SPFPP 387: Herpes Support and Education Platform
Make sure you’re able to watch the video on this if you can. This isn’t an interview or experience episode, it’s a hard launch of the revised and easier to navigate herpes support and education platform, Something Positive for Positive People (SPFPP). I’ve not been very active with the website exactly and that’s because I just got spoiled with Instagram. Lately the visibility of my posts and education and information has been TRASH so I haven’t been getting visibility, guests, or many people finding the resource at all. This episode, I walk through navigating the site for anyone new to SPFPP in hopes of them getting to the information they need and are seeking a little faster.
If you’re diagnosed with herpes and just need support for navigating the stigma, or if you are a health care professional looking to support a client or patient, this platform is for you. It’s a nonprofit organization so we run off donations. If you hire us for a training that helps tremendously too. All of our resources are free or donation-based so any “purchase” made is tax deductible and helps us with our efforts to continue offering support to people living with herpes, and educating the loved ones of them.
SPFPP 387 Transcript
Courtney Brame: I just looked over saw that I was muted right before I started talking. Welcome to Something Positive for Positive People. I'm Courtney Brain. Something positive for Positive People is a 501c3 nonprofit organization supporting people who are navigating herpes stigma. In addition to that, we also provide resources that are useful to professional mental health, and if you are an educator in the field of sexuality specifically. And I am fixing my mic so that ain't no wild stuff happening here. Okay, there we go. welcome to this episode. So, you'll see I'm on camera.
Courtney Brame: if you are watching this on any virtual platform rather than listening to it this is one that I mean just full transparency I don't even want to call this a podcast episode because what this is is me talking through a lot of the changes that have come to the website we now have the website looking more like a website instead of a newspaper. So let me go ahead and share my screen real quick so that you can see a little bit of what to expect. All right. So, here's the homepage. What you'll see is we got a picture. We got some diverse skin tones on this thing. look at the upgraded, y'all. And for the amount of money that I know I'm going to have to spend by the end of this process, it's is worth it. So, one of the first things you might notice is the shortened main navigation. you see one, two, three, four, five different navigation links.
Courtney Brame: Some of them have drop downs, some don't. but this is a lot shorter than it used to be, especially for people who might be looking at this on a mobile device. it'll look a lot more clean for you to be able to navigate and find what it is that you're looking for. Now, I'm talking in a way that if you're somebody who's new here, you don't know Courtney, you don't know about something positive for positive people, this is for Anyone who's been here for a while, you probably already know what you're looking for. You might come here for the podcast. you might come here to see if any events are going on or maybe you're going to be curious about the support groups which I'll get into as well. but this is really just for someone who's brand new to something positive for positive people and don't know where to start. All right, so here you'll see the announcement bar. So here's where you really want to see what's happening. Right now we're collecting survey responses.
Courtney Brame: So, whenever you click on the announcement bar, it'll take you right to whatever it is that's going on, or that links to that announcement bar. So, here we've got the herpes, survey, which also links to other resources. So, one of the first things you'll see is that this takes us to the herpes statistics page where you'll see some of the data. you'll be able to scroll down and see some of the images, the graphics, some slides from the presentation. If you want that full presentation, you're able to click there and it'll just open up another tab. That one takes you to our 2024 statistics where what I presented at the herpes stigma conference in 2024 is what will be presented and it'll be available for download.
Courtney Brame: So, if you are someone who works in the medical field, if you're a clinician, mental health professional, you work with people with herpes, this is for you. And that's why there's a price associated with it as well. this was something that I put a lot into and I'm making it available and accessible for professionals and organizations to be able to access easily. Okay, so it says here who it's for. Health care professionals, therapists, counselors, sex educators, and advocates, as well as researchers and public health professionals. it's just a video and yeah that's just a descriptive analysis of the data that we collected from our herpes stigma survey. So if you are someone who just wanted to take the survey hold on I got to hit back because that didn't open a new tab. That's something that I need to fix as well. So I'm glad I'm doing this now. yeah so if you are looking for additional resources you'll be able to click throughout.
Courtney Brame: you'll see how to navigate the pages in that way. So, all you'll have to do if you want to take the survey, hit the disclaimer and then that'll give you an option to just check that you read the disclaimer and then you can start the survey. Every page will have a place for you to join our newsletter. Please be on the newsletter. I'm not doing as much as I have on social media is honestly no longer worth it for me because of how limited anything that I'm sharing relevant to herpes or the organization. It doesn't get any v visibility. It's just not worth it. So, I put a lot of time into the website and shout out to Jenny her stuff down here. Yep. It's just Jenny down here at the bottom for challenging me, not only designing the website, making those little changes I asked, but also for challenging me to do my part.
