2023-07-12 22:00:00
1983 was a crucial year in the fight against AIDS with the discovery of HIV on May 20 and a few days later the writing of the Denver Principles. In 2013, on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the release of the Denver Principles, Mark S. King, openly gay and HIV-positive American author and activist, returned to this historic moment in an article that Item Magazine just reposted: “You need to know this, because it matters. Because it has already changed your life, whoever you are, and you may not even realize it”, underlines the activist. “It’s not a vague concept. It started with a very real meeting, which resulted in a very real and tangible document. It happened exactly thirty years ago this month. It was 1983. A year before, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) had become the chilling name for the murderer of our gay friends and lovers. The virus that causes it, HIV, had only been identified a few weeks earlier. In this atmosphere of grief and fear, a group of activists gather in Denver for a conference on gay and lesbian health. Among them, a dozen men with AIDS. Among them, Michael Callen from New York, an inspiration, and Richard Berkowitz (Sex Positive), the only member of the group to survive until today, were about to do something that would change the course of things. They were about to do something that would forever change our response to AIDS and health care in general,” says Mark S. King. “As the conference drew to a close, activists asked to address the attendees. Rather than being presented with a report on the state of the AIDS crisis, they wanted to speak for themselves. If the word “empowerment” was not yet part of the healthcare lexicon, it was about to be. The group took turns reading a document at the conference that they had just created themselves, during hours spent in a hotel suite. It is their Bill of Rights and their Declaration of Independence in one document. It will be known as the “Denver Principles” and begins: “We condemn attempts to label ourselves ‘victims’, which implies defeat, and we are only occasionally ‘patients’, which involves passivity, helplessness and dependence on the care of others. We are “people with AIDS”. In 2013, Mark S. King ended his text with this sentence which is still relevant and which shows the deep and lasting impact of the Denver Principles on the fight against AIDS and on democracy in health in general: “The principles of Denver are therefore still relevant. At the dawn of this epidemic, a list of fundamental rights was drawn up, which continues to impact us today. Anyone coping with a chronic illness should applaud the amazing journey and profound significance of this document.”
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