To commemorate the 30th anniversary of its inception, LGBT health organization Mazzoni Center will take a look back at the people, events and developments that have shaped the practice with an exhibit on display at the William Way LGBT Community Center through the end of September.
There will be an opening reception for “reflecting back: Moving Forward” from 6-8 p.m. Aug. 20 at the center, which Mayor Nutter and many early LGBT health advocates are expected to attend.
Mazzoni Center traces its roots to the work of a small group that formed a health-planning committee in 1979 at what was then called the Gay Community Center, William Way’s predecessor.
“These four or five volunteers started this health committee and began planning for an organization that sought to improve the health of gay and lesbian communities in Philadelphia,” said Dave Rumsey, Mazzoni Center director of communications.
Between 1979-81, the group was known as the Lavender Health Project, but adopted the name Philadelphia Community Health Alternatives when it became incorporated in 1981.
Rumsey explained that the organization had several original areas of focus: clinical services for both gay men and lesbians, health education, advocacy work, raising awareness about LGBT health among service providers and research.
Rumsey noted, however, that the HIV/AIDS epidemic became the organization’s primary concern for several years.
“In the ’80s and much of the ’90s, we kind of got hijacked by HIV/AIDS,” he said. “When the group originally came about, they weren’t thinking about AIDS case management, because in 1979 there really was no AIDS. Nobody saw the disease coming, but we adapted and responded to those issues.”
The organization launched the Mazzoni Clinic, an HIV-testing clinic, in 1995, named after Dr. Peter Mazzoni, an early volunteer and board member who died of AIDS complications in 1990. Nurit Shein, the organization’s executive director, announced it would be renamed Mazzoni Center during OutFest 2003.
Rumsey said that in the past few years, the center has been trying to return to some of its original core goals, although viewing them through a more modern lens.
When the organization originally formed, Rumsey noted, the sexual-minority community was seldom inclusive of bisexuals and transgender people.
“In 1979, gays and lesbians were still struggling for a seat at the table and nobody was really sensitive to trans or bisexual issues,” he said. “The whole notion of sexuality being a spectrum with some people on one end and others on the other end and some in the middle wasn’t really understood at that time.”
Transgender individuals now make up about 20 percent of the patient population at Mazzoni’s health center.
Rumsey noted that since its inception, the organization has had a productive working relationship with such city agencies as the Department of Public Health and the AIDS Activities Coordinating Office, but has, along with the entire field of LGBT health, also gained legitimacy among the wider mainstream health community.
“We’ve gained a lot of respect over the years. We’re now the noted expert on LGBT health, which is something people are paying attention to now,” he said. “Thirty years ago they really weren’t or it was considered an oddity, but now LGBT folks have demanded a seat at the table and Mazzoni Center works to represent their health concerns.”
Many of the methods Mazzoni Center has employed to address those concerns over the years will be included in the exhibit.
Posters, fliers and other messages that were part of health campaigns aimed at raising awareness about HIV, sexually transmitted diseases and hepatitis will be on display, as will one of the organization’s “Lucky Stiffs” condom dispensers, which were in the bathrooms of local gay bars in the ’80s. The exhibit will also feature memorabilia from PCHA fundraisers, such as a highly successful Grace Jones concert and cabaret events, as well as documentation of organizational developments, like the group’s original articles and PGN clippings from when PCHA’s former executive director was arrested on fraud and embezzlement charges in the mid-’90s.
Shein said the retrospective doesn’t just reflect Mazzoni’s progression, but rather tells the story of the past 30 years of Philadelphia’s LGBT community.
“This is not just the 30-year history of an organization — this is truly the history of the development of LGBT services, in particular health services, in the city of Philadelphia,” Shein said. “This translates beyond just the Mazzoni Center to the whole LGBT community and shows how we evolved from 30 years ago when it was just Lavender Health in the city, to where we are today with many thriving, good organizations.”
Rumsey said the exhibit is not geared toward a specific age group but rather can be appreciated for different reasons by a wide audience.
“People who were around 30 years ago will certainly enjoy it in that they’ll be able to look back on where we started, but I think on some level the younger generations may even derive the most benefit, as they’ll be able to understand a lot of things that people today take for granted, like the fact that now there are medications for HIV/AIDS and that it’s not a death sentence. A lot of younger folks don’t know AIDS to be the killer that it was at one time, when they didn’t even have a name for it and were calling it GRID [Gay-related immune deficiency]. This is not just a trip down memory lane for older people, but a real learning experience for younger generations.”
The Mazzoni Center will host a number of anniversary events between this summer and next, such as a gala in the spring, but Rumsey said “reflecting back: Moving Forward” was designed to begin conversation about the changing face of the local LGBT community.
“We wanted to do something early in this anniversary year to set the tone for the whole year, and we felt what better way to do that than to revisit the past to show where we came from and guide us as to where we’re going.”
The exhibit’s opening reception is free and open to the public. To RSVP, e-mail Darrell Young at [email protected].
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].