Category: HIV

How does it make you feel? Art, Artivism & Art Therapy


This has become a bit of an inside joke with my therapists over the years.

“Yes, Todd. But how does it make you feel?” usually comes after I describe an event or situation with clarity & objectivity from my analytical left brain. It is harder for me to connect with the emotions and feelings that come up.

This question has also started to permeate my creative work. I’m a queer artivist – I bring my activism into my art. It’s also a form of art therapy, helping me to reclaim the shame & stigma I experience in life through digital creations. Music and art have the power to heal. 

I will also tell you that I struggle at times to identify the emotions in a photograph – or the emotions I want a given image to convey to the viewer.

When I was encouraged to create a piece for the HIV Is Not A Crime art contest, I was initially frozen in my tracks. How could I best convey how I feel when I think about HIV criminalization? What does stigma feel like? Where do these feelings come from?

Working in this space can be traumatizing for many different reasons. Thinking about HIV criminalization and the effects it has on my mental health can be heavy at times, bringing up sadness, shame, guilt and other difficult emotions. 

With this project, I wanted to rescript the negative messaging around HIV criminalization. I wanted this to be a positive message. It is easy to identify the negative effects of criminalization – much harder to find and hold onto hope. Hope for change. Hope for a cure. Hope for a world free of stigma and discrimination. 

That first required me to search my soul and imagine – what would it feel like for our laws to finally be repealed and modernized? 

Two words came to mind – joy and dance.

I could literally picture myself dancing, which is my happy place. 

From that inspiration came this piece which I call “Happy Dance”

I will be exhibiting Happy Dance along with several other original art pieces at the Phoenix Theatre Nov 3-13, 2022 as part of the Spirit and Place Festival. This year’s theme is Identify. My pieces will be part reflection, part therapy, part celebration! Join us on November 9th for the main event, which includes the visual art show along with a panel discussion.

HIV Modernization
Ending The Stigma of People Living with HIV
Part of the Spirit & Place Festival

About this event

Through an art exhibit and panel discussion, learn how people living with HIV and their allies are working to end HIV stigma by modernizing Indiana’s outdated HIV criminal laws.

People living with HIV often face stigma and discrimination related to Indiana laws that criminalize them due to their positive HIV status. This event features speakers living with HIV who are working to end HIV criminalization through legislative change, activism, art, and community support.

A visual art show featuring Indy-based artist Contonnia Turner, Jr. and photographer/digital artist Todd Fuqua will provide a backdrop for the discussion. Contonnia Turner, Jr. is a talented young Black Hoosier with multiple layers of intersecting identity who creates artwork that reflects who he is physically, mentally, and spiritually. Todd Fuqua is an Indianapolis-based artivist (activism through art) who started a social movement called CelebrateUU, building on the concept of HIV Undetectable=Untransmittable (U=U).

Explore the exhibit and interact informally with artists beginning at 5:30. The Talk will begin at 6:15 moderated by Terrell Parker and will include HIV Modernization Movement Chair Dr. Carrie Foote, and Co-Chair Mark Anthony Hughes. The Phoenix bar will be open, and snacks will be provided.

A partnership between Phoenix Theatre Cultural Center and HIV Modernization Movement Indiana.

Contact the event organizers at 317-635-7529 or cmacy@phoenixtheatre.org.

Walk-ins welcome, but registration is strongly encouraged by Nov. 9.

ABOUT SPIRIT & PLACE. The Spirit & Place Festival (Nov. 3-13) celebrates the powerful role the arts, humanities, and religion play in community life and is housed in the IU School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI. Learn more at spiritandplace.org

Register here

The shortest day to recovery


Today I’m grateful for life itself, for this day – the shortest day of the year. 12 years ago today, I was going to end my life because of the deep shame I felt at my core for who I was. Decades of societal and religious messaging that being gay is an abomination, a sin, a brokenness that needed to be healed. I also realize now I had some deep unresolved trauma from my adolescent and young adult years.

In 1990, I moved to Indy for a job at Lilly after graduating from University of Michigan. I was largely closeted at first, living in fear of being found out. I ran from myself, pouring my energy into my career. I sold my soul to the devil of money, status, material wealth. I did well for the most part – but sacrificed intimacy, community and connection for the corporate ladder. Eventually the strain of living a compartmentalized existence caught up with me.

At 33, I started using drugs because the alcohol was no longer sufficient to numb the pain. Over the course of the 8 years, I became addicted to crystal meth. In the last year or two, I was using every day – sometimes even smoking at work on breaks in the restroom. I was a functional meth addict until I could function no more. I had become irritable and aggressive at work, stemming from my using, lack of sleep and depression.

On December 21, 2009, I decided to take enough meth to burst my heart by sticking a large quantity up my butt. Whether or not that would have worked is immaterial. In my mind, I wanted to die.

In a moment of clarity, I decided that wasn’t the answer. I knew I wanted help, but all attempts in the past had failed. I called 911 and reported a failed suicide by lethal ingestion of meth. I wanted to put into motion a plan that I couldn’t stop. I also called my pastor Mike Mather who brought a small contingent of reinforcements to be there with me. They met me at Greenfield ER and took me to Fairbanks for treatment. That act of presence is one I’ll never forget.

