Dear STOP AIDS Project Friends and Family,

First of all thank you for you continued support of and involvement in the STOP AIDS Project. The volunteers of the STOP AIDS Project are the heart beat of everything we do and make it possible for us to help prevent the spread of HIV among gay, bi and trans men in San Francisco.

I am writing you with some exciting news. This month the STOP AIDS Project is unveiling a new innovative approach to HIV prevention. The new approach focuses on HIV prevention through the lens of "sexual networks" and augments our existing efforts. The STOP AIDS Project is the first and only in the nation to use the "sexual network" approach for HIV prevention. If successful, these new programs will be replicated throughout the country.

WE STILL NEED YOUR INVOLVEMENT, SUPPORT, ENERGY, and IDEAS as we begin this new chapter in the history of the STOP AIDS Project and in the history of HIV prevention. This is truly a time when something new and different is happening in our community and hope you will join us as we make our new breakthroughs and mistakes.

We will be retooling our existing efforts like Positive Force, PLUS (Positive Living for Us Seminar), LEAG (Leather Events Action Group), Our Love, Crystal Clear Action Group, and fundraising events.

Our outreach, workshops, and forums teams will be joining forces as one team working in six sexual networks where gay, bi and trans men meet:

• Bars/Clubs
• Internet
• Public and Commercial Sex Venues
• Leather and BD/SM Communities
• African-American gay, bi and trans men
• Gyms

We are building community advisory boards and volunteers for each of these six sexual networks and we need your help. If you or someone you know has ideas and energy and wants to get involved in our efforts around one of more of these networks this is a great time to help build something from the ground up.

Sexual networks are groups of people connected to one another through sex with each other and other people who have had sex with them. Many people are familiar with the idea behind networks, "Six Degrees of Separation" is perhaps the best-known reference. The idea is that in only six steps, you can link any two individuals in the world. In other words, we're all in bed together and so much of our risk behavior and safe sex negotiation is about the interaction between individuals in a specific context. A sexual network approach helps us to address that interaction and context.
Information gathered about different sexual networks will allow us to see how efficiently HIV and other STDs travel, like electricity, across a grid of transmission lines - in this case, transmission lines created by sexual relationships within a network. Some parts of the network are at high-risk for HIV and other STDS and other parts are lower risk.
In addition, confidential and anonymous information gathered from gay, bi and trans men in these networks will enable STOP AIDS Project staff and volunteers identify places to do interventions where we will have the most impact on the spread of HIV and other STDs. 

For example, which bars, clubs, and internet hook-up sites are the places where guys are meeting and getting HIV or other STDs? What venues and sites act as bridges from high-risk groups of guys to medium and low-risk groups? What interventions and messages would best work for guys at those venues or on those websites? Answers to these questions gathered from the sexual networks will enable us to pinpoint exactly where to go to help stem the tide of new HIV infections and prevent the emergence or continued transmission of other STDs.
This approach means that we will focus less on workshop participation and more on meeting guys in the places they meet to do targeted, relevant and fun interventions.

Our Positive Force program will also be retooling and focusing in on newly positive guys, guys who know or suspect they are positive but are not accessing treatment or support, guys who have been positive for a while, and positive guys using crystal meth.

Over the 20 year history of the STOP AIDS Project we have reinvented ourselves many times and tried new approaches to HIV prevention as the community, individuals and the epidemic itself has changed. These new programs reflect that legacy and are the beginning of an exciting new chapter in our history that we hope you will join us in.
If you would like to be a part of the growing community of gay, bi and trans men working together to prevent the spread of HIV please contact us at 415-575-0747 or Email.

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