00:05:00
Courtney Brame: One of the things that I want to get to is the support group right away. So you'll see that there's something positive for positive people. You can scroll through and read that and you'll see a link to me if you want to learn more about A link to the support calls which will take you to and I'll start there So click new tab opens scheduling a herpesy support call. Now we can help you with disclosing. We can help you with if you need support in knowing how to date or if you are a loved one of someone who has herpes, this is a really good starting point as well. These calls are donation based and they're All right, so we do a lot in that 30 minutes, but it can also fly by. I do not recommend you come asking me questions about me. This is your space.
Courtney Brame: There's a podcast of we're almost approaching 400 episodes of interviews with people with herpes about all of their experiences from diagnosis to disclosure, dating, even having maintained relationships and built families afterwards. So, the donation has donation recommended amounts. the value of Courtney's time is $165 an hour. That's what I charge for yoga therapy sessions. That's what I call charge for. that's my rate for if I'm going through the process of doing any type of speaking engagement or presentation that is what the value of that time is. So if this is a 30 minute call the recommended donation amount is half of that which would be like $82.50. I'm not going to make everybody pay $82.50. Donate whatever you feel the value is of having a conversation about this that's going to carry you into whatever it is that you need to do.
Courtney Brame: I don't care as long as you Donating just weeds out people who won't show up for the call, who are going to waste my time, and it makes people be a lot more intentional with the reason that they're there. So, that is my boundary because you will get not a donation link. You won't get a calendar invite from me if I don't see that a donation come through. I'll remind you. but yeah, I can't do that anymore. Even right before the reason that I had to stop this and get ready for another call was because someone registered. This person didn't donate. I went on and sent the information because of their circumstances and they just wasted my time and't show up for the call. I didn't get an email response back. So, this is a filter in place to make sure that nobody's time is wasted and that people are serious about being here.
Courtney Brame: So, you make the donation and then we'll get a link to the minute These calls are 30 minutes. All right. if you need more, you can email me. We can talk about what that looks like. For ongoing support, there's yoga therapy. I will click that here. no. It didn't open a new link. I got to go through and fix that, too, so people don't get lost in where they were. the thing with yoga was very useful for me. It is very useful for me. I've had three outbreaks and throughout the entirety of my diagnosis, my experience at least since I've learned that I have herpes. I had the first outbreak which was in 2013. I had the second one in 2016 after getting fired from a job which was really stressful. And then 2021 when I had consumed a ton of sugar in a very short period of time and also learned that I was at the line for becoming pre-diabetic. So that was something that having herpes taught me.
Courtney Brame: I made some lifestyle changes and yoga has really been at the center of that. Even if I'm not physically practicing, the meditative practices and what I learn and what I've used even in consulting, creating these support groups and having one-on-one conversations, it all comes from a yoga informed approach. I will be a certified yoga therapist in 2026. I just mapped out the remainder of what I need to do for my training program and I'm on track to be done by the end of 2026 and I'll be able to offer this not as a yoga therapist in training, but to al offer it as a yoga therapist. which means that there's going to be more research done. There's going to be more data collection for me. and it'll be much more focused because I do believe that that's the best way of navigating herpes.
Courtney Brame: is to go to the nervous system directly. we can take the mental health stigma, the physical health outbreak symptoms as a way of guiding us into what the nervous system is really trying to tell us. And that's what yoga therapy is for me using it towards herpes stigma. So we'll talk. Some people don't even do yoga. They don't do the breathing, they don't want to meditate, they just want to talk. And so I offer that. I hold the space for it. We will do some visualization. That is one thing that I will say. If nothing else, we don't visualize. All right. the details are all here. $165 per hour. here's some testimonials. damn, 20 years. I know who that was. in transparency, I'm seeing there were three people decided that they were ready to move on.
00:10:00
Courtney Brame: So, what you'll do is just go here, fill out the intake form. You'll fill all of that sharing whatever information. I think most of it is mandatory. And then after that, we'll have a one-on-one call and then whenever you're making the donation to start, you can do it monthly, weekly, one time, depending on how long you're going to be participating in yoga therapy. All right, I'mma go back because I need to make sure. Let me write that down to Open tab in links. All So, the newsletter, you can sign up for that most places. At the bottom of each web p tab, you'll see an opportunity to sign up for the newsletter. It is very important to be connected to the newsletter because again, social media is not showing my stuff. It has not been a good use of time.
