January 26, 2022 • 30 mins
Tony Morrison has spent much of his professional life telling stories. Through the years, he’s shared countless anecdotes about a number of topics through the lens of many. But the most difficult story to share became his own when he made the brave decision to trust his public at Good Morning America with his private HIV diagnosis during the COVID pandemic. In this conversation, hear more about Tony’s story, the shaping of his identity as a gay Filipino American, and how he learned to heal on his own terms, but most importantly, on his own timeline.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Have you ever wanted a safe space where you can
just exist, where for a moment in time, you can
be you, with all the intricacies and parts of you
that people don't always understand. Welcome to in the deep
stories that shape us. I'm your host, Zach Stafford, and
each episode we create a space to be you, all
of you and all your messy and complicated glory. Every
(00:25):
story shares what it means to be a black and
Latin X man living with different hardships, whether it's a
struggle of identity, discrimination or health, and how they've managed
to push forward despite the circumstance. We hope to get closer,
even if just a little, to a road of healing
and understanding. Hi, everyone, welcome back. Today's guest is really
(00:50):
special because he's also a storyteller. As a producer for
Good Morning America, Tony Morrison gets to share a lot
of stories, and over the years, so many people have
tried at him with their own. However, it wasn't until
late last year that Tony finally trusted the public he
served with his own truth, a truth that almost no
one in his life even new. But before we get there,
(01:12):
let's start at the beginning to better understand this big
moment in his life. As a Filipino American man and
member of the lgbt Q plus community, Tony has long
found himself at a crossroads with his identity, often finding
comfort in silence or within the comforts of a makeshift closet.
And his story begins outside the US, where life took
a great deal from him at a young age. I
(01:37):
was born in the Philippines, actually in Cebu. Anyone's heard
of it out there. And my breath father actually passed
away when I was very young. That was maybe one
or two years old, so you could say, right out
right out the gate in life. In my life, I
was kind of hit with trauma of the worst kind
of loss, you know, and my mom ended up remarrying
(01:57):
to an American and we moved to the States. Is
probably my five years old to go to Old Orlando, Florida.
I was naturalized, became an American citizen in seventh grade.
And you know, looking back, growing up as an LGBT person,
an LGBT kid, I don't know what that meant. I
really didn't know what gay was, you know. I grew
up in a very evangelical household, So there was that
(02:20):
element for me of being signaled that gay was not okay.
But to be quite honest, I always thought that liking
guys was just a phase and I would grow out
of it. That's how I operated my entire childhood and
adolescent life. Later on, my mom and not stepdad, got
a divorce I was probably in middle school, and then
(02:42):
later on in my college years, my stepdad actually passed
away from heart disease and stroke. And in full disclosure,
it's something I'm still working through and in collaboration with
my therapist, I think that this is an area where
I feel that loss and trauma I've just accepted at
(03:04):
our early stage in life. And I use the word
accepted in a very broadway, not in a sense that
it's okay, but to the extent that I feel that
I have accepted what I identify now as trauma, hardship, challenge,
as just things to overcome. It's how do we get
(03:27):
to the other side. Some may call it survival, some
may call it triumph and an overcoming, But I think
that there's something there, at least for me in terms
of at a very young age, I learned that life
is not so nice. I didn't know what to call it,
but we always have a pathway to get through it,
(03:49):
and I think that at the end of the day,
we've been given tools to get through whatever we've been handed.
And for me, it's always been about taking a moment
of pause and whatever situation arises and looking at what
and who's around me that I've been tooled with to
get to the other side. Growing up with two major
(04:11):
losses at a young age really shaped Tony's view of
the world. But he felt these hard knocks were normal,
and as a kid growing up in Orlando, he didn't
see himself as an outcast. In fact, it was quite
the opposite. Well, I think I'm able to articulate it
a little bit more clearly to myself now and to
call things by their name and what it was. I mean,
(04:35):
losing a father, going through divorce as a kid, losing
another parent later on in life. For me, I really
thought that's just how life was. I was a happy,
go lucky kid. I was after school and helping the
front office. I was the nerd, the geek. I was
the canvas activities guy, did all of the clubs. I
(04:56):
was marching band president and our decieted for a and
at the same time, you know, I had never felt
mothered or out of place really, but looking back, it
really was a wonder that I made it through all
that and was able to still be who I was.
In that moment, I thought that just being different was
(05:18):
part of life in the same way that I've I
dealt with again like lost and divorce and quite frankly,
being the only brown kid in the room in public school.
I never felt that that was really a challenge. It
was to me presented as well, this is just how
life is. How are we going to get through it?
How are we executing a plan to overcome and get
(05:40):
to the next And I think that because I didn't
dwell on the challenge in that I was able to
focus on cultivating relationships with so many people and just
being a light in the room without knowing I was
a light in the room, and just being me. So
there's always been an element of let's do this and
(06:00):
just showing up for yourself without knowing what that even was.
You sort of phrase that I've said before, to be
the only brown boy in the room. You know, I
grew up in a part of Tennessee where I was
the only black person in the room and you were similar.
But for me, I just gotta say, like, I didn't
realize it until much later in life to look back. Yeah,
I mean I think I just I recognized that and
(06:21):
I knew that, but I didn't know how to make
anything of it at the time. But looking back now,
even as we're talking about it, there's many instances where
I'm like, oh, I was a representation and I didn't
even know how to represent myself, let alone the community
of people at the time. Yeah. When was the first
time you felt the burden of representation back then? Oh?
