a HIV /AIDS Human Rights organisation, and KNP+ Korean Network of People Living with HIV and AIDS.
Sharing my HIV life joruney with the Korean HIV community
First of all, I was able to share my HIV journey with those organisations and some keys messages on how we fight HIV stigma, work on HIV and ageing and contribute to PrEP awareness . I am very grateful that I was allowed to share my experiences! To the different organisations I had the same question related to PrEP and, similar to Japan, since the government is still in the approval process for PrEP to be known as a public health tool to prevent HIV, right now PrEP is only given to partners of people living with HIV. I shared with them that this breaks my heart as PrEP is not needed if a partner living with HIV is undetectable. To me this shows so much how U=U and PrEP access as important tools and stigma destroyers are still not being used effectively.
I wonder, how long are U=U and PrEP access going to be unused? Why governments and healthcare providers cannot make progress on this and start sharing this important message? There will not be zero new HIV cases by 2030 without U=U and PrEP!
At end of our meeting, I was excited to learn who I could meet again in Munich at AIDS2024. I was shocked to learn that none of these 5 organisations, like the 2 I visited in Japan, will be present there! I know from my experiences that going to these type of events as an activist and member of the HIV community is a great opportunity to meet others activists, share experiences, inspire eachother, and advocate for our priorities. It is such a pity that these type of organisations will not be there, they are the real community voices! What does ‘let communities lead’ really mean if they are not invited to the global stage, if they don’t even know about AIDS2024?
Well, let me tell you, it means we are not doing enough! Do big organisations like IAS really not have the capacity to make sure grasroots organisations from Korea and Japan are also connected to the global stage? Is there really no way in this highly connected world to at least inform them and organisations such as BAWA in Burundi about AIDS2024 so they also have an opportunity to share the tremendous (mostly voluntary) work they do? That is really shameful. For me it means that ‘let communities lead’ is just a hollow phrase if these organisations are excluded. How can we shamelessly think that we are going to end HIV and AIDS in 2030 while there are so many of us in the HIV community that cannot access the latest trends or share their experiences, and worse, don’t even know global patforms such as AIDS2024 exist? Support them now in their journey to end HIV and AIDS!
Hello my lovely people. Some of us are always counting their age, forgetting to do the things that make them happy. Remember, there is no such thing as putting your life on hold, because we are all ageing, every day!
This may sound weird, but I am always looking forward to ageing. When you cherish your dreams and love your life, ageing should not be your problem. As long as you are happy with yourself! Look at Eric the dragking, never giving a damn about age at all. Who knew I would be the first Dragking to be open about thriving with HIV?
Work with us to THRIVE!
Of course, for many of us living with HIV, it is quite a journey to get to this comfortable place that we all need to live and age healthily. Knowing first-hand how difficult it is and how many barriers we need to break, I have always been very committed as an activist member of the HIV community to share my personal experiences to change my lifestyle to improve my health-related quality of life.
Yes, there are many discussions and workshops on this topic, but how many of us really work together with people living and ageing with HIV instead of for them? So being always full of ideas as an HIV activist and entrepreneur, you may remember that last year I gave a performance called five ways to THRIVE. Well, sending the message through a performance or workshop is not enough!
What if we ask the HIV community directly to share their dreams, what they do to regain trust, and to share their journeys towards staying healthy while ageing with HIV?
Today I would like to share with you that we have indeed started to engage the HIV community to co-design community tools to express our challenges, and share our dreams and ideas to age healthily!
I am so blessed to get a lot of support from friends in the worldwide HIV community to think along, THRIVE is very much alive!
Through THRIVE we, as creative members of the HIV community, want to keep developing useful concepts and share our experiences. But we cannot do this alone and we will need support from our HIV allies to work with us to THRIVE while ageing healthily with HIV.
So, are you curious how you can engage with us? Get in touch and let’s THRIVE together!
It’s always a pleasure to share with you the stories that inspired you and the World. This time we are going to talk about Drag. While a lot of you may have heard of drag and drag queens as performance arts, many of you may not yet be familiar with drag kings.
I am proudly part of a family called the House of Løst Bois, the first house of Drag KINGS in the Netherlands based in Amsterdam. With our lovely Mother Taka Taka and Father Julius. Everybody has a reason to do drag. In fact, my passion for drag has been there the whole of my life, but I just did not give it a name. When I was little, I already liked dressing up like a boy and play ‘boys games’, fishing in the Ninga river, go birds hunting or climbing trees. I am so grateful that my parents understood me and did the best to allow me who I wanted to be.
Why am I Eric TheDragKing? When I was 5 I was crying a lot telling my mother “I don’t want to be a girl!” One day my mum was tired of my cries and she said “OK, you are now a boy and your name is Eric”. From that day on I was so happy for people to call me Eric instead Eliane, allowing me to be myself as a kid.
Then, at high school I joined a theather group of drummers and dancers which is traditionally performed by men in Burundi. I was the only girl in the group. So, one day when we were on the stage performing, the MC publicly announced that between the boys performing there was also a girl between them! And I was dressed up, had a great haircut and dancing so well that the audience was not able to spot me amongst the boys! For me what really mattered was to be myself and show that a girl is as talented as a man if they are given a chance!
So, now I am Eric TheDragKing, the king who lives with HIV. As I have experienced and seen many times what stigma does, I dance HIV and AIDS stigma away to inspire and empower whoever living with HIV and not open about it. Living healthy and embrace who we are is much stronger than the tiny virus. To perform drag is another powerful way for me to fight stigma and discrimination, and bring change to people and communities.
This month I was part of an event called Becoming: Drag, organized at Likeminds in collaboration with the House of Hopelezz and the House of Løst Bois . If you suffer from queerphobia, this was not right place to be. The queer world is where everyone feels at home. We felt a big sense of community connecting to the audience via our performances. It was a very inspiring evening where the audience was also part of the performance, dressed up in glitter, colourful hair and beautiful dresses. It was all fabulous! Please have a look at the pictures made by Kiriacademy.
I loved the talk show between our Mother Taka Taka, Father Julius and Mother Jennifer Hopelezz about drag values and how drag can be used as activism in many ways, for example as a form of protest or for prevention, for example on PrEP. Hence the word Dragtivism!
Yes, Eric TheDragKing is a Dragtivist! To dance HIV and AIDS stigma away as a drag king is another powerful way to communicate with people facing HIV stigma and discrimination. I know in many communities we have people living with HIV going through a lot and still trying to deal with this alone, so if I am able to reach an even a wider community, through my drag art, this would be a great result toward reaching a HIV stigma free world!
I am proud to be the first Dragking open about my HIV status in the Netherlands, in Burundi and the whole of Africa. I am grateful for the opportunity to be part of the drag community and that a performance such as Becoming: Drag provides me with a platfom to fight stigma and discrimination.
In the end what brings us together is connectedness through drag as art. To perform our art for you to enjoy we feel stronger together as one big family. I truly believe the beautiful art of drag is a way to express ourselves, to share our passion, and to come togeher as a community. What an incredible evening!
Peace,
Eliane
Meet the performers from the House of Hopelezz and the House of Lost Bois
HIV stigmafighter 