An Urgent Call to a National Summit on the

Health & Wellness of Gay Men's Communities

We are health educators, medical providers, policy makers, activists, people with HIV, and members of diverse gay men's communities with powerful concerns about the ways current political trends and health challenges will impact our communities over the next four years. 

We strongly believe it is time to come together with a sense of urgency and collective power.

We believe it is critically important at this particular moment for all who are committed to promoting the health and wellness of communities of gay men of all colors, classes, and generations in the United States and beyond to join together and strategically address in new and innovative ways the core challenges facing our communities.

The recent U.S. election made one thing perfectly clear:  we cannot rely on the kindness of strangers to ensure the health of our people and the well-being of our community.  In an increasingly hostile national political environment, and against a backdrop of burgeoning militarism and continued economic failure, we must take aggressive steps to ensure that our health promotion efforts, community organizations, and activist groups are stronger and more effective than ever before.

We Are Facing Critical Challenges

Recent events compel us to take action. The Michigan legislature recently considered a proposal to allow doctors with "moral concerns" to refuse to care for gay people.  A Mississippi official proposed removing all books with a positive view of homosexuality from every public library in the state.  Nationwide we are seeing increasing efforts to incarcerate people with HIV/AIDS, demonize sexual minorities in communities of color, and scapegoat gay male youth for the violence visited upon them.

Among the current challenges facing us are threats of anti-gay marriage initiatives in many additional states, rising trends in STD and HIV infections among younger gay men and MSM of color, continuing accounts of anti-gay violence, and crystal meth and other drugs sweeping through our communities.  And we face these challenges as conservative, Radical Right leaders take control of committees in Congress that make policy decisions on health issues, are appointed to Cabinet posts that oversee health, public education, and the environment, and potentially may be placed onto the U.S. Supreme Court.

Because of these threats, all of us are interested in creating a stronger, more visible grassroots movement among gay men focused on strengthening our communities and tackling a range of health concerns including HIV/AIDS and substance use, cancer, heart disease, other sexually transmitted diseases, and mental health challenges.  Hence we are immediately initiating plans for the National Gay Men's Health Summit 2005.

Who We Are

We are a diverse group of people who believe NOW is the time to come together to address major threats to our communities' health and wellness.

We come from different locations, cultures, generations, and professions, but

we share common concerns about improving gay men's health and wellness,

strengthening our local communities and subcultures, and enlisting service

providers, activists, health professionals, researchers, spiritual leaders, writers, allies, and cultural workers in our efforts. 

We hope to build on the success and momentum of three previous national gay men's health summits in Boulder and North Carolina, where we began a valuable dialogue about ways to mobilize our communities to promote health and wellness and share our work and our thinking with colleagues from throughout the nation.

Some of us have been working in HIV/AIDS for several decades and believe passionately that this is an especially critical time to come together to collectively analyze confusing statistics, share best practices, and consider new approaches and paradigms for our work.  

Others of us are drawn to this summit because we hope to re-energize gay men

in our communities to be actively engaged in political activism, volunteerism,

community building, and health promotion efforts. 

All of us want to spend a few days working intensively with colleagues from all over the nation who are grappling with similar challenges and engaging in deep thinking and extended discussion about new responses and innovative programming.

Over the past few weeks, we have formed a collective and completed the initial groundwork that will allow us to host the fourth national gay men's health summit, where we will continue to build a multi-issue, multi-racial gay men’s health movement!  Please join us for the National Gay Men's Health Summit 2005, taking place:

October 19-23, 2005 in Salt Lake City

We call ourselves the National Gay Men's Health Summit 2005 Collective and we are dedicated to improving the emotional, physical, spiritual, mental, and social health and wellness of gay and bisexual men who continue to experience significant health disparities because of our sexual orientations or gender identities.

We Seek Your Active Participation

We embrace and welcome to this work all individuals who support the health and well-being of men who identify as gay and bisexual.  We know that language is problematic for some people and that many men do not identify with terms such as "gay" and "bisexual."  Our national summits are sites that nurture and support those who do identify as part of diverse gay and bisexual men's communities.   At the same time, we embrace and welcome to this work those who support the health and well-being of men who identify otherwise--as queer, as men who have sex with men, or as transgender people and FTM's who also identify as gay men.

