Ari Grubner is fundraising
Support amfAR: Make a Difference Today
I have been growing my hair for over 5 years - now is the time for the big chop! Come the weekend of September 12th, I will be donating my hair to Wigs 4 Kids. I'm estimating around 20 inches total.
Together, I'm hoping to raise $100 for every inch of donated hair.
I chose amfAR, The Foundation for Aids Research, for this fundraiser for their decades of work on HIV/AIDS research. HIV/AIDS research has come a long way since the woeful and inept response by the Reagan administration in the 80s. Their failure for years to address the AIDS epidemic that was ravaging the gay community until years after its onset was not just a failure to do with leadership, it was a failure to do with stigma.
About six months after my last haircut, in the middle of the pre-vaccine days of COVID-19 and where appeals for blood donation were coming via text, I discovered that I was ineligible to donate. Why? A remnant of the blanket Reagan-era restrictions placed on gay men preventing them from donating blood.
They may not want my gay blood, but they can't say no to my gay hair.
I am proud to belong to a community that is as resilient as the queer community - a community missing many of its elders, a community that is socially and medically stigmatized in 2025, a community that is living out persistence.
By joining me in donating to amfAR, your donations will support amfAR's research towards a cure for HIV/AIDS, their continued development of successful and effective treatments, and empowerment and education initiatives about prevention and care.
If the stigma won't go away, let's just inch our way and make the disease go away instead.
*including a tip to the platform is set automatically and not required, please take note!
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