(06:43):
My gosh. I really feel like it was into my
college years. Like early freshman in college, I was very
adamant about leaving home at eighteen and doing my own
thing and going out of my way and not to
talk to my parents my first semester of college because
(07:05):
it was all about me, you know, and really kind
of discovering myself and other people. And I really that
first semester was an eye opening experience of like, why
there's so much in the world out there. Tony wore
his l g B t Q plus identity like a
badge of honor, especially during his college years, and like
some of us, he had to learn to toggle between
(07:26):
multiple identities as a gay man, as a brown man,
as an American. For a young person, especially in those
exploratory years, learning who we are comes in phases, but
for Tony that meant shutting down parts of his identity
while he explored others. I think it was really resistant
to the idea of meeting others like me at first,
(07:49):
and because I maybe eate I was so fine with
life and at that part of my life being a
status quo and just focusing on career and maybe relationships.
Maybe at the time it was the wrong relationships to cultivate.
(08:10):
But I remember I did meet a group of individuals.
I'm half Filipino, half Asian Indian, and a group of
brown students were trying to recruit me to be in
you know, Filipino student union of some sort, and I
just remember saying like, I don't need any Filipino friends.
(08:31):
I'm fine, I'm good. I don't need be part of
a body of brown or black individuals. I don't know,
it's so interesting to think about it back then, but
I really was so resistant to becoming part of a
group like myself. You know, and I've had many conversations
about identity, especially in the past couple of years. I
(08:54):
really had always fronted when I was out my LGBT,
I antend, but never really invested in my API identity.
And it's really only been recently where I am really
seeking out more of my kind, my culture. You're not
truly in your fullness unless you're accepting all the versions
(09:15):
of yourself and all your identities. And I think that
that's a transformative place to be in. But I think
it's also a very ongoing process. It's ever changing. You know,
what's it like to move through the world from your
opinion to not be able to see yourself and then
to eventually become like you maybe needed to see it
(09:36):
as a kid. Does it feel lonely when you look backwards?
It does? But I think that you can't come to
that realization until you do see yourself and see yourself
in someone else. You don't realize what you've been missing.
You don't realize how blind you were, even objectively. I
(09:59):
think that you have to let yourself meet that moment
for you to have that realization. Like I remember, for years,
you're talking about visibility, representation all these inclusivity buzzwords. But
when I really saw someone like myself and can envision
myself doing X y Z on television or film or
(10:21):
whatever media, it really hits you in a way that
you can't describe. And then you have a feeling of oh,
this this is visibility, this is representation, and then you
have an understanding for what that is for yourself and
hopefully are able to be in a position to pass
the torch to the next After college, Tony decides to
(10:46):
make a big move to New York City. He slowly
starts to find his tribe, his shows in family like
any family, his began to form these sorts of traditions
together and going to get HIV tested as a group
became one of them. But this feels like a lot
for him. Even though it is two thousand fourteen and
not the height of the AIDS epidemic, HIV still feels
(11:07):
like a scary diagnosis, a death sentence, even to Tony,
so he oppots to get tested a little differently. Suitcase
in a Dream was my moving to New York story.
Moved here with no plan, just love New York and
I had come out officially publicly with a Facebook post
(11:29):
just a few months after moving to New York, and
I had actually found a really great, great group of friends,
young out LGBT people that are twenties, all walks of life,
all different backgrounds, and they were really the foundation for
what we call now a chosen family in this enormously
chaotic environment that is New York City. So we're all
(11:56):
hanging out. A couple of months after I moved to
New York, we saw out in I believe is West
Village area alside one of the bars that were there
were one of these HIV testing trucks, and one of
my friends were like, let's all go get tested together.
It'll be fun. It's like a cool group activity. And
I'm like, I don't know, that's like fun. What starving
(12:19):
was the excitement about doing it as a group activity
because it was such a personal thing, especially that particular test.
You know, and I'm here, i am, I'm a new
out gay in New York, and again all I've been
signaled was growing up gay is bad. This is not
good your lifestyle, And the worst possible thing that can
(12:43):
happen to you is we'll get HIV and you'll dyeing. Period.
That's the storyline, and so having that in the back
of your mind, it's like, I don't know, this is
not like a really fun group activity that I want
to be involved in. So we kind of brushed it
off when God drinks whatever. But I was filled with
curiosity the rest of that week. So at that time
(13:05):
in New York, say, there was a huge campaign for
just testing. Test here tests, there's at home tests, and
I at home tests, and I tested when I got home,
and testing positive for HIV is as terrifying and awful
(13:25):
as it sounds, full stop. Period. This was in twenty fourteen.
No one really told you what to do when you
got a positive result. And that's some part of my
conversation to now is what if I had a holistic
testing experience with information about the I the resources where
(13:48):
I didn't have to find different programs or four different
types of insurances to pay for my medication or who
to go to and all this just stuff that I
had to find all on my own, and it was
a really difficult time. One of those guys in that
initial group that I mentioned was actually one of the
(14:12):
first people that I told about my diagnosis, and it
was three days after carrying this knowledge alone by myself
because I didn't know how to share it or to
tell people. I really thought it was the end. I
really really didn't think it was the end. And I
took a few days off work just to figure things out,
to get these confirmatory tests, you know, these clinics, and
(14:34):
to find these resources. But um, yeah, it was a
really difficult time. Yeah, it sounds I mean it is.
One of the first things people often tell me is
they're like, I don't know who to tell. And it
sounds like you went through that whole process too. So
in that moment, how did you decide who to reach
out to in one of the darkest moments of your life.
