With the launch of Captain Condom’s second edition ONE Condoms wrappers, many in the Alliance community have been reminded of the agency’s first safer sex superheroes.
On September 27, 2015, National Gay Men’s HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, Alliance unveiled the HIV Warriors, a collaboration with The Prevention Collaborative and Heads or Tails NYC. An A&U article announced the Warriors as “the stories of young men living with or affected by HIV—HIV Warriors—who are committed to destigmatizing the disease, educating, and promoting testing and treatment. Saturated with pride colors, these HIV Warriors are trained peer educators who will share their experiences and truths across their communities.”
The Warriors were a creative collective raising awareness about safer sex and promoting a hotline to help New Yorkers receive PEP and PrEP. Seven years later, several of the Warriors are still very active in the Alliance community. The Orange Warrior was a benevolent mad scientist type, created by Brandon Lee aka Pooh, and the second Yellow Warrior, battling for normalization and authenticity for people with HIV, was created by Jonathan Atkins. We caught up with them on what the project meant to them, and the ongoing mission of promoting safer sex.
Photo Credit: Alina Oswald
Brandon Lee aka Pooh
Q: Can you tell us the genesis of the project ,and you being the Orange Warrior?
A: I had been a Peer at Alliance for two years, after graduating PREP Cycle 42, then went to help Guy and Ramona with the MSM group. You hear about “know the statistics, don’t be the statistic” but this project was more fun, more interesting.
I was not HIV positive and I felt like I should go and learn, ask my friends who are positive about their experience. So my power was learning.
The Warriors as a concept was a way to get away from trauma-informed care and instead meet people where they are. This was when Instagram first started taking off, so our feeling was let’s just post something online and have fun with it, get info out there.
Q: What’s with the eye patch?
A: I thought “what represents intelligence, and I thought A MAD SCIENTIST, but a kind one.” I put a strike of Orange in my hair.
Q: What was your pre-Warrior outreach like?
A: I had done plenty of outreach, doing 10,000 condom distribution days, lobbying in Albany for better HIV care. As a student at Harvey Milk High School, we presented at the Emory awards, getting people tested.
Q: What are some other ideas you’d like to implement to promote safer sex?
A: In the spirit of HIV Warriors, I think communities should have an “accountabili—buddy” that takes their friends to health care appointments, keeps them accountable.
Our agency does a lot of work reaching new people, and I think it’d be cool to reward people who bring in folks to get tested/be clients.
Photo Credit:Alina Oswald
Photo Credit: Alina Oswald
Jonathan Atkins
Q: Can you tell us the genesis of the project andyou being one of the two Yellow Warriors?
A: An Alliance employee at the time, named Christel Hyden, got people together to be warriors. It was a campaign that was intended to be fun and empowering, and remove stigma.
I initially declined to be one of the warriors, but when another gentleman who had planned to be at the photoshoot wasn’t able to attend, I stepped up as the Yellow Warrior.
We did a photo campaign, we also did a performance at the agency, where people asked us specific questions. We did outreach a few times. At the time, one of the interventions we were doing was called “Many Men, Many Voices” to get MSMs who were afraid of confronting the possibility of HIV, and address PEP and PrEP.
Q: Was this your first outreach around prevention and treatment?
A: No, definitely not, but it was my first time sharing my personal experiences and unique perspective on HIV. It was a little scary at first, which goes back to my original reluctance, but once I did it, it just became not a big deal anymore. If I’m talking about getting rid of the stigma and normalizing it, I also had to do this within myself.
Q: I understand that the warriors picked their own powers and descriptions. What were yours?
A: My power was “bringing light to people’s lives” and my strength was “being open about HIV, discussing it, being knowledgeable, and disputing myths.”
Q: That’s always been a big barrier to prevention and treatment, right?
A: Yes. My goal has been to normalize it, let folks know that people live with HIV but it’s only one facet of their lives, it doesn’t define who they are, and it’s not something that necessarily has to handicap you.
When Brandon was a Peer at Alliance, he was also working at the post office. He worked at another HIV organization for several years before returning to Alliance as a Community Health Worker in March 2022.
Jonathan Atkins moved on to Mt. Sinai Institute for Advanced a few years after donning the cape as one of the Yellow Warriors. He returned to Alliance in April of this year as a Health Trainer working with the MSM community.
While the HIV Warriors may not be doing fresh photoshoots soon, the activism of the Warriors continues. More importantly, the goal of safer sex continues. And as The Orange Warrior reminds us, its form doesn’t have to be trauma-informed. Campy is the name and safer sex is the game, with HIV Warriors as with Captain Condom.