“You’re going to butt heads with a lot of people in med school,” she said to me once Jonathan and I had finished our presentation to the residents taking an elective in community health.
She most certainly meant it in a positive way – praising our alternative take on what it means for people to keep themselves healthy and safe – and she seemed very like-minded so I wasn’t offended in the least, but it got me thinking.
I’m thinking about how I can translate this experience into other realms of life, and how I can do so in a way that causes me to “butt heads” with people in productive, not destructive, ways. One of my biggest concerns is thinking about how I’m going to incorporate my year with GHC and HIPS into what comes next. I’m so scared of losing it. How to explain to a class of overachieving med school students that some of the sagest advice I’ve ever received is not from my professors at college or some multi-paginated academic article, but from my clients who belong to one of the most marginalized and stigmatized populations in our society – injecting drug users? How to share that I’ve learned the most innovative and resourceful safety tactics from our endlessly wise sex working clients? How can I share these experiences in a compassionate, useful, non-exploitative way?
At our past few quarterly retreats, we’ve been talking about our personal story and how to make it accessible; how to have it bolster our message, our movement, our cause. This is all well and good, but when that cause is one that is already sensationalized or romanticized or misunderstood, I get nervous to post those personal stories (even if I’m mostly relaying my thoughts and responses) for fear of perpetuating common assumptions. Assumptions such as “Sex work IS demoralizing” or “Sex work IS empowering,” paint the landscape in extremes, when in reality for most of our clients it seems to be a grey area somewhere in between.
So that brings me back to wrestling with the notion of introducing the grey areas into diverse fields that are structured in black and white. How do we “butt heads” to promote curiosity and innovation, not to push people away and turn people off from our cause? Here is where HIPS’ harm reduction mentality of “meeting people where they’re at” comes in. Yes, I would love for everyone to hop on the harm reduction bandwagon and dole out tons of safer sex supplies, endless amounts of new needles, etc., but we have to realize that some people might be more receptive to a gentler introduction. Reading when forcefulness is useful versus when a softer approach may be best suited for a situation is a tough line to toe, but one that will undoubtedly lead to greater success in the future.
Until then, I’ll keep up the condom-doling and syringe exchanging. And gently, or forcefully, argue my case at every chance I get.