(14:58):
I think it was is just really thinking through who
would still love me. I knew there might be an
element of disapproval or a worst case scenario reaction, even
from your closest friends, because again, among our whole group
(15:19):
of friends, straight or gay, no one was really right
in on this stuff, you know, or what to do
or what what the medical advancements of the time were,
what your options were. So for me, it was really
calling through the friends who I thought who might be
(15:39):
able to help me, not just through this moment, but
to help fix me, I think, And what did fixing
you look like? Then? I mean, I think it was
the ultimate fantasy of this is a false positive. There's
a way to undo this. Maybe someone knew someone that
(16:00):
could help me find the right medication, how to keep
it under wraps, finding individuals that would help me honor
that level of confidentiality and privacy. And there's a lot
to go through as a twentysomething New new Yorker. Did
you feel like New York was over for you in
this moment? Or how did life look different in that
(16:22):
moment for you? Looking forward? I mean, I definitely thought
I had an expiration date for sure, And in all
of my visits to get blood work done and the
endless passing of me to different clinics and offices, I
was really just waiting for that moment of you're done
for you know, that confirmed piece of sound or news
(16:46):
that everything I've harbored in my mind was true. But
it really was a doctor who was so kind and
I literally did ask her like, am I dying? How
many days do I have left? Like straight up just
asked her because she came in with my labs and
she kind of smirked at me, and I was like,
this is so rude, because I'm not trying to be dramatic.
(17:09):
But she was the one that explained to me what
we know now as you equals you undertactable, equals, and transmittable.
And she just told me how life would be just fine.
And that was my first interaction of there isn't an
end I don't have an end date. This is wild.
It was so groundbreaking for me to understand that, to
(17:34):
the extent that I really didn't want to believe her. Yeah,
you're a smart person, so you can intellectualize things, but
you also feel things. In these intellectualizing and feeling are
very different. So intellectually you hear from this doctor you're
gonna be okay, you're gonna live. When did you begin
to feel that in your body. I think it took
(17:56):
actually seeing the science, seeing the test was aults, and
being in close contact with her because again, like she
told me this news of it's not the other world.
We get you on medication, like you'll be fine, good
as new. It was so simple, and I was like,
there's no way. That's not what i've that's not what
i've heard, that's not what I think, I know it
was an absolute rejection of that idea that things would
(18:18):
be okay. But as we dug into my experience and
got these test results and got everything under control, it
became the most managed thing in my life, and it
continues to be the most managed thing in my life.
I think that was the foundation of a lot of hurt.
(18:38):
I felt like I went out of my way to
make sure that I was in good health and to
ensure that others around me we're also in good health.
And to know that and to have that experience of
being okay again, it was really a letdown to have
these negative experiences in life, in dating and going out
(19:01):
and off color jokes at brunch, and I was like,
do you not know anybody who's living through this? Tony
only trusted a very select few with his diagnosis, and
for a while, he says, he felt the need to
go back into the closet to heal, to get healthier,
to take care of himself. But Tony is no stranger
(19:22):
to telling stories, and as a producer, it's his livelihood.
After living through the COVID nineteen pandemic lockdown and showing
stories of people like himself, he made a bold decision
to write an essay for Good Morning America, where he
courageously trusted the public with the biggest story he'd ever
shared his own. I was hit with this diagnosis at
(19:47):
that time. It just wasn't okay and acceptable. And the
idea was, you're gonna give it to other people. You're
gonna die, Everyone's gonna die. It's not a good situation
to be. It's the nightmare of having an LGBT son
or daughter. You know, it's a culmination of bad. It's
a punishment to consequence for the life that you're living.
(20:08):
And that's what was drilled in my head. And I
felt like it's something that I couldn't live with for
a long time because it's not It wasn't something that
society could live with. And I think that's what I'm
on a mission now, is everybody has got something and
this is something that society has to live with. I
(20:31):
feel because we have been living with this and people
who are going through this for so long. It's the
base element of LGBT community. We we are here, We've
always been here. This group of individuals has been here
for a long time. Thanks to emerging science, you know,
We've come a long ways, and I think that we
(20:53):
all a lot to those people before us as well.
We surely do, we, surely do. I take your discussions
on the person shoudnt people have around HIV and the
stories they say that aren't right. I take you saying
that with a lot more weight because you work in
media and your job literally is looking at stories all
day long, every day, and I want to ask about
that you were in the closet, will say, as an
(21:15):
HIV positive person. Note, people don't need to come out
publicly and you just positive HIV. That's not like a
requirement totally, But you were not talking about it and
in the ways in which you talk about it now.
But you're seeing stories every day of queer people of
HIV positive people. What was that like to be sitting
in a newsroom in a control room seeing these stories
and seeing yourself in them, but not knowing do I
(21:37):
say something? Do I talk about it? It's been a
very unique evolution, and I've been taking on a lot
more LGBT programming and storytelling and leading a lot of
that here at the network for ABC and Good Morning America,
And like you said, I lift up stories for undrepresented communities,
including people living with HIV, but never having provided my
(22:00):
own context or my own connection to my own experience
while I'm telling other people's stories. And that had weighed
on me for a number of years. And it took
COVID in the lockdown and an environment of loss to
really forced me to pause and think about what I
had been doing, positioning my story in a way that
(22:23):
was still closet in, and the conversation is changing by
just having these conversations. It's actually so wild to me.
