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https://twitter.com/Matthew_Hodson/status/1620689695058583553

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Matthew Hodson

@Matthew_Hodson

May 16

Section 28 didn’t come out of nowhere.
It came from a society where 75% thought homosexuality was wrong.
From a society that feared the sight of a man in drag would corrupt.
From a society that believed ignorance was better for children than any knowledge of gay lives.
🧵 1/16

In 1983, 5 years before Section 28, the Daily Mail stirred up controversy by claiming that children, as young as Primary School age, were being fed gay propaganda.
The Daily Mail was particularly incensed by a book called Jenny Lives with Eric and Martin.
2/16

The book (kid lives with her dad and his boyfriend, they do normal family things, no-one fights) wasn’t freely available.
If the school was liberal, it was given to children whose family’s resembled Jenny’s - a kindness when there was no representation of gay families on TV.
3/16

Read 16 tweets

Matthew Hodson

@Matthew_Hodson

Feb 24

I was blindsided on a radio interview the other day by being asked, “But since the knee operation, your health is great, right?”
I tried to deflect.
I didn’t want to answer.
Here’s my answer (and some news).
🧵 1/14
aidsmap.com/news/feb-2024/…

In April 2022, almost 2 years ago, I began experiencing stabbing pains.
They were intense but intermittent; I was busy at the time so I tried to ignore them. I had a live broadcast that I was scheduled to do for aidsmap and I didn’t want to miss that.
2/14

The next day I was persuaded to call the NHS Helpline (111) who sternly instructed me to go directly to Accident and Emergency.
They ran some tests and, when the results came through, put me on a trolley, a drip and nil by mouth for potential surgery.
3/14

Read 14 tweets

Matthew Hodson

@Matthew_Hodson

Feb 18

A 🧵 on #AIDS in the 80s/90s:
I was 15 when I first had sex with a man.
I’d snuck off to London’s Heaven nightclub with the express intent of ridding myself of my ‘gay virginity’, a goal I achieved easily with a visiting American photographer.
1/13
#LGBTplusHM #UnderTheScope

Later that week, I watched with rising panic the Horizon documentary, Killer in the Village.
It warned of a new disease that was killing gay Americans. A few cases had just been identified in the UK too.
At that time, the disease did not have a name.
We now know it as AIDS.
2/13

The government’s ’Don’t Die of Ignorance’ HIV advertising campaign, featuring icebergs, a tombstone and a doom-laden voiceover, came out a couple of years later when I was in my first year at university.
3/13

Read 14 tweets

Matthew Hodson

@Matthew_Hodson

Aug 13, 2022

The first #AIDS case in the UK was reported in December 1981.
Three years later there were just over 100 cases, almost all of them among gay and bisexual men; over 40 of them had died.
At this point there wasn’t even confidence that condoms offered protection.
1/?

It was the 1980s.
Margaret Thatcher’s Tory Government was in power.
Homophobia in the UK was deeply entrenched. Many felt that the deaths of queers was of no concern.
It was unclear when, or if, the Government would take action. 2/

In 1987, with a still relatively small but significant number of cases observed among heterosexual people, the UK Government launched its first #AIDS campaign.
Billboards across the country proclaimed the message, ‘Don’t Die of Ignorance’. 3/

Read 15 tweets

Matthew Hodson

@Matthew_Hodson

Aug 12, 2022

Anne Heche was a promising young actress.
She had great reviews behind her and great expectations ahead.
She was Ellen Degeneres’ first girlfriend in the public eye.
Shortly after she starred in a rom-com with Harrison Ford.
‘Could an out lesbian carry a movie?’ the trades asked.

It was a lot of expectation to put on one movie and on the shoulders of one person.
The movie was not great. It received tepid reviews and poor ticket sales.
Studio executives (inc. gay ones) pronounced that openly #LGBTQ people could not play leads.
We still see this now.

The relationship with Ellen ended, with much tabloid crowing.
Anne Heche’s fragility was exposed - few could go through what she did, and without the cushion of extreme wealth that Ellen enjoyed, and not bear the scars.
When she acted, you could still see her talent, her spark.

Read 5 tweets

Matthew Hodson

@Matthew_Hodson

May 31, 2022

If you have recently been diagnosed with #HIV, please know these things.
Your life is not over.
You can still be healthy.
You can still have children. And grandchildren.
You can still have loving relationships and great, uninhibited sex (these may come hand in hand... or not).

When we are on effective treatment there is absolutely NO RISK of #HIV being passed on to our sex partners - even without condoms or PrEP.
So we can have great, fearless sex.
We call this Undetectable means Untransmittable or #UequalsU.

@sashaishere88

“Women living with #HIV can have children just like anyone else. You can conceive naturally, you can give birth naturally and you can have HIV-negative babies.”
@sashaishere88 on being a mother.
HIV changed, tell everyone. #UequalsU