excerpt:
… this isn’t the first time I personally have faced a public health crisis. In fact, I was raised in one that directly molded and shaped me. In many ways growing up in the 80’s as a burgeoning homosexual was a long, dark walk through a train tunnel with the feeling that the light at the end was certain and horrifying death. It didn’t always seem that dramatic at the time but in retrospect I can see clearly how traumatically the AIDS crisis served to forge the person I would grow into.