170: Chris Tompkins: Raising LGBTQ Allies And Battling HIV Stigma

Summary: Chris Tompkins knew he was gay at age 6, but things weren’t talked about openly in his home so he internalized the idea that it should remain a secret and he grew up ashamed, and hypervigilant. At 24, he came out and jumped into an LGBTQ community that used drugs and alcohol to deal with the internalized shame they’d felt in their own childhoods. Chris eventually moved to LA and he spent the next 11 years working at a gay bar in West Hollywood where the alcohol and drugs played an even bigger part of his life.