Background
Howard Brown Health
Mission1
From the Howard Brown Health website, their current stated Mission, Vision, and Values are as follows:
- Our Mission: "Rooted in LGBTQ+ liberation, Howard Brown Health provides affirming healthcare and mobilizes for social justice. We are agents of change for individual wellbeing and community empowerment."
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Our Vision: "Howard Brown Health envisions a future where healthcare and transformative social policies actualize human rights and equity for all."
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Our Core Values: "Howard Brown Health has identified four core values that are at the core of our organization:
- Teamwork: Working together with utmost respect, appreciation, and accountability.
- Excellence: Striving for the best with the highest level of professionalism, leadership, ethical standards, and open communication
- Creativity: Fostering a forward-thinking, innovative, and fulfilling environment.
- Advocacy: Championing the healthcare needs of our community through responsive, client-focused initiatives"
History (pre-2000s)2
Howard Brown was established in 1974 by a group of 4 medical students, all members of the Chicago Gay Medical Students Association, who were especially passionate about providing resources, both in terms of psychological counseling and physical healthcare, especially relating to sexually transmitted infections, to gay men and lesbian women. It was created with a small budget and a fully volunteer staff, and in 1976 when the first Board was officially formed, it was named the Howard Brown Memorial Clinic as a tribute to the founder of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Dr. Howard Brown.
During the late '70s, their contributions to important studies and vaccine trials resulted in the development of a Hepatitis B vaccine, and this development is what pushed Howard Brown into the spotlight.
Though the clinic wasn't formed with HIV/AIDS in mind specifically, when the epidemic became apparent in the '80s, it was positioned to quickly react and support the queer population in Chicago. By 1985, they had established the City of Chicago's AIDS Hotline, a 24/7, mostly volunteer-run phone line to provide resources to Chicagoans who had HIV/AIDS or knew someone who did.
In addition to these medical and psychological resources, Howard Brown opened the first of three Brown Elephant Resale Shops in 1982, with the intent to use the funds made to provide care for uninsured/underinsured patients at their health centers. To this day, the three locations of the shop provide funding for more than half of the uninsured/underinsured patients treated at Howard Brown.
Howard Brown Health's accomplishments did not go unrecognized, and in 1991 it was inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame for its "shining example of the work that the gay and lesbian community can accomplish when it sets its mind to doing good."
For a more detailed history of Howard Brown Health and/or information about its more recent (post-2000) accomplishments, see their website HERE.
Services - Then and Now3
In the 1990s, Howard Brown offered many of the same services it still does today in 2024. Both then and now they provided educational resources, general healthcare, and mental health services. In the 1990s there was more of a focus on specifically HIV/AIDS treatment, while in 2024 that's emphasized less. That's not to say it's been left behind, Howard Brown Health provides STD testing and HIV prevention and treatment options, but the focus has shifted more toward community services.
Now, Howard Brown Health operates more clinic locations, three resale shops that provide much of their funding, and a youth center. They also host many community groups and programs, including ones for seniors.
For a list of services Howard Brown Health currently offers, see their website HERE.
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AIDS Epidemic
HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus, and AIDS stands for Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome. When left untreated, HIV progresses into AIDS.
The HIV/AIDS Epidemic was more of a pandemic than an epidemic. It affected the whole world, and different countries have different timelines regarding patients, research, treatments, etc., so this will be focusing specifically on the USA's HIV/AIDS Epidemic.
The first reported case of AIDS in the United States was officially reported in June of 1981. At the time, doctors didn't know about HIV/AIDS, and the red flag was the result of the immunodeficiency that HIV caused. Doctors reported cases of Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, Kaposi's Sarcoma, and other opportunistic infections that typically only appear in individuals with weakened immune systems, and these reports often involved gay men who were previously healthy.
In May of 1982, AIDS received its first name: GIRD, or Gay-Related Immunodeficiency Disorder. It was referred to as this in news articles, and the name did not help the prevalent idea that AIDS was only an issue for gay men. Later that year, in September, the CDC referred to AIDS by the name AIDS for the first time, and finally provided an official definition: "A disease at least moderately predictive of a defect in cell-mediated immunity, occurring in a person with no known cause for diminished resistance to that disease."
Today HIV is both preventable and treatable, but at the time HIV was pretty much guaranteed to lead to AIDS, which was a death sentence. Because of this, in addition to the danger of the syndrome itself, its association with gay men created massive social stigma both around people with HIV/AIDS who may or may not be gay, and around people who are gay without HIV/AIDS. There was a pervasive fear of contracting HIV/AIDS amongst the public, which led to officials taking measures like closing bathhouses, trying to refuse entry to people with AIDS in places like schools, and generally isolating them.
From 1981 to 1987, there were no approved treatments for HIV, but in 1987, the FDA finally approved a drug for treating HIV. This wasn't entirely effective, though, and the mass casualties continued into the 1990s, with the mortality rate peaking in 1995. This led to the decimation of a whole generation of gay men.
Globally, according to data from the World Health Organization, around 42.3 million people have died of HIV since the beginning of the epidemic. According to the KFF page on HIV/AIDS, over 700,000 people in the USA have died of HIV-related illnesses since the beginning of the epidemic (as of 2018).
For a longer (1981-2023), more detailed timeline of HIV and AIDS, see the HIV website that the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services manages HERE.
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Voguing
Voguing is a type of dancing created by queer black and Latine communities in Harlem, New York sometime between the 1960s and 1980s. "Vogue took from the poses in high fashion and ancient Egyptian art, adding exaggerated hand gestures to tell a story and imitate various gender performances in categorized drag genres." It emerged within the ballroom scene, which was already well-established by the '80s, and the previous pageantry-style competition was often forgone in favor of vogue battles where Houses would compete against each other for trophies.
"Houses" are competition groups within this ballroom scene, but also function as adoptive families for many of their members. They are typically led by House Mothers and House Fathers, and those under them are considered their children, who sometimes consider each other siblings. These familial labels are not purely symbolic, either. These house parents support and guide those under them. This is one reason queer people joined houses: to have a safe place to be, around safe people who cared about them.
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