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Kyle Cook

@positively.kyle

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HIV+ queer in Leeds, UK. Working to help break down the stigma attached to living with HIV, and using my status to spark conversation.

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SUE=SUE
2) You got me feeling emotions

Here we go! I’m answering your hard hitting questions about HIV - starting strong with a question about the emotional journey I’ve had 💙

If you’re newly diagnosed, or navigating life as a HIV positive person, it’s going to be emotional! My advice to you would be to let the emotions flow, without giving in to the uglier side of that.

Having shame or anger towards yourself eats away at you; you are more than the virus, and you are no less a person because of it.

Once I learned that I really started to get a grasp on how to process the trauma of having HIV. I’m still VERY much on a journey generally, but I am now proud of living with HIV, and that started when I started to change how I spoke to myself about it 🩷🩷

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As someone proudly living as a HIV+ person, I like to use my platform and time on the mic to educate, and destabilise the stigma surrounding HIV and AIDS 🎗️❣️

Introducing SUE=SUE… a series where I’ll be breaking down misinformation around HIV, sharing my own personal story and answering your hard hitting questions!

1) Let’s talk about HIV! This is a brief intro to me; and I want to hear from YOU!

Keep it cute and classy, but no question is a stupid question. What do you want to know?

Let’s learn together, and we can do our part to fight the stigma, which truly is the disease! 👊🏻

#hivpositive #hivawareness #worldaidsday #ukdrag

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My talk from Thursday’s Drag Raise event with @nationalaidstrust ❣️

When I do these events I prefer to just speak from the heart, and I don’t prep much (what good would PrEP do now anyway 😵‍💫). I think there’s a lot of power in just sharing your story as you have experienced it!

Sometimes it takes seeing a regular person up there being honest about what it was like for them to make you have a harder think about something. My journey with HIV has been up and down but I actually cannot believe where I have gotten to and I’m so proud to see it!! ❣️

A few people said my story touched them, or that they learned something from it, which is truly what it’s all about! Thank you again to NAT for the platform and for all the life saving work you do for the community of people living with HIV 🩷

Remember to get tested, undetectable = untransmittable, and the stigma is the real disease! By 2030 we can end new HIV transmissions!! 👊🏻👊🏻👊🏻

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WORLD AIDS DAY 2024!!! ❣️❣️❣️❣️

Today is a day of celebration of the insane progress we’ve been able to make with battling this epidemic; whilst simultaneously being a day of grieving and mourning for the 40 million + people we’ve lost in the last 42 years.

I’m extremely open about my own personal story and struggles with HIV, having been diagnosed 7 (!!!) years ago when I was only 20 years old. In that time I have progressed leaps and bounds in a personal sense, and have now made it my mission to use any chance I get to talk about it. Because it’s fucking important!!!

HIV/AIDS is deeply rooted in queer history and culture, despite being an issue that can affect anyone. The media and disgusting rag newspapers found it be the perfect excuse to print rampant queerphobia, instilling a sense of shame into living with the virus and creating the stigma we still feel the reeling effects of to this day. Sadly, one of the things the last 40 years have taught us is that this is not something we as a society would learn from.

A FEW FACTS:

- UNDETECTABLE EQUALS UNTRANSMITTABLE. A HIV+ person on effective medication manages the HIV in their system to a point where it is undetectable in the bloodstream. They therefore unequivocally cannot transmit the virus to anyone else.

- IT IS SAFER TO HAVE SEX WITH A HIV+ PERSON ON EFFECTIVE MEDS THAN SOMEONE WHO HASN’T BEEN TESTED. Ignorance is not bliss - if you’re having sex with someone who hasn’t been tested in 3 years but claims to be negative, you are at greater risk than if your sexual partner knows their status and is taking active steps to manage it.

Today if you want to be an ally, do some research. @thtorguk @positivelyuk @bhaleedsskyline @yorkshiremesmac to name just a few do life saving work and can provide so much info. Links in my bio for how to get tested, and what to do if you find out you’re positive.

PLEASE: get tested, educate yourself, and remember ignorance = fear and undetectable = untransmittable. Love you all ❣️

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🍁THIS WEEK AT WHARF🍁

🍂 Wed 11th // 7pm // £5
Scalarama & Sumandeep Kailey present: Joyland (2022)
Joyland, initially banned for theatrical release in Pakistan, became the first Pakistani film to premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022, and won the Queer Palm for best LGBTQ film.

🍂 Thu 12th // 7.30PM //£7-10
Cum to the Cabaret
A QUEER ONLY night of burlesque, club singing and drag……..Showgirls, seduction and nipple tassels- what more could a degenerate want.

🍂 Fri 13th // Midnight // £7.50
Pop Off! Volume 1: The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess By Chappell Roan
A celebration of pop music’s most iconic albums – a club night/drag cabaret with drag, DJs, games etc.

🍂 Sat 14th // 7.30PM // £4-8
RETSU
CRESS
AMASS
SLALOMD

🍂 Sun 15th // 6pm // £5-£8
Scalarama & Vee Dagger present: Like A Virgin: A Sing Sling Screening
The audacious tale of a mother & daughter who enact unspeakable acts in a gothic mansion, reaching new depths of depravity on the arrival of a mysterious private eye. A bottled-up monochrome arthouse depravity – musky Greek tragedy with notes of film noir.

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"I used to not talk about it and not include it in my dating profiles but now these things need to be done to normalise HIV."

For World AIDS Day, Kyle spoke to @liverpoolecho about his experience of living with HIV to help others be proud of their status.

When Kyle was diagnosed with HIV in 2017 he struggled to come to terms with the news. “It was really hard. I was completely blindsided and I wasn’t mentally prepared to find out I had it," said Kyle.

"I knew what it meant. I knew I wasn’t going to die but straight away I thought about how I was going to tell anyone - I thought my life would never be the same and that no one would ever want to have sex with me again.”

Because of internalised stigma, Kyle avoided attending his hospital appointments for over a year which only left him feeling paranoid about his health.

After the doctors confirmed that he was healthy, Kyle knew he had to face his diagnosis and try to process it. COVID lockdowns were the perfect opportunity for him to educate himself and look into charity work to help others.

"Through doing charity work I learned so much about HIV which I didn’t know. I trained with six others and at that moment I realised it was the first time I had spoken to someone else who had HIV about HIV. It made me feel seen and realise the feelings I was going through were universal for people living with HIV."

"HIV can get anyone and we need to open up these conversations. It may be 40 years since the crisis, but HIV can still be a loaded word for people even if they are not judgemental about it and we need to move past that."

Thank you Kyle for sharing your story💙 Man smiling with pink sunglasses and a drink in his hand. Text reads “man, 20, diagnosed with HIV after failing to use a condom just once.”

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this ep we talk all things drag & HIV with special guest @kylecooook - breaking the stigma one podcast at a time !! hope you enjoy, giggle & learn something new 🧡 link in bio xxx

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