It would be another 8 years before I finally put the pipe down in 2018. In those 8 years, I wrestled with my demons. I also went through a series of losses. I was fired from my 19 year career at Lilly in 2010 because I was arrested based on what the police found that night I called 911. I blew a plea bargain and ended up with two felonies on my record in 2011. I was diagnosed with HIV In 2012. I lost my mom to a heart attack stemming from her untreated alcoholism in 2013. I was sexually assaulted once and robbed twice in 2014.

Looking back, that’s when I started rebuilding my life. Therapy has helped me deal with the shame and trauma, the isolation, the inability to feel anything other than loss and shame. I reconnected with my photography, and have fully embraced the artist and artivist in me.

In these past 12-18 months, I have found the three most important things I was missing: identity, purpose and connection.

Today I remember my roommate from Fairbanks who died from this disease. I remember my friend Graham Karwath who died from this disease. I know too many gay men who are addicted to meth. We don’t talk about it. We offer them black and white solutions that push them away. I was judged and ostracized when I relapsed. But I was also shown love, compassion, and grace.

If you or someone you know is struggling, tell them to hold on. Tell them you love them. Love them without condition or strings or expectations. Love them where they are at.

There is hope. There is healing. Find your way.

I’m here if you want to talk.

Thanks for listening.

Keep telling the story

Signed ever faithfully,

The Right Reverend Lord C Todd Peacock III

Reflection on World AIDS Day: Tools to End the HIV Epidemic


I’ve been living with HIV since 2012. But I didn’t talk about it openly until 2019, when I was asked to share my story with the Indianapolis STAR. That’s when I really started to face and accept my diagnosis. That interview changed me and how I think about this disease, my health and my purpose in life. 

Since then, what have I learned?

I’ve learned that we HAVE the tools to end this epidemic. The science is clear, and the medications are life-saving. While treatment isn’t a cure, it does mean we can stop the virus from spreading. Having HIV is no longer a death sentence.

But let’s also be clear. People are still dying from from this disease. And every one of those deaths is preventable today.

We’ve been fighting for our lives for 40 years. Why do I have hope today that this current effort to end the HIV epidemic will be any different? Because we DO have the tools to end this epidemic. What are those tools? Testing, U=U, PrEP, Harm Reduction and Visibility. 

  • Testing – we have better testing today, including rapid tests and self-tests at home. They are available for FREE. Know your status. Take responsibility for sexual health, just like we do for physical and mental health. With other STI’s, I used to wait until I had symptoms before I would go into Bellflower to get tested. That is crazy – even moreso with HIV. We have lots more options today for HIV testing. If you’re sexually active, please get tested regularly. 
  • U=U – the science is clear. People living with HIV who are in treatment and have an undetectable viral load can not pass on the virus to their sexual partners. That’s HUGE! We need to be talking about this more. I believe we have a PrEP bias in our messaging. We need to be educating people more on U=U and the importance of getting into treatment. 
  • PreP – while the most important step is to get people into effective treatment, people who are HIV- have an option for their sexual health. PrEP reduces the can risk of getting HIV from sex by more than 90% and from injection drug use by more than 74%.
  • Harm Reduction – as a person in long term recovery, I understand the benefits of a traditional 12 step program. It was critical in my early recovery – but eventually, stopped serving me. There are other options to abstinence. For some, the “all or nothing” approach can be a barrier to long-term recovery. And it turns out, harm reduction reduces the spread of infectious disease. Harm reduction data reveals a compelling inverse correlation between harm reduction methodology and HIV & Hepatitis C rates —as a nation’s commitment to harm reduction increases, rates of disease infection decrease. 
  • Visibility – I’ve come to believe that STIGMA is our only barrier to ending this epidemic. Stigma’s power lies in our silence. In the early AIDS epidemic, the mantra was SILENCE=DEATH. Today, I think our mantra needs to be SILENCE=STIGMA. We need more visibility to the public through self-advocacy, peer services & stories. Too many long term survivors are hiding in the shadows of the stigma of this disease – just like I was for 7 years. But just like we’ve seen in the recovery movement, the more people who come out of the closet, tell their story, the more we talk about HIV, the more likely it is for people to ask questions, get tested, get into treatment. And just like in the recovery movement, peer-based services like Peer HIV Coaches and Peer Linkage to Care Specialist will allow us to fully leverage individuals’ life experience to help get people into care. Stories matter! Visibility matters! SILENCE=STIGMA (We could call this one PLWH^2, or PLWH Squared!)

We’ve made HUGE advances in the first three of these tools – the science of testing, treatment and prevention are available and, at least in the US, free.

Now comes the human side of it – and I believe Harm Reduction and Visibility are the key levers we need to lean into more and more quickly if we have any hope of actually ending this epidemic by 2030. 

Thanks for listening. Keep tellin’ the story.

Signed ever faithfully,

The Right Reverend Lord C Todd Peacock III

Photo Credit: Jim Fore