I really came to a place where I was releasing
this essay as a personal story and doing in a
very public way because I got to a place where
(22:44):
I was realizing how sad and not in my fullness,
I was bringing myself two meetings or two friends around me,
and again that environment of loss. I really began to
think how unfair it was for me to be so
sad but be perfectly fine and have a perfectly great
life to live. And I feel like, wow, that's such
(23:08):
a waste. And I really wanted other people to kind
of get on board. You know, this was the experience,
and it's an experience like so many others, and I
think that the feeling of being and other and being mothered.
That's the trope that I feel like everybody has been
latching on. It's been really shocking to me how many
people have reached out and said how how much my
(23:31):
story has meant to them, and what parts of my
story affects them. That's been the really unexpected part. And
today I'm the happiest ever. I I never knew I
could be so happy and fulfilled by living in my
fullness in this way. And it realized also how many
(23:52):
other parts of my life were being affected by keeping
this part hidden away to where or Once I gave
myself permission to live in my fullness, everything just turned.
What advice would you give to someone listening that they
don't want to come out publicly, they want to remain private.
How do they do that? How do they stay healthy
(24:14):
and happy? In your opinion? For sure, this is not
a you have to come out with anything conversation. You're
not Harvey Milk come out everybody. I mean, sure, there
is power in that, but there is also power and
being honest with yourself and how you want to live
your life. And if you do want to come to
a place, whoere you want to be public about parts
(24:36):
of your life, great, go for it. But I feel
like you have to let that moment meet you. Is
my take on that. Let the opportunity come to you
versus you force and that opportunity. And earlier we're talking
about looking at the tools around you for how to
get through something. I didn't have the tools I have
today mentally, literally, metaphorically, professionally as a journ analysts and
(25:00):
covering the stories I have for the past few years.
It took me eight years to get to this point,
but I didn't have the tools five years ago, six
years ago, seven years ago. So this opportunity, this moment
met me and then in the end it was up
to me to meet that moment. And I would tell
people living with HIV today my goal is, I want
(25:22):
people living with HIV to be seen. I want people
living with HIV to know they are seen in our world.
I see you, we see you, and you belong here
because for so long I felt that I didn't belong
here because I let a diagnosis to find me. That
was the unfair part that I didn't give myself that
(25:43):
permission to live and love. Yeah, that's so beautiful and
it makes I have to ask, do you regret going
down the path that you've been on? This like eight
years of quiet, the regret, the fears, all that. Do
you regret it all? Would you do it exactly the
same way? I've asked myself that, And I'm not prepared
(26:04):
to say yes or no, but only that I had
to go through what I did to be able to
articulate the message for myself and for others that i'm
able to today. What I hate, and I'll use the
word hey, what I hate is how I made myself
(26:27):
feel over the course of those eight years. There's a
lot of learning, but I hate that I didn't have
conversations like this to look to or other people who
raised their hands and said, I'm living with HIV. Here's
my experience. It's gonna be okay. So that's part of
what I'm doing now and really exposing this part of
(26:50):
my life is I really hope I can be a
light to others who are struggling and to say that
your story matters, our story matters, and that it's going
to be okay. Yes, men will be okay. Talking to you,
I feel relief. I don't know why I feel like
I'm very like, oh my god, because everything you've told me,
(27:12):
you've you've overcome multiple father figures, a father and another
father figures dying you, you have immigrated, you have moved,
you have overcome and overcome, and you're so happy you are,
and you're so hopeful, and then this pandemic, no one's
hopeful anymore. So Tony, final question, with all those hope
in freedom and truth, what comes next for you? What
(27:36):
are what are you looking forward to? Because right now
it feels like you're in uh nirvana. Well we're looking
at our husband's there manifests. We want to let that
opportunity come to me again. That strategy, Oh my gosh.
But you know what, Zach, it's uh. I feel like
(27:56):
I've always been this positive, just driven individual. But I
think in the time we're in now and my experience
and all that I stand for now, I think that
I've seen the alternative and I feel like I've really
had that near death experience, or at least in my mind,
you know. So it has to be what's next in
(28:18):
the most positive way. It has to be after the
best for yourself and others and really leaning into your potential.
And I'm excited. I don't know what tomorrow may bring,
but that actually that uncertainty, it really excites me in
a way that in the past I was really afraid
of that uncertainty. Yeah, and something else before I let
(28:40):
you go. And also I'm gonna be thinking of men
for you now. Um is uh. I feel like you
have proven this thing someone said to me this week
is that like to be kind, you have to be
kind to yourself, because your story really embodies that, because
I would argue you're probably the most kind of her
now that you've been so kind in public to yourself.
I'll tell you like sharing my story going through this experience,
(29:03):
especially in a public way, but for everyone listening, you
don't have to do in a public way. I think
just sharing your story just makes you more compassionate and
you just see what it is you're missing when you're
not living to your full potential, and when you are,
you see that in others as well. So it just, yeah,
it's right on, And I think that that's really a
(29:25):
product of not taking life too seriously and just letting
yourself live. As a society, we've all been wired to
believe that moving backwards isn't something good. But what if
going backwards isn't seen in a negative way, but instead
of moment that we take to process the present, to heal,
(29:48):
to accept our realities, to fully enjoy what is to come.
Tony teaches us that even in the moments where we
feel the most hopeless, it is the trust that we
have for our closest family, our friends, for ourselves that
helps us continue pushing forward and taking the time to
listen to our needs. Following our own timeline is perhaps
(30:08):
the bravest thing we can do for our well being.
This has been in the deep stories that shape us.
Find this episode and others on the Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Don't forget
to share, rate and review if you enjoyed this conversation.