This summit is different from a traditional health conference.  Some have experienced our earlier summits as nurturing retreats, exciting think tanks, and moments of great enlightenment.  One person called it a "vacation workshop" where he returned home "energized and inspired to do this work for another year."  We avoid a focus on celebrities and big names and create activities where we ask everyone to reach out across racial and age differences and begin to talk and work across these differences.  We take plenty of time to relax, have fun, and make contact with other participants in meaningful ways.

While the summit will include speakers, panels, workshops, pre summit institutes and organizing meetings, it will also include interactive exercises, experiential education activities, yoga and other forms of self-care, and creative festivities.  We tackle a range of topics that includes, but is not limited to:

•           health promotion for gay men of color

•           hidden assets and strengths of all of our communities

•           upswings in syphilis among urban men who have sex with men

•           the cultures and social norms of crystal meth users

•           prostate cancer, diabetes, and heart disease among gay men

•           self-care, holistic, and complimentary health approaches

•           creating sustainable community organizations

•           same-sex marriage, polyamory, monogamy, domestic partnership, and

           communal living

•           issues facing poor, homeless, and indigent people

•           gender, masculinity, and gay men's health

•           health issues facing middle-age and old men

•           the politics and health issues emerging from circuit parties

•           fitness, obesity, and gay men's health

•           making young gay men into health advocates

•           model community health projects

•           changes in gay cultures in response to the increasing centrality of cyberspace

•           special health issues facing leathermen, bears, sex workers, and clubkids

•           sex debates in gay male communities and community health implications

•           the politics and health issues emerging from barebacking

•           new generations of HIV prevention for gay men

•           rural gay men's health needs

•           countering racism, sexism, and classism in gay men’s communities

•           tensions and alliances forged between various gay generations

•           depression, suicide, and mental health issues facing gay men of all colors

•           activism focused on gay men's sexual health and access to technologies

•           marriage as a health care issue

As with previous summits, this year’s summit in Salt Lake City is a grassroots organizing effort with very ambitious aims and no big-money sponsors or large organizations leading the effort.  It is being organized by concerned men and women in various parts of the country who have volunteered to work together to handle logistics, program planning, fundraising, publicity, and housing.

We welcome all people motivated to improve the well-being

of our communities to participate and sign onto this call.

We are in the process of collecting names of men and women who intend to join in the event and will make a commitment today to be part of the National Gay Men's Health Summit 2005.  If you can make such a commitment and will lend your name to this call, please send it (along with your email address and location) today to David Ferguson at davidf@utahaids.org.  We need to hear from you today, but no later than December 27, 2004.  The final Call will be published on January 1, 2005.

We need everyone to plan now to attend this event.  We need to hear from those who face daunting questions and formidable challenges as well as those who have succeeded in creating effective programs and campaigns.  We welcome activists as well as researchers, doctors as well as holistic health practitioners, religious and spiritual leaders as well as sex workers.  Most of all, we welcome regular gay and bisexual men who will share their experiences, questions, and energies as we build this movement for community health and empowerment.

Our work putting together the program will begin in January 2005.  Registration won't start until sometime later in the winter.  You can stay abreast of our work by phoning 888-968-7968 or by contacting us at our email address at gmhs2005@utahaids.org.  Please visit our website to keep abreast of the development of the summit.  Our website is www.gmhs2005.com.

Thank you and see you in Salt Lake City in October!

The National Gay Men's Health Summit 2005 Collective

Bo Young, New York

Carlos Velazquez

Clyde Hall, Fort Hall, Idaho

David Acosta, Philadelphia

Dave Ferguson, Salt Lake City

David Herrera, Missoula

Eric Rofes, San Francisco

Gordon Youngman, British Columbia

Jeffrey Johnston, Boston

Jerry Buie, Salt Lake City

Linda Pippin, St. Paul

T. Scott Pegues, Denver

And the following endorsers:

Signers on the call.

