Ryan Kull

Q: How did you first get involved with GHAP?

Kull: I had only been out of college and in New York for about 4 years or so, and was in between jobs; I had been working on grassroots documentary films about LGBT and HIV/AIDS issues. I believe it was 1995. I was unsure about my future, but was quite sure that I wanted to continue to be involved in some type of social justice work. I happened to be staying as a guest at a friend’s Fire Island beach house where Laura also spent time (I had only met Laura briefly one or two times before that). Anyone who knows Laura understands how curious and interested she is in other peoples’ lives and experiences, and we started talking about young gay men’s sexual experiences and particularly why I thought gay men had sex without condoms. Interestingly, our conversation contained the seed for the Next Generation Project, which we started together, because we thought that, in part, gay men had no role models, no sense of what the future was like or what it could be, which could translate into a lack of care for oneself or one’s future. This was closely tied to so many gay men having died in the AIDS epidemic—it’s important to remember that the idea of being a gay man at midlife, or even older, was not in our consciousness at the time. I didn’t think I’d live to see 30. Laura asked me to fill the empty spot as project coordinator briefly after that conversation.

Q: Could you describe the Next Generation Project?

Kull: The Next Generation Project was a mentoring project that Laura and I had set up (I wasn’t sure if this was something that Daniel was still doing). We recruited gay and lesbian professionals in the community to serve as mentors to LGBT students. We had some events, but mostly we matched students with adults who shared similar interests, often related to career, because we felt that LGBT youth were missing that kind of mentorship in their lives.

Q: What was GHAP’s relationship like with Health Services during the time you were involved?

Kull: I think I arrived at GHAP at an interesting time. Though I didn’t understand it at the time, Paul Douglas (whom I unfortunately never knew) had been such an important part of GHAP’s identity, so after his death things must have been in flux and Laura was mourning his loss.

Health Services and CPS looked entirely different then. We were all in John Jay, and GHAP shared offices with CPS staff (4th floor?). We basically used whatever office space wasn’t occupied at the time. Since Laura’s permanent office was a shared one, I could only use that office part-time as well. Laura and I still laugh at this…I had a computer on a cart with wheels, and would push it around from office to office, and would sometimes just park it in the hallway. There also used to be this ticket booth on the ground floor of John Jay near the entrance (why was there a ticket booth? No idea) that was filled with junk; that was offered to us, and I think we used it briefly, but honestly, it was a tad humiliating. On occasion, I would also wear shorts and flip flops, so I imagine that the staff was a little confused by this twink that was pushing a computer around the hallways (computers weren’t so tiny then either, so it was a sight to behold). Frankly, I was a bit confused myself.

Somehow, Laura and I found an ally in the director of health services at the time, Richard Carlson, who increasingly began to recognize my role as a more official one with the health services. Laura and I worked very hard to make that happen. I believe that it was the first time that Laura had an assistant who became an official part-time employee of Columbia, and so this really helped us gain greater legitimacy in the eyes of the Health Services as a whole. I think it was a real important step, as we greatly expanded our HIV testing services over the years and acquired a full-time office. It allowed us to do more projects, such as the mentoring project, support groups, and a hotline for people with questions and concerns about sex and identity.

However, I also think there’s a down side. I think a certain quality of GHAP might have diminished; there’s an interesting romanticism about the “old days” of HIV activism…bureaucracies can have an interesting effect on the soul and spirit of organizations like GHAP. Mind you, there was a real sea change going on in all of Health Services, including CPS, as Lerner Hall was in the works and there was a real focus on expanding counseling and health services to students in general. Unfortunately, I was no longer allowed to wear flip-flops and shorts.

Q: You increased the focus of the organization to counseling and clinical skills – could you describe this?

Kull: I think there was an interesting interaction between my own growing interests in clinical work and GHAP’s increasing legitimacy within the infrastructure of Health Services that allowed us to do a lot more. Richard Eichler was also a great ally in this process. In addition to providing the basic pre-test counseling that the peer advocates and I did, I also started meeting with some students to discuss issues that weren’t solely about HIV; such as coming out and other issues related to sexual and gender identity. I think this was really important because Laura and I always appreciated that one’s sexual behavior cannot be viewed separately from the whole person, and that people needed to about more than just condoms and HIV to better understand themselves and their actions. I think this was a really crucial development in GHAP’s work.

Q: What was it like running the organization? What sort of things did you prioritize or work on?

Kull: My greatest priority was the HIV testing piece. Laura and I worked very hard on expanding access to HIV testing to the Columbia campus. We came up with some great new systems that are still in place, and this resulted in a huge increase in the number of students that we could see for testing. We also grew our advocate population by doing more outreach to the campus.

Q: How would you describe the composition of the group of advocates?

Kull: My work with the advocates was my favorite part. Because I was there in a more full-time capacity, I was able to provide more intensive training and supervision to them, but I was also able to develop closer relationships with all of them. I know that if you talk to most GHAP alumni, they will probably say that GHAP was one of the most important experiences they had at Columbia. Not only because they did such important work, all on a volunteer basis mind you, but because we felt like we were part of a community. It was the one piece that always felt a bit protected from the bureaucratic structures that really preserved the soul and spirit of GHAP. And I think this spirit really plays a role in the success that we had with every client that we met with; we took our work with clients very seriously, and I know that comes through in the advocates interactions with clients.

Q: What have you been doing since GHAP? What sort of connections are there with the work you did with GHAP?

Kull: Because of my experiences at GHAP I decided to get formal clinical training and commit to a career in this field. I got my masters in social work at Columbia while I was working at GHAP, and then slowly started building a private practice. Eventually I left GHAP after about six years (Daniel was an advocate while I was working there, and thankfully he took over the helm), and started a full-time private practice (mostly working with gay men), but also taught classes and workshops on HIV/AIDS and LGBT issues. I recently got my PhD in social work at NYU—I’ve worked with GLSEN for the past six years doing research on LBGT youths’ experiences in schools. My career is inseparable from my experience at GHAP. Laura remains one of my closest friends and my mentor.

There are so many important things that I learned about clinical work through Laura at GHAP, but perhaps developing an empathic connection with clients and being deeply curious about their experiences, and I mean to the most precise detail when possible, makes such a difference in how clients experience us as counselors, advocates, and clinicians. There’s something about being curious about someone’s experience that makes someone feely deeply cared for. This was what I felt that first day I talked with Laura out in Fire Island; she had a sincere curiosity about my experiences and my ideas which made me feel deeply connected with her, and if I hadn’t had that experience with her, I’m not sure where I would be today.