The show is produced by Yvonne Chian and master by
(30:29):
James Foster. Our show researcher is John and Raggio and
our writer is Dvette Lopez. A shout out to our
guest Tony Morrison. I'm your host, Zach Stafford
Have you ever wanted a safe space where you can
just exist, where for a moment in time, you can
be you, with all the intricacies and parts of you
that people don't always understand. Welcome to in the deep
stories that shape us. I'm your host, Zach Stafford, and
each episode we create a space to be you, all
of you and all your messy and complicated glory. Every
(00:25):
story shares what it means to be a black and
Latin X man living with different hardships, whether it's a
struggle of identity, discrimination or health, and how they've managed
to push forward despite the circumstance. We hope to get closer,
even if just a little, to a road of healing
and understanding. Hi, everyone, welcome back. Today's guest is really
(00:50):
special because he's also a storyteller. As a producer for
Good Morning America, Tony Morrison gets to share a lot
of stories, and over the years, so many people have
tried at him with their own. However, it wasn't until
late last year that Tony finally trusted the public he
served with his own truth, a truth that almost no
one in his life even new. But before we get there,
(01:12):
let's start at the beginning to better understand this big
moment in his life. As a Filipino American man and
member of the lgbt Q plus community, Tony has long
found himself at a crossroads with his identity, often finding
comfort in silence or within the comforts of a makeshift closet.
And his story begins outside the US, where life took
a great deal from him at a young age. I
(01:37):
was born in the Philippines, actually in Cebu. Anyone's heard
of it out there. And my breath father actually passed
away when I was very young. That was maybe one
or two years old, so you could say, right out
right out the gate in life. In my life, I
was kind of hit with trauma of the worst kind
of loss, you know, and my mom ended up remarrying
(01:57):
to an American and we moved to the States. Is
probably my five years old to go to Old Orlando, Florida.
I was naturalized, became an American citizen in seventh grade.
And you know, looking back, growing up as an LGBT person,
an LGBT kid, I don't know what that meant. I
really didn't know what gay was, you know. I grew
up in a very evangelical household, So there was that
(02:20):
element for me of being signaled that gay was not okay.
But to be quite honest, I always thought that liking
guys was just a phase and I would grow out
of it. That's how I operated my entire childhood and
adolescent life. Later on, my mom and not stepdad, got
a divorce I was probably in middle school, and then
(02:42):
later on in my college years, my stepdad actually passed
away from heart disease and stroke. And in full disclosure,
it's something I'm still working through and in collaboration with
my therapist, I think that this is an area where
I feel that loss and trauma I've just accepted at
(03:04):
our early stage in life. And I use the word
accepted in a very broadway, not in a sense that
it's okay, but to the extent that I feel that
I have accepted what I identify now as trauma, hardship, challenge,
as just things to overcome. It's how do we get
(03:27):
to the other side. Some may call it survival, some
may call it triumph and an overcoming, But I think
that there's something there, at least for me in terms
of at a very young age, I learned that life
is not so nice. I didn't know what to call it,
but we always have a pathway to get through it,
(03:49):
and I think that at the end of the day,
we've been given tools to get through whatever we've been handed.
And for me, it's always been about taking a moment
of pause and whatever situation arises and looking at what
and who's around me that I've been tooled with to
get to the other side. Growing up with two major
(04:11):
losses at a young age really shaped Tony's view of
the world. But he felt these hard knocks were normal,
and as a kid growing up in Orlando, he didn't
see himself as an outcast. In fact, it was quite
the opposite. Well, I think I'm able to articulate it
a little bit more clearly to myself now and to
call things by their name and what it was. I mean,
(04:35):
losing a father, going through divorce as a kid, losing
another parent later on in life. For me, I really
thought that's just how life was. I was a happy,
go lucky kid. I was after school and helping the
front office. I was the nerd, the geek. I was
the canvas activities guy, did all of the clubs. I
(04:56):
was marching band president and our decieted for a and
at the same time, you know, I had never felt
mothered or out of place really, but looking back, it
really was a wonder that I made it through all
that and was able to still be who I was.
In that moment, I thought that just being different was
(05:18):
part of life in the same way that I've I
dealt with again like lost and divorce and quite frankly,
being the only brown kid in the room in public school.
I never felt that that was really a challenge. It
was to me presented as well, this is just how
life is. How are we going to get through it?
How are we executing a plan to overcome and get
(05:40):
to the next And I think that because I didn't
dwell on the challenge in that I was able to
focus on cultivating relationships with so many people and just
being a light in the room without knowing I was
a light in the room, and just being me. So
there's always been an element of let's do this and
(06:00):
just showing up for yourself without knowing what that even was.
You sort of phrase that I've said before, to be
the only brown boy in the room. You know, I
grew up in a part of Tennessee where I was
the only black person in the room and you were similar.
But for me, I just gotta say, like, I didn't
realize it until much later in life to look back. Yeah,
I mean I think I just I recognized that and
(06:21):
I knew that, but I didn't know how to make
anything of it at the time. But looking back now,
even as we're talking about it, there's many instances where
I'm like, oh, I was a representation and I didn't
even know how to represent myself, let alone the community
of people at the time. Yeah. When was the first
time you felt the burden of representation back then? Oh?