David Abbott, Providence, Rhode Island

David Acosta, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Jeff Adams, Auckland, New Zealand

Lew Alessio, Greene, Maine

Tom Aloisi, Boston, Massachusetts

Walter Armstrong, New York, New York

Jed Barnum, Portland Maine

Chris Bartlett, Chester, Pennsylvania

Albert Benson, Los Angeles, California

Matt Brown, Denver, Colorado

Caesar Brunswick, Atlanta Georgia

Chris Byrne, Montreal, Quebec

Edward Byron, San Francisco, California

Richard Burns, New York, New York

Bob Bongiovanni, Denver, Colorado

Sean Cahill, New York, New York

Bartholomew, Casimir, Guernville, California

Danny Ceballos, San Francisco, California

Pete Chvany, Boston, Massachusetts

Brad Clark, Kansas City, Missouri

Bob Coffey, Durham, New Hampshire

John Cottrell, Salt Lake City, Utah

Jayce Cox, Helena, Montana

Chuck Diviney, Salt Lake City, Utah

J.R. Dreyer, Provincetown, Massachesetts

Pat Dunn, San Francisco, California

Octavio Espinal, Washington, DC

Tyler Fisher, Salt Lake City, Utah

Michael P. Finley, San Francisco, California

Jason Fleetwood-Bolt, San Francisco, California

Matt Foreman, New York, New York

David Friedman, New York, New York

Ed Frock, New Orleans, Louisiana

Gil Gerald, San Francisco, California

Marc Gossin, New York, New York

Daniel Gould, Los Angeles, California

Jamison Green, Oakland, California

Rob Hadley, Chicago, Illinois

Donald Hitchcock, Washington, DC

Robin Hoburg, Hartford Connecticut

Charles Housman, Lincoln, Nebraska

Tyrone Howze, St. Louis, Missouri

Joyce Hunter, Sunnyside, New York

Louis Hughes, Baltimore, Maryland

Edward Jackson, Anniston, Alabama

Jeffrey Jenne, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Jerry Jensen, Billings, Montana

Billy Jones, Washington, DC

Kevin Trimmell Jones, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Ric Kasini Kadour, Montreal and Vermont

Jim Lagattuta, Greensboro, North Carolina

Stewart Landers, Boxford, Massachusetts

Randy Laub, Salt Lake City, Utah

Terry Leftgoff, Los Angeles, California

Steve Lew, San Francisco, California

Thomas Lewis, Boston, Massachusetts

Erik Libey, Rochester, New York

Rick Loftus, San Francisco, California

Oscar Macias, San Francisco, California

Kenneth Mayer, Boston, Massachusetts

Harvey J. Makadon, Boston, Massachusetts

Hugh McGowan, New York, New York

Phillip T. McCabe, Ocean Grove, New Jersey

Robert McDiarmid, Boise, Idaho

Stephen McDonald, Washington, DC

Doneley Meris, New York, New York

Ilan B. Meyer, New York, New York

Greg Milan, New South Wales, Australia

Jeffrey Montgomery, Detroit, Michigan

James Moser, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Stephen Oxendine, San Francisco, California

Les Pappas, San Francisco, California

Ian Palmquist, Raleigh, North Carolina

Benjamin Perkins, Dorchester, Massachusetts

Jim Pickett, Chicago, Illinois

Frank Pizzoli, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Antonio Purcell De Ogenio, Denver, Colorado

Kirk Read, San Francisco, California

Jake Rowe, Salt Lake City, Utah

Larry Riba, Boulder, Colorado

Bill Ryan, Montreal, Quebec

Kelly Scott, Seattle, Washington

Douglas Sebesta, San Francisco, California

Erick Seelbach, Seattle, Washington

Jim Shafer, Greene, Maine

Peter Shallit, Seattle Washington

Don Shewey, New York, New York

Joe Simard, Hartford, Connecticut

Bob Skinner, Corvallis, Oregon

Christopher Smith, Santa Cruz, California

David Smith, New Haven Connecticut

Jodi Sperber, Manchester, New Hampshire

Edward Strickler, Charlottesville, Virginia

Sean Strub, New York, New York

Fred Swanson, Seattle, Washington

Stewart Thomas, Denver, Colorado

Steven Tierney, San Francisco, California

Dennis Ullom, Salt Lake City, Utah

Tony Valenzuela, Los Angeles, California

Justin Varney, London, United Kingdom

Michael Ventrone, New York, New York

Nelson Vergel, Houston, Texas

Jim Viney, Salt Lake City

George Ware, Denver, Colorado

Eric Whitney, Boston, Massachusetts

Hank Wilson, San Francisco, California

Wayne Wilson, Raleigh, North Carolina

Will Wilson, Chicago, Illinois

Cameron Wolf, Montpelier, Maryland

Jason Jamiere Wright, Boston, Massachusetts

Les K. Wright, San Francisco, California

Anthony Young, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Paul Zak, Palm Springs, California