Daniel Uy

My name is Daniel and I am an Asian mixed-race queer man in Toronto. I am a person who has been living with HIV for over half my life and the journey towards a balance of mental, physical, emotional, spiritual wellness has definitely had some peaks and valleys. While I tend to avoid discussing the negative aspects publicly, I share some in the hopes that others may find relatability rather than queer deficit-based ‘porn’ that sometimes becomes prevalent. I am someone who does not want to be known, or for gay and queer people to be known, as people who are always in a place of suffering or learning to be resilient. I hope that future generations of 2SLGBTQ+ people can have the knowledge, information, and means to live and be able to freely love early in life and not have to be resilient, but thrive from the very beginning.

Nonetheless, through my own health journey, discovering I was HIV+, I struggled to find ways of coping and turned to drugs and alcohol as a means to escape and cope in a world that did not make space for people like me. I would not say that it was something I did daily, but was definitely something I engaged in addictively. It got to the point where my problems with drugs and alcohol were beyond my ability to control and choose when I would start and stop doing them. Some evenings I would sort of ‘discover’ I just started again and I became a danger to the kind of life I wanted for myself. For me, abstinence was the solution I eventually chose to seek help in while I also sought help to look at why I did what I did in the first place. Now, I have been clean and sober since 2006. For me, I needed to get my head clear of drugs and alcohol so that I could really look at what my mental health status actually was. I found that when I first got off drugs and alcohol, that I was really plagued with much internalized homophobia that I did not realize I had been trying to drown in addiction. What I also realized is that addiction is not as cut and dry as media or society likes to think it is. In so many ways, it was a short-term, stop-gap solution for things in my life but I could never have anticipated it becoming all consuming. Also, almost up until I finally opened up and asked for help, very few people would have been able to even guess or surmise that I was struggling with this at all. Addiction is not always a spectacle, but rather secretive, isolated, and does not always seem visible.

When the first science research papers on U=U started to come out – that is that an undetectable HIV viral load means that the HIV would be untransmittable – parts of my inside psyche that I did not realize were still wounded began to heal. I did not realize that up until then I lived with a fear that my love for another made be lethal to them and became confident that it would not for the first time. What an explosion of joy and exploration that time in life became for me! I used to think that people knowing the messiness or vulnerabilities of my life would somehow make me less than or full of shame, but I have come to realize that this has been a source of strength. These parts of myself that I saw as my weaknesses are my virtues, and also my way of connecting with others. It was only after this that I really started exploring dating relationships more fully. Learning how to be present, create space, ask and also listen to someone’s wants and needs and collaborate on what would work best for us is a dance that took a few years to learn, but it was worth the effort.

In Tagalog we have a word kapwa which literally translates as ‘both’ but in a deeper level means recognizing a deeper inner self identity that we share with others. Through my life and experience, I have found that inside me is still a young child that was mistreated for something beyond their control and confused about why people would hate me for something I cannot change – through this I see so much of me in others. Reflecting this care value as a means to relating to others, I have found it much easier for me to see and accept people for who they are as well.

The day I found out I was tested positive for HIV, I happened to be at a photoshoot which they decided they were doing in black and white because I was so sick and pale looking. Later this day I went to the hospital and got several tests done, and a few days later found out I seroconverted. So, this picture was the last time in my life that I thought I was HIV-. I was 21yrs old and now I am 48.  When I first found out, it was still a death sentence. Medication had just sort of come out and I had to go on trials in order to get them. It was a challenging time that felt bleak many days. But the medication and the science got better as well as my ability to focus on my own health. I never thought I would live past 27yrs old let alone the pipe dream of living to 40. Well, that is eight years in my past now! While I cannot say every day is ‘happily ever after,’ I can say that being able to show up and face the things in my life with a level of persistence, flexibility, and optimism has aided me in rolling with life as it is. Thank-you for taking time to hear about my life.