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It has always been a cornerstone of HIV and AIDS work to bring our values to the surface, examine them, and challenge them when they create barriers to effective services to our communities.
ACT’s Gay Men’s Community Education and Outreach programs are rooted in many values. These are some of them:
- Homosexuality is a normal, healthy, and equally important form of sexual expression existing on a continuum of sexual expression that includes bisexuality, heterosexuality, and others;
- Individual choices should be respected, even when those choices appear to us to cause greater harm than other choices. We respect an individuals right and ability to make decisions for themselves, and recognize that there are limitations placed on a man’s ability to make a choice. These limitations can include social, religious, cultural, linguistic, practical, momentary, economic, and other factors.
- We seek to increase men’s ability to make informed, free choices for themselves.
- We strive to recognize any conflicting values we may hold as service providers that may create barriers to the men we serve. We strive to ensure these values do not impede their needs being met.
- Male sexuality in all it’s forms - including the desire for multiple partners, anonymous casual sex, as well as sex with just one other partner - are of equal value in their expression. We recognize that these different forms of sexual expression each come with a set of pleasures and a set of emotional and physical risks.
- We affirm all forms of adult relational behaviour. This includes monogamous, open, and polyamorous relationships. We honour the creative, sophisticated, mature, and original strategies that gay men have developed to maintain satisfying, significant relationships with other men.
- We honour the overwhelming success gay men have had in curbing the spread of HIV in our communities, and the on-going efforts of gay men to live well, have their needs met, and remain safe and healthy.
ACT’s Gay Men’s Community Education and Outreach programs work with diverse groups of gay and bisexual men, and other men who have sex with men who do not identify as gay or bisexual.
Our primary goal is to prevent the spread of HIV and other sexually transmitted infections (STIs). We do this work within a health promotion model by addressing various factors that influence an individual’s overall health and sexual health. These include (but are not limited to) the social environment in which men meet and have sex, their relationship to drugs and alcohol, the stigma men living with HIV/AIDS experience in the community and in sexual situations, and the ability of men to access information and support services.
We also strive to work collaboratively with groups of men to help them identify their specific health needs related to HIV and STIs, and then respond in an appropriate way.
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