(06:43):
My gosh. I really feel like it was into my
college years. Like early freshman in college, I was very
adamant about leaving home at eighteen and doing my own
thing and going out of my way and not to
talk to my parents my first semester of college because
(07:05):
it was all about me, you know, and really kind
of discovering myself and other people. And I really that
first semester was an eye opening experience of like, why
there's so much in the world out there. Tony wore
his l g B t Q plus identity like a
badge of honor, especially during his college years, and like
some of us, he had to learn to toggle between
(07:26):
multiple identities as a gay man, as a brown man,
as an American. For a young person, especially in those
exploratory years, learning who we are comes in phases, but
for Tony that meant shutting down parts of his identity
while he explored others. I think it was really resistant
to the idea of meeting others like me at first,
(07:49):
and because I maybe eate I was so fine with
life and at that part of my life being a
status quo and just focusing on career and maybe relationships.
Maybe at the time it was the wrong relationships to cultivate.
(08:10):
But I remember I did meet a group of individuals.
I'm half Filipino, half Asian Indian, and a group of
brown students were trying to recruit me to be in
you know, Filipino student union of some sort, and I
just remember saying like, I don't need any Filipino friends.
(08:31):
I'm fine, I'm good. I don't need be part of
a body of brown or black individuals. I don't know,
it's so interesting to think about it back then, but
I really was so resistant to becoming part of a
group like myself. You know, and I've had many conversations
about identity, especially in the past couple of years. I
(08:54):
really had always fronted when I was out my LGBT,
I antend, but never really invested in my API identity.
And it's really only been recently where I am really
seeking out more of my kind, my culture. You're not
truly in your fullness unless you're accepting all the versions
(09:15):
of yourself and all your identities. And I think that
that's a transformative place to be in. But I think
it's also a very ongoing process. It's ever changing. You know,
what's it like to move through the world from your
opinion to not be able to see yourself and then
to eventually become like you maybe needed to see it
(09:36):
as a kid. Does it feel lonely when you look backwards?
It does? But I think that you can't come to
that realization until you do see yourself and see yourself
in someone else. You don't realize what you've been missing.
You don't realize how blind you were, even objectively. I
(09:59):
think that you have to let yourself meet that moment
for you to have that realization. Like I remember, for years,
you're talking about visibility, representation all these inclusivity buzzwords. But
when I really saw someone like myself and can envision
myself doing X y Z on television or film or
(10:21):
whatever media, it really hits you in a way that
you can't describe. And then you have a feeling of oh,
this this is visibility, this is representation, and then you
have an understanding for what that is for yourself and
hopefully are able to be in a position to pass
the torch to the next After college, Tony decides to
(10:46):
make a big move to New York City. He slowly
starts to find his tribe, his shows in family like
any family, his began to form these sorts of traditions
together and going to get HIV tested as a group
became one of them. But this feels like a lot
for him. Even though it is two thousand fourteen and
not the height of the AIDS epidemic, HIV still feels
(11:07):
like a scary diagnosis, a death sentence, even to Tony,
so he oppots to get tested a little differently. Suitcase
in a Dream was my moving to New York story.
Moved here with no plan, just love New York and
I had come out officially publicly with a Facebook post
(11:29):
just a few months after moving to New York, and
I had actually found a really great, great group of friends,
young out LGBT people that are twenties, all walks of life,
all different backgrounds, and they were really the foundation for
what we call now a chosen family in this enormously
chaotic environment that is New York City. So we're all
(11:56):
hanging out. A couple of months after I moved to
New York, we saw out in I believe is West
Village area alside one of the bars that were there
were one of these HIV testing trucks, and one of
my friends were like, let's all go get tested together.
It'll be fun. It's like a cool group activity. And
I'm like, I don't know, that's like fun. What starving
(12:19):
was the excitement about doing it as a group activity
because it was such a personal thing, especially that particular test.
You know, and I'm here, i am, I'm a new
out gay in New York, and again all I've been
signaled was growing up gay is bad. This is not
good your lifestyle, And the worst possible thing that can
(12:43):
happen to you is we'll get HIV and you'll dyeing. Period.
That's the storyline, and so having that in the back
of your mind, it's like, I don't know, this is
not like a really fun group activity that I want
to be involved in. So we kind of brushed it
off when God drinks whatever. But I was filled with
curiosity the rest of that week. So at that time
(13:05):
in New York, say, there was a huge campaign for
just testing. Test here tests, there's at home tests, and
I at home tests, and I tested when I got home,
and testing positive for HIV is as terrifying and awful
(13:25):
as it sounds, full stop. Period. This was in twenty fourteen.
No one really told you what to do when you
got a positive result. And that's some part of my
conversation to now is what if I had a holistic
testing experience with information about the I the resources where
(13:48):
I didn't have to find different programs or four different
types of insurances to pay for my medication or who
to go to and all this just stuff that I
had to find all on my own, and it was
a really difficult time. One of those guys in that
initial group that I mentioned was actually one of the
(14:12):
first people that I told about my diagnosis, and it
was three days after carrying this knowledge alone by myself
because I didn't know how to share it or to
tell people. I really thought it was the end. I
really really didn't think it was the end. And I
took a few days off work just to figure things out,
to get these confirmatory tests, you know, these clinics, and
(14:34):
to find these resources. But um, yeah, it was a
really difficult time. Yeah, it sounds I mean it is.
One of the first things people often tell me is
they're like, I don't know who to tell. And it
sounds like you went through that whole process too. So
in that moment, how did you decide who to reach
out to in one of the darkest moments of your life.
