Activism with Sonnabend, Berkowitz, and Dworkin In 1982, Callen joined with fellow person with AIDS
Richard Berkowitz and partner Richard Dworkin to write an essay entitled "We Know Who We Are: Two Gay Men Declare War on Promiscuity" for the
New York Native. Inspired by Dr.
Joseph Sonnabend's theory, the men suggested closing the baths as a way to stop the spread of AIDS. What the men referred to as "promiscuity" was the frequent backroom, unprotected sexual encounters that dominated the gay sexual culture of the time and place. In the post-Stonewall Riots and gay liberation years, the popular belief was that sex was a revolutionary act, and more sex was equivalent to being more liberated. Callen co-authored the manual
How to Have Sex in an Epidemic: One Approach, which was developed in collaboration with Berkowitz and Sonnabend in 1983. The authors outlined the tenets of
safe sex, advocating for the increased use of condoms. Prior to the AIDS epidemic, condoms were advertised as a viable way to prevent pregnancy but not considered an effective tool for STD prevention. In 1990, Callen wrote
Surviving AIDS, which received an Honorable Mention from the
American Medical Writers Association. In
Surviving AIDS, Callen exposes what he calls the "propaganda of hopelessness", arguing that public health officials and researchers are more interested in the dead than the living, ultimately largely ignoring long-term survivors. The latter half of the book tells the story of 13 long-term survivors, including people of different sexes, ethnic, and sexual backgrounds.
Opposition Despite his career and prominence as an activist, Callen was met with resentment, suspicion and opposition from others. Since he was diagnosed with AIDS in 1982 and survived over a decade, people speculated as to whether his diagnosis was real or fabricated to get attention. He responded to that criticism by releasing his medical reports and pictures of his lungs which showed his pulmonary Kaposi's Sarcoma.
Honors In June 2019, Callen was one of the inaugural fifty American "pioneers, trailblazers, and heroes" inducted on the
National LGBTQ Wall of Honor within the
Stonewall National Monument (SNM) in New York City's
Stonewall Inn. The SNM is the first
U.S. national monument dedicated to
LGBTQ rights and
history, and the wall's unveiling was timed to take place during the
50th anniversary of the
Stonewall riots. Approximately five years after Callen's death, the Community Health Project (CHP), a primary care center located in New York City that serves the needs of the
LGBT community and people living with HIV/AIDS, was renamed to the
Callen-Lorde Community Health Center after Callen and activist
Audre Lorde. == Performance career ==