Is Robert Brandon Sandor the enemy?

Robert Brandon Sandor, the "unstoppable protagonist" HIV activist based in New York City, continues to blame HIV "experts" and "specialists" for not addressing the issue of serosorting with him with open arms. Sandor continues to brand their emails as hate mails and continues to make them public.

What will it takes all the leaders of the LGBT Community to call each other, draw a plan and invite Brandon for a talk? What will it takes for them to create an outline and address the issue without fear of losing the credit to other people? When will they accept the fact that people like Sandar exists?

And what do Sandar gotta do to be accepted? Sandor must surely want to be heard and be accepted. Otherwise he will not be wasting his time fighting with the people he is fighting with via the Net. He has to have a reason to stop fighting.

For a decade, Brandon’s been actively expressing opposition or hostility toward established activists, including Brad Becker of the LGBT National Help Center, Ken Fornataro of The Network, and Dan O’Connell of the NYSDOH-AIDS Institute.

None of these leaders have been willing to debate this controversial issue openly in public, tho O'Connell has been actively replying to Sandor's emails in the last few weeks, giving his reasons. But O'Connell has yet to accept or meet with Sandor in person (willingly with open arms) to discuss ways to solve their differences. O'Connell, has, on many occasions told Sandor he (Sandor) needs to reasses his serosorting program since it is entirely based on the foundation of trust. And that not all gay men are telling the truth about their HIV status.

Ten years ago Sandor created a series of social and sexual parties for pozzies in various cities. HIV advocacy groups, however, weren’t so pleased. They questioned whether the participants were all telling the truth about their HIV status.

Sandor promoted the use of condoms all the way and did tell the participants to think of safety first.

The success of these parties led him into the uncharted waters of HIV-negative parties recently.

Advocacy groups didn’t think the message was clear enough and that Sandor had failed to note that HIV can be transmitted in other ways than sexually, and that there was the possibility of other nasty (if not fatal) STDs.

But many also have voiced that serosorting is really worth considering. While it is hard to keep pozzie and neggies out of each other's bedroom, it is certainly a new trend which can be promoted or sponsored to reduce the HIV infection among men having sex with men (and women, and vice versa). How can it not be a good exercise?

The enemy is the indifference within the LGBT community. The enemy could be hiding among us (queers who tell lies and those who refuse to find out about their HIV status and yet not afraid to protect others).


COMMENTS POSTED ON THE CHICAGO EDGE:
JMichael in Fort Worth
Arlington, TX Reply »
|Report Abuse |#1 Nov 14, 2007
Politics - and political correctness - aside, serosorting is a lousy idea in terms of stopping the transmission of HIV and AIDS. All it takes is one "false negative" person (or one liar) having unprotected sex to set a whole chain of sero-conversions in motion. Better to either stop playing the field altogether, or to play safe. Responsibility begins and ends with each individual.

Queergam: Sandor was right about asking participants to play safe and wear condoms.

riffraf002
Litchfield, ME Reply »
|Report Abuse |#2 Nov 14, 2007
I think it is a good idea for hiv positive men too have their own dance party and hiv negative men too have their own dance party. We see alot of discrimination and people not telling others the truth when it comes to their status because gay men who are negative turn away positive men.

fuzi

Queergam: We think it is a better idea for all men to know their HIV status and tell the truth so they all can party and play together safely while knowing who is poz and who is neg.


Joined: May 19, 2007
Comments: 882
Atlanta, GA
ISP Location: Atlanta, GA Reply »
|Report Abuse |#3 Nov 14, 2007
That only causes some men to either lie about their status or to not get tested at all. And I'm not advocating that position, just stating what occurs whether we want it to or not. In the ideal world, everyone would get tested and nobody would ever lie about their status just to get laid, but we don't live in that kind of world. So these "serosorting" events are at the least silly and in some ways insulting.
As well as dangerously deceptive.

Queergam: Serosorting is not the only issue that is based on the foundation of trust. If we kill the idea, we will find it harder to reduce the HIV infection.