(14:58):
I think it was is just really thinking through who
would still love me. I knew there might be an
element of disapproval or a worst case scenario reaction, even
from your closest friends, because again, among our whole group
(15:19):
of friends, straight or gay, no one was really right
in on this stuff, you know, or what to do
or what what the medical advancements of the time were,
what your options were. So for me, it was really
calling through the friends who I thought who might be
(15:39):
able to help me, not just through this moment, but
to help fix me, I think, And what did fixing
you look like? Then? I mean, I think it was
the ultimate fantasy of this is a false positive. There's
a way to undo this. Maybe someone knew someone that
(16:00):
could help me find the right medication, how to keep
it under wraps, finding individuals that would help me honor
that level of confidentiality and privacy. And there's a lot
to go through as a twentysomething New new Yorker. Did
you feel like New York was over for you in
this moment? Or how did life look different in that
(16:22):
moment for you? Looking forward? I mean, I definitely thought
I had an expiration date for sure, And in all
of my visits to get blood work done and the
endless passing of me to different clinics and offices, I
was really just waiting for that moment of you're done
for you know, that confirmed piece of sound or news
(16:46):
that everything I've harbored in my mind was true. But
it really was a doctor who was so kind and
I literally did ask her like, am I dying? How
many days do I have left? Like straight up just
asked her because she came in with my labs and
she kind of smirked at me, and I was like,
this is so rude, because I'm not trying to be dramatic.
(17:09):
But she was the one that explained to me what
we know now as you equals you undertactable, equals, and transmittable.
And she just told me how life would be just fine.
And that was my first interaction of there isn't an
end I don't have an end date. This is wild.
It was so groundbreaking for me to understand that, to
(17:34):
the extent that I really didn't want to believe her. Yeah,
you're a smart person, so you can intellectualize things, but
you also feel things. In these intellectualizing and feeling are
very different. So intellectually you hear from this doctor you're
gonna be okay, you're gonna live. When did you begin
to feel that in your body. I think it took
(17:56):
actually seeing the science, seeing the test was aults, and
being in close contact with her because again, like she
told me this news of it's not the other world.
We get you on medication, like you'll be fine, good
as new. It was so simple, and I was like,
there's no way. That's not what i've that's not what
i've heard, that's not what I think, I know it
was an absolute rejection of that idea that things would
(18:18):
be okay. But as we dug into my experience and
got these test results and got everything under control, it
became the most managed thing in my life, and it
continues to be the most managed thing in my life.
I think that was the foundation of a lot of hurt.
(18:38):
I felt like I went out of my way to
make sure that I was in good health and to
ensure that others around me we're also in good health.
And to know that and to have that experience of
being okay again, it was really a letdown to have
these negative experiences in life, in dating and going out
(19:01):
and off color jokes at brunch, and I was like,
do you not know anybody who's living through this? Tony
only trusted a very select few with his diagnosis, and
for a while, he says, he felt the need to
go back into the closet to heal, to get healthier,
to take care of himself. But Tony is no stranger
(19:22):
to telling stories, and as a producer, it's his livelihood.
After living through the COVID nineteen pandemic lockdown and showing
stories of people like himself, he made a bold decision
to write an essay for Good Morning America, where he
courageously trusted the public with the biggest story he'd ever
shared his own. I was hit with this diagnosis at
(19:47):
that time. It just wasn't okay and acceptable. And the
idea was, you're gonna give it to other people. You're
gonna die, Everyone's gonna die. It's not a good situation
to be. It's the nightmare of having an LGBT son
or daughter. You know, it's a culmination of bad. It's
a punishment to consequence for the life that you're living.
(20:08):
And that's what was drilled in my head. And I
felt like it's something that I couldn't live with for
a long time because it's not It wasn't something that
society could live with. And I think that's what I'm
on a mission now, is everybody has got something and
this is something that society has to live with. I
(20:31):
feel because we have been living with this and people
who are going through this for so long. It's the
base element of LGBT community. We we are here, We've
always been here. This group of individuals has been here
for a long time. Thanks to emerging science, you know,
We've come a long ways, and I think that we
(20:53):
all a lot to those people before us as well.
We surely do, we, surely do. I take your discussions
on the person shoudnt people have around HIV and the
stories they say that aren't right. I take you saying
that with a lot more weight because you work in
media and your job literally is looking at stories all
day long, every day, and I want to ask about
that you were in the closet, will say, as an
(21:15):
HIV positive person. Note, people don't need to come out
publicly and you just positive HIV. That's not like a
requirement totally, But you were not talking about it and
in the ways in which you talk about it now.
But you're seeing stories every day of queer people of
HIV positive people. What was that like to be sitting
in a newsroom in a control room seeing these stories
and seeing yourself in them, but not knowing do I
(21:37):
say something? Do I talk about it? It's been a
very unique evolution, and I've been taking on a lot
more LGBT programming and storytelling and leading a lot of
that here at the network for ABC and Good Morning America,
And like you said, I lift up stories for undrepresented communities,
including people living with HIV, but never having provided my
(22:00):
own context or my own connection to my own experience
while I'm telling other people's stories. And that had weighed
on me for a number of years. And it took
COVID in the lockdown and an environment of loss to
really forced me to pause and think about what I
had been doing, positioning my story in a way that
(22:23):
was still closet in, and the conversation is changing by
just having these conversations. It's actually so wild to me.
I really came to a place where I was releasing
this essay as a personal story and doing in a
very public way because I got to a place where
(22:44):
I was realizing how sad and not in my fullness,
I was bringing myself two meetings or two friends around me,
and again that environment of loss. I really began to
think how unfair it was for me to be so
sad but be perfectly fine and have a perfectly great
life to live. And I feel like, wow, that's such
(23:08):
a waste. And I really wanted other people to kind
of get on board. You know, this was the experience,
and it's an experience like so many others, and I
think that the feeling of being and other and being mothered.
