the Crown Princess is not here but the queen is..

The MC said that the Crown Princess of Norway could not come to address the opening plenary of Be Heard! The MSM Pre-Conference, but not to worry, since the queen was there - there were many references to queens during the day.

The Opening plenary of the MSM (men who have sex with men) pre conference featured remarks and presentations which were endured in a very hot conference room. A lot of people were fanning, some were dozing. Chris Beyrer's presentation The Global Epidemics of HIV Among MSM in 2010: Epidemiology, Responses, and Human Rights discussed the results of a study which was complex to understand in the hot room, but the gist of which was that they could prove that improving services to MSM in a human rights framework would reduce HIV infection rates generally in the population. The four pillars which were tested are :-

• outreach with condom and lubricant promotion 
• community level behavioural interventions
• ARV provision
• harm reduction/substitution therapy for durg users

The conclusion is that for the first time, it seemed that science and rights based approaches are in agreement.

No doubt, many of our Caribbean not-homophobic holders of the Caribbean morals and consciousness would say that the science was flawed.. Dr Breyer did dedicate this presentation to his partner who died in a time when there were no ARVs ... so we could imagine the reminders about the gay militant conspiracy..


Michel Sidibé from, UNAIDS celebrated the recent news from Iceland and Argentina about the legislation of same sex marriage. He repeated his support for the efforts to change laws which criminalise same-sex relationships and to remove homophobia from the health sector. He congratulated all the persons there for the work being done.

Joel Nana reminded the plenary about the  importance of donors understanding indigenous LGBT movements. He spoke passionately about the advocates in Africa who face great personal risk and who are expected to work voluntarily. He also called on donors to listen as well to those activists and not only preach.

Three young persons from the Caribbean said that they found the plenary long and boring. They said that they needed to have a youth rep on the steering committee. They liked Joel Nana's remarks. (Joel Nana is not 30 as yet). Other Caribbean people felt that these remarks were relevant to the Caribbean since there are Caribbean movements which are being forced to be organised and become professionalised.
One person said that Chris Breyer's presentation was enlightening, while others felt that could have been in one of the sessions since it was very technical.
People were glad that Michael Sidibe spoke but some said he sounded a bit confusing, while a Cameroonian said he thought he might have been nervous speaking in a forum of MSM.

In the discussion  during the networking coffee break about whether Michael Sidbie deh suh..  one Caribbean man said no, not with that shirt he was wearing, no gay man would wear a shirt like that.