June 27 of each year is recognized in the United States as National HIV Testing Day. Since 1995, communities around the country have sponsored testing events and education campaigns to coincide with the national observance, and Sarasota has been participating for many years. With support from the local and state health departments and the member organizations of the HIV/AIDS Network of Southwest Florida (HANS), our community has benefited greatly from an informed group of organizations, professionals, and agencies reaching out to the community in an effort to prevent the spread [...]

“Pride is love, pride is respect for yourself.” – Aretha Franklin, “A Deeper Love”   You don’t have to be Gay or Lesbian to have pride, but you probably won’t see straight pride parades anytime soon. “We haven’t seen a straight pride parade because the world is 90-something percent straight. They don’t have to have a pride, because that’s already the way it is,” said local musical talent Lucifers Axe when I spoke to him at this month’s Gay Guy Happy Hour (G2H2).   G2H2 is a monthly event that ‘provides [...]

Zombies are not attacking, and at the moment there doesn’t seem to be a “zombie apocalypse“ anywhere but on popular television shows such as Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead — okay, and perhaps in the segments from the news industry that many refer to as “sensationalist media.” There are no supernatural creatures, crazed by hunger and driven to madness by an insatiable thirst for human blood and brains. People aren’t spontaneously changing into sub-human creatures and attacking our population to sustain themselves and infect others. Zombies just don’t exist in [...]

This week Step Out Sarasota‘s Vice-President Carroll Hunter asked me to join him on “The Black Almanac” on ABC-7 to discuss gay marriage with Dr. Ed James, the host of the show for over 40 years. Dr. James contacted Carroll because of his history with Florida Legal, Inc. (a fraternal organization of Gay & Lesbian Law Enforcement Professionals) and his trailblazing experience as an advocate and activist for the GLBTQ community. Recently, when the City of Venice unanimously voted to add non-discrimination clauses for LGBT people into their city charter, Carroll was there representing Step Out Sarasota and our community. [...]