Sanford E. Gaylord has long referred to himself as a "creative activist."
"The arts are what makes my blood beat," Gaylord said. "The job is what pays the mortgage and feeds me. Any opportunity that I have to bring the arts within the work that I do, I take."
Gaylord works as regional resource consultant for the Regional Resource Network Program for the Department of Health and Human Services ( HHS ). "There are 10 of us that are stationed in each of the 10 HHS regional offices, which cover the United States and its territories in the Atlantic and the Pacific," he noted. "In the Office of Women's Health and Minority Health, I'm the contracted position that promotes HIV education. I provide support to the regional health administrator-slash-assistant surgeon general" [Note: Gaylord's views expressed here are his own and are not intended to reflect HHS policy].
But since before Gaylord went to work at HHS, he has worked as a writer and actor. Inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame ( now the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame ) in 2012, Gaylord is co-founder of the African American LGBT performance ensemble A Real Read. His film and television credits include Leaving the Shadows Behind, Living with Pride: Ruth Ellis@100 and the three-part film series Kevin's Room. He has written in a number of publications about being an HIV-positive Black gay man, including for BLACKlines, which had been published by Windy City Times/Outlines in the 1990s and early 2000s.
"You can just 'teach' someone, but if I can entertain you, I can layer that, and you can find the tools that work best for you," Gaylord said. "If you look back within the history of HIV, artists have been at the forefront of making things happen for a while. Activists were once artists, so I call myself a creative activist, so I don't frighten people. Since my day job is at HHS, I can't necessarily put my thoughts out there."
He was diagnosed with HIV on August 16, 1989. "I didn't sleep with anyone but Black men. At the time, I didn't think that I was at risk," he said.
Gaylord was 24 at the time, and began having trouble on the job soon after.
"I was told to get my affairs in order," he recalled. "My behavior sank. Within one year of diagnosis, I was written up three times and then, suspended and fired. I engaged the AIDS Legal Council, James Monroe Smith, who started it, represented me. Because, back then [it was], 'You've got your diagnosis, so you pack your shit up.'"
African Americans have contended with stigma in their own community since the early days of the epidemic, Gaylord added. "Just like with Stonewall, we were always there. People would say, 'He died of cancer,' or, 'that was high-blood pressure.' Anything but HIV. Because who wants to be HIV-positive? Who would ever want to be gay?"
Since then, Gaylord has seen both what he called "dark days" and "days filled with hope." Advances in HIV/AIDS medicines allowed friends who'd been consigned to hospice care re-emerge and carry out productive lives. But, at the same time, many in the community grew weary of the details of the epidemic.
"I've seen people just get burned out about it," Gaylord said. "They ask, 'Ain't that been cured yet? I thought they had a cure.'"
He spoke of a generational divide he sees in the perception of HIV/AIDS as well.
"I don't want to cut younger generations, but a lot of them that are younger than 50I'm 51may not have seen what I saw'X-amount' of funerals. That's not normal to go to more than one funeral a week."
Gaylord added that numerous men from that era live with trauma and post-traumatic stress syndrome, which is very often not understood or even acknowledged by others in the community or service providers. Stigma continues to pose challenges as well, even within the gay community.
"The stigma is not as entrenched but it has not got away," he said. "That's sad, because, at this point, HIV has become medicalized. Justifiably so, at this point, it's, 'Take your meds, keep your viral load down, keep your t-cells high, use PrEP if you're going to fuck around without a condom.'"
That propensity toward stigmatizing can even extend to health providers. Gaylord noted that many physicians and other medical professionals can forget that they are being paid to deliver services to their patients.
"Racism and phobias and all that stuff is taught. Just because you're a professional doesn't mean you're not going to have it. You've got to have enough class and decency for me to not feel it. I don't have to have a doctorate to know when you're calling me a bitch, or a fag, and are looking down at me. … When it really comes down to it, the money is green, even if it's coming from Medicare. And your rent is due just like mine is," he said.
The LGBT community, he added, badly needs to confront racism. "I'm Black before anything else. I've got a pretty name, Sanford Emanuel Gaylord. My resume is impeccable. But when you see me in person, I have to work hard, because I'm now being judged. So, why wouldn't there be prejudice and racism in the gay community? There's Pride, and Black Pride, and Puerto Rican Pride. There wouldn't be these offshoots, like Dyke March, if we truly had an inclusive community of people who are under this umbrella, who are really making a difference working together for the generations that follow us all."
But Gaylord said that he was hopeful for the future and said that many parts of the community shine the way for each other. At a recent meeting, he recalled, he had told a colleague, "Look how far we've come," after the participants had exchanged their preferred pronouns.
"There always has to be something to keep us moving, because there's always someone being raised to hate you and your very existence," he added. "That's why I'm continuing to do what I do, and I'm blending arts with it because there are people who need the messages, there are those who might not have it within them to speak up. I don't have kids so I'm doing what I need to do out of consideration for the generations that follow me."
See a 2007 video interview with Gaylord here: www.chicagogayhistory.com/biography.html .