That's the trope that I feel like everybody has been
latching on. It's been really shocking to me how many
people have reached out and said how how much my
(23:31):
story has meant to them, and what parts of my
story affects them. That's been the really unexpected part. And
today I'm the happiest ever. I I never knew I
could be so happy and fulfilled by living in my
fullness in this way. And it realized also how many
(23:52):
other parts of my life were being affected by keeping
this part hidden away to where or Once I gave
myself permission to live in my fullness, everything just turned.
What advice would you give to someone listening that they
don't want to come out publicly, they want to remain private.
How do they do that? How do they stay healthy
(24:14):
and happy? In your opinion? For sure, this is not
a you have to come out with anything conversation. You're
not Harvey Milk come out everybody. I mean, sure, there
is power in that, but there is also power and
being honest with yourself and how you want to live
your life. And if you do want to come to
a place, whoere you want to be public about parts
(24:36):
of your life, great, go for it. But I feel
like you have to let that moment meet you. Is
my take on that. Let the opportunity come to you
versus you force and that opportunity. And earlier we're talking
about looking at the tools around you for how to
get through something. I didn't have the tools I have
today mentally, literally, metaphorically, professionally as a journ analysts and
(25:00):
covering the stories I have for the past few years.
It took me eight years to get to this point,
but I didn't have the tools five years ago, six
years ago, seven years ago. So this opportunity, this moment
met me and then in the end it was up
to me to meet that moment. And I would tell
people living with HIV today my goal is, I want
(25:22):
people living with HIV to be seen. I want people
living with HIV to know they are seen in our world.
I see you, we see you, and you belong here
because for so long I felt that I didn't belong
here because I let a diagnosis to find me. That
was the unfair part that I didn't give myself that
(25:43):
permission to live and love. Yeah, that's so beautiful and
it makes I have to ask, do you regret going
down the path that you've been on? This like eight
years of quiet, the regret, the fears, all that. Do
you regret it all? Would you do it exactly the
same way? I've asked myself that, And I'm not prepared
(26:04):
to say yes or no, but only that I had
to go through what I did to be able to
articulate the message for myself and for others that i'm
able to today. What I hate, and I'll use the
word hey, what I hate is how I made myself
(26:27):
feel over the course of those eight years. There's a
lot of learning, but I hate that I didn't have
conversations like this to look to or other people who
raised their hands and said, I'm living with HIV. Here's
my experience. It's gonna be okay. So that's part of
what I'm doing now and really exposing this part of
(26:50):
my life is I really hope I can be a
light to others who are struggling and to say that
your story matters, our story matters, and that it's going
to be okay. Yes, men will be okay. Talking to you,
I feel relief. I don't know why I feel like
I'm very like, oh my god, because everything you've told me,
(27:12):
you've you've overcome multiple father figures, a father and another
father figures dying you, you have immigrated, you have moved,
you have overcome and overcome, and you're so happy you are,
and you're so hopeful, and then this pandemic, no one's
hopeful anymore. So Tony, final question, with all those hope
in freedom and truth, what comes next for you? What
(27:36):
are what are you looking forward to? Because right now
it feels like you're in uh nirvana. Well we're looking
at our husband's there manifests. We want to let that
opportunity come to me again. That strategy, Oh my gosh.
But you know what, Zach, it's uh. I feel like
(27:56):
I've always been this positive, just driven individual. But I
think in the time we're in now and my experience
and all that I stand for now, I think that
I've seen the alternative and I feel like I've really
had that near death experience, or at least in my mind,
you know. So it has to be what's next in
(28:18):
the most positive way. It has to be after the
best for yourself and others and really leaning into your potential.
And I'm excited. I don't know what tomorrow may bring,
but that actually that uncertainty, it really excites me in
a way that in the past I was really afraid
of that uncertainty. Yeah, and something else before I let
(28:40):
you go. And also I'm gonna be thinking of men
for you now. Um is uh. I feel like you
have proven this thing someone said to me this week
is that like to be kind, you have to be
kind to yourself, because your story really embodies that, because
I would argue you're probably the most kind of her
now that you've been so kind in public to yourself.
I'll tell you like sharing my story going through this experience,
(29:03):
especially in a public way, but for everyone listening, you
don't have to do in a public way. I think
just sharing your story just makes you more compassionate and
you just see what it is you're missing when you're
not living to your full potential, and when you are,
you see that in others as well. So it just, yeah,
it's right on, And I think that that's really a
(29:25):
product of not taking life too seriously and just letting
yourself live. As a society, we've all been wired to
believe that moving backwards isn't something good. But what if
going backwards isn't seen in a negative way, but instead
of moment that we take to process the present, to heal,
(29:48):
to accept our realities, to fully enjoy what is to come.
Tony teaches us that even in the moments where we
feel the most hopeless, it is the trust that we
have for our closest family, our friends, for ourselves that
helps us continue pushing forward and taking the time to
listen to our needs. Following our own timeline is perhaps
(30:08):
the bravest thing we can do for our well being.
This has been in the deep stories that shape us.
Find this episode and others on the Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Don't forget
to share, rate and review if you enjoyed this conversation.
The show is produced by Yvonne Chian and master by
(30:29):
James Foster. Our show researcher is John and Raggio and
our writer is Dvette Lopez. A shout out to our
guest Tony Morrison. I'm your host, Zach Stafford
Host
Zach Stafford
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