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Jordan Maerin
I came out as a lesbian in Detroit in 1984. I was seventeen years old and a senior in high school. That was the same year that AIDS was declared to be a sexually transmitted disease.
Three years later I began working in a piano bar with a base clientelle of mostly gay men. For those of you who have ever lived in or traveled to Detroit, the Backstage/Footlights complex was a famous gathering spot and watering hole, and those of us who worked there felt like family.
During my three years of fulltime work there, I witnessed the deaths of several co-workers and regular customers from "AIDS". The death sentences seemed to peak right before I left for college, in 1990. One of my closest friends to die was Sammy, a very large man who had worked as head of security for the complex for over a decade. He had a ready sense of humor, and when asked about his sexuality, he would always say, "It doesn't matter 'cause I wouldn't sleep with you anyway," and belt out a hearty laugh. We had all relied on Sammy to protect us, and when he died, a mountain had fallen in my world. I went off to college taking AIDS very seriously.
I've always been an activist at heart. For a year, I facilitated the pro-choice organization at Michigan State University, and then I helped to start a local Lesbian Avengers Chapter there. I travelled to DC for the 1993 March on Washington, and then to New York in 1994 for Stonewall 25, participating in the national Lesbian Avengers Pride Ride along the way. During the two years I lived in the town of Lawrence, Kansas, I produced monthly social events and concerts for the lesbian community.
Although I was afraid of AIDS for my gay male friends, the fear never quite hit home for us lesbians. When I was presented with the information that questioned contagious AIDS, it made a lot of sense to me, since everyone I'd known who'd died had been heavily into recreational drugs and had also taken AZT. I knew that a great wrong had been done to my gay community, and I knew I would do what I could to rectify it.
In 1999 I found myself in Venice, California, managing a small food co-op. I'd placed an AIDS Walk display near the front door of the store when the organizers had asked, and of course, I'd felt really good about doing that. What I didn't know was that one man who was very active with the co-op's Board was also the Events Coordinator for HEAL Los Angeles (soon to become Alive & Well) which was run by Christine Maggiore. He confronted me and questioned my decision to support the AIDS Walk, and I was stunned. I hadn't heard any questions about AIDS for over a decade. Like most people, I'd assumed that because I was no longer hearing about the questions, they had all been settled. Gary Cifra gave me a copy of Christine's book What if everything you thought you knew about AIDS WAS WRONG?, and I read it that night. I think it only took me two chapters to realize that I was holding the truth in my hands. The story of AIDS she presented wasn't hype- or fear-based. It was clear common sense. I remembered my own early misgivings about AIDS: the allegedly long period of time between exposure and sickness, and antibodies being passed off as indicators of disease. I realized how I had subverted my own faculty of reason to the assumption that the experts must know more than I do, that they must have it all figured out.
I moved south to San Diego shortly after that, via Oceanside and Carlsbad, and I became involved with HEAL San Diego as soon as I was able. I also continued my scientific research into AIDS, at times feeling like a microbiology student myself! I am now HEAL San Diego's Webmaster, Action Team Coordinator, cable show Producer and Board Secretary. I wonder if Gary knows what a monster he created that fateful day in Venice!
Since moving to San Diego, I have met the most radical people I've ever known in my life, and they have helped open my mind to many issues besides AIDS. I now feel that I am involved in some of the most important work that needs to be done in our time: bringing science back to reality, and resisting corporate manipulation at every level of society.
When I'd first begun reading Christine's book, I had thought, "This is great news about AIDS!" Unfortunately, most people don't think this is great news at all. They are scared by the implications, and they're not ready to lose faith in authority, especially scientific and medical authority. But there will always be people open to the questions, and I do my dissident activist work for them. I do it because I reach enough people to know that I am making some small difference. And I do it to champion the true scientists, and the doctors and journalists, the ones with integrity, who don't put fortune and fame above people's lives, or above their own blind faith in authority.
And I do it because it is in my nature to do it. I remember these immortal words echoing from the annals of the ancient Greeks: "Character is Destiny."
May you always honor your Character and follow your Destiny!
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