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 | | Jim Pickett | | | Inducted 2005 | | | Photo: Russell McGonagle | | Writer and activist, for more than 10 years of articles
and leadership as an openly HIV-positive gay man in organizing against
HIV/AIDS, substance abuse, STDs, and homophobic politics and for support
of the LGBT arts community in the press.
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| As a writer, activist, openly HIV-positive
gay man, and now a policy leader, Jim Pickett has played a role in the Chicago
LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender)
community that spans more than a decade. | |
| In 1993, his career started at Babble (later Gab),
a pioneering community weekly magazine that
turned a satirical eye on the city’s gay nightlife
and political scene.
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| After five years consulting with the Chicago Department of Public Health
(CDPH), he is now director of public policy at the AIDS Foundation of Chicago. | |
| An overarching theme of Pickett’s activist career has been empowering
individuals in the LGBT and the HIV/AIDS communities to take responsibility
for their health. | |
| He led a groundbreaking project at CDPH titled “Faces of AIDS: Living in the
Heartland.” The project put a human face on the HIV epidemic and helped people
with HIV/AIDS in the Midwest to speak out against discrimination and fear. | |
| He also led the city’s Syphilis Elimination Task Force, a social marketing
campaign launched in 2001 and aimed at encouraging gay men to be tested
routinely for syphilis. Reported syphilis infections later dropped after an
alarming rise in 2000. | |
| One of his ongoing causes has been activism on microbicide research. He has
raised awareness in Chicago and nationally about the need for a new tool for
women and gay men to protect themselves against HIV transmission. | |
| This year, Pickett led 150 activists to Springfield, and one activist from each of
the state’s 19 congressional districts to Washington, D.C., in order to lobby for
measures against HIV/AIDS. | |
| He has written articles for several local and national publications on topics
related to civil rights, HIV/AIDS programs and policy, LGBT health, and
progressive politics. He also edited a national listserv that reached thousands of
subscribers internationally. | |
| Beginning in 2002, Pickett and colleagues in the Chicago Task Force on LGBT
Substance Use and Abuse wrote Abuse?, a road map for Chicago toward
reducing harm from substance abuse among LGBT persons, which was
published by city government in early 2005. Today, he is spearheading a social
marketing campaign against crystal methamphetamine. | |
| This biography is as of the induction date. It has not been updated. |
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