I thought the name Alex Freyre [seated, right] rang a bell when the story broke about the first gay marriage in Latin America, and I looked it up in a chapter on Argentina in a book on AIDS on that continent. He’s described as the ‘saucy, extroverted’ director of an HIV prevention outfit in Buenos Aires and one of the first people to declare publicly that he had the infection back when that act was not for the fainthearted.
The book quotes his journey through the devastating news and an early hospitalization to emotional freedom and activism:
In the hospital I realized that some things didn’t matter anymore, some limitations had just died for me. And plus, there was this idea in my family of supporting me in anything I wanted. The kid didn’t die! We’re so happy! So if I had said, I want to be a transvestite: Great, whatever! They would have said yes to anything.
Freyre’s psychic rebirth also propelled him past the inevitable cynicism that resulted from seeing how easily HIV morphed into one more money-making opportunity for the non-profit sharpies weaned on the country’s corrupt political culture. After his dramatic televised announcement about being HIV-positive, he said his telephone ‘didn’t stop ringing 24 hours a day’.
I spent months answering all the calls, but not one organization or foundation called me to say, Hey, we’d like for you to meet us, to work with us. Nothing. I was left alone, and no organization took advantage of what I could do.
Okay, I confess! I didn’t just read it in that book, I actually wrote it myself. Freyre was one of the bright spots in my research in eight countries, and it doesn’t surprise me in the least that he’s found the way to break down one more barrier through his relentless search to find the place that would perform the ceremony (ending up in Usuhaia in Patagonia—last stop before Antarctica).
I wish him and his new husband all the best. Live long! Be fruitful and multiply!—even if you do produce bipeds.
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