I love my friend Travis. (You may know him as orlith.)

Travis is the friend who nagged me to watch Queer as Folk for five years, and when I didn't, finally got me the Season One DVDs for Christmas. (The fact that I went start raving insane shortly afterwards is entirely my own responsibility.)

He also does gay boy sex and HIV prevention beta'ing on my fics, so that I don't put Brian and Justin into any undesirable anatomic configurations that might result in injury or even permanent damage to their vital parts. He saved me from dislocating Justin's shoulder, yo.

And he is, as I often point out, the man behind pool sex in Desires.

But I don't love Travis because of any of those things. I love him because he's one of the bravest and kindest people I know, and one of my dearest, closest friends.

Travis was diagnosed with HIV around 17 years ago, when he was only 22 years old. I met him when he volunteered for an HIV support program I was running for America Online, more than a decade ago.

During that time, I've never seen Travis hurt a single person, other than, sadly, himself. I've seen him get off drugs, and fall back onto them, caught up, like so many gay men, in meth addiction. I watched him get sober a second time, something a lot of us don't live to do. I've seen him celebrate what is now four years of sobriety since that slip.

I've seen him get diagnosed with, and live with, Hepatitis C.

I've seen him struggle with no health insurance, with medication side effects, with the problems of the health system in this country.

I've seen him work day in and day out at a job he finds unfulfilling just to honor his commitment to clearing his life of debt, while working at his real love, being an actor and stage director, for pretty much every other waking hour.

I've seen him fall in love, get hurt, and still have the openness of heart to fall in love again. I've seen him climb out of debt, clear harmful relationships out of his life, try to help friends with their problems, give support and information to other people struggling with HIV and addiction, care for his dog and cats even when he barely had the money to pay his rent, and be a loving and faithful friend to me.

Someone in this fandom took it on herself to respond to a post in which Travis, pretty humorously and in his own personal journal, complained about some of his health problems and issues with his medical care. She told him to get "a reality check." When I objected to her post, she wrote me and said that "considering what most people live with" Travis was "silly, self-indulgent... (and) pretty stupid."

Since everything Travis has had to live with is right there in unlocked posts in his journal, I like to think that person might have taken the time to at least scroll back a few pages before passing judgment on his life and just how much suffering someone has to experience to earn the right to bitch and moan about a few things in their own LJ.

Since this person would never have seen or found Travis' journal other than through my journal and our mutual participation in this fandom, I feel particularly angry that she judged and insulted him like this. I decided to try to turn some of my anger into something positive. I realize I only partially succeeded, but this is the best I could do, since I'm not even half as kind as Travis.