Courtney Brame: and that's it. So, we're focusing more on the website. I might post things to social media randomly, but I know that people still will message me or find me in that way. So, I'll put prevalent things out there. if there's an event, I'll definitely have to use it and also purchase the ads so that people find out that we have things going on. but yes, I struggle with getting people to find the stuff and people have reached out to me thinking that I just stopped doing this. It's like no, been doing weekly podcasts over the last eight years. What do you mean? So, yeah, the algorithm is just not rocking with me. herpes support groups. This is new. So, we have a tab for herpes support group.
Courtney Brame: I've tried to do this before and it's failed just flat out. the herpes support group was for anybody and I found that only women came. The men, there was a time I remember specifically a man showed up. He was on camera, he went off camera and shortly after people were joining, it was more women joining. He left. Block me. I haven't heard from him. I don't know what happened. And I think that that's maybe representative of maybe how a lot of men navigate this space. So rather than having a support group which isn't saying, "Hey, this is for you or" I'm breaking it down by gender. So there's a women's support group. It's facilitated from a yoga informed approach. So this is really going to be what I use in order to make sure that the space is respected and that the people in it are respected. The group schedule is going to be the first and third Monday, 7:30 p.m. Eastern time, women's group.
Courtney Brame: second and fourth Monday, 7:30 p.m. Eastern time, men's group, same day, just an alternating schedule. it's really important that for this process, I need for you to take responsibility because I have to maintain a lot of people's anonymity and their safety and their identities. And it's really, really difficult for me to do that without having to implement systems in place that they're unconventional. And it requires me to remember to do the things or have it written down somewhere for myself because I can't just put y'all on an email list and send out the calendar invite because then everybody sees a calendar invite, So, I'm doing things a lot different than I have in the past. What this is going to require, one is vetting. We have to schedule a one-on-one support call. it'll be 30 minutes.
Courtney Brame: So, if you are interested in the support group and something new now is there's a check box for if you're interested in the support group if you're interested in the men's group or the women's group and that'll tell me the gender to associate with your name so that you are guided to the right place. All right. what I need from you is to have that call and then you donate to the right group. So at the very bottom you'll see that there's an option here to donate. when we donate this is for the support call. So you can choose your option accordingly. But again at the bottom of every page there's the option for you to donate to whatever it is that you are looking to donate to. So in this case the men's support group or the women's support group. You select that. You make your donation of whatever amount you're choosing to donate.
00:15:00
Courtney Brame: It can be a one-time donation or if you're going to be coming regularly, just make it monthly and then when I see you no longer on there, I can know to remove you from the list and that you've graduated the support groups. All right. So, once you do that, on the back end, I'll see that you donated to the support group. So, for that week, you will receive a calendar invite the day of the support group within 30 minutes to an hour prior. Now the reason I'm doing that is because people are going to sign up over the course of time for that particular support group. I can filter on the back end, pull an Excel sheet of emails. I can send the email with the link for people to Just click this link to join and you'll get it 30 minutes before. All right. So I'm being as clear as I can and simple with the process as possible. You put this in your own calendar. You put this in your own calendar.
Courtney Brame: It's going to be every other Monday, 7:30 p.m. Eastern time, and you have to make a donation in order to get vetted or in order to get added to the group. So, that's for every call. Now, if you're a monthly member, that's different. If you're donating on a monthly consistent basis, you do not have to do this. I'm saying this as openly as possible for everybody because if you're listening to this, you might be new here. and I want this to just be a smooth process. Okay. Boom. the women's group. So, there is a women's group. leading I'm facilitating it. I'm aware that I'm a man and I'm This is all we got. I had somebody donate 75 cents for a support call and then asked to speak to a woman. It's just I have board members, but there is no one who is in this space or that I trust at least to come in and be consistent for something positive for positive people and facilitate the space.
Courtney Brame: I've run most of the people almost all that I talk to are women. So when I've put these spaces on before, it's been the same thing. Only now I want to be more mindful of bringing in people who want to be here and not people who are going to come trauma dump and leave that with everybody and then we never hear from or see them again. So I have to maintain the integrity of this space. I'm bringing in people who are aligned with being able to come here, be in community, learn from, and grow through what it means to have herpes and navigate the stigma. So, here it's listed again, first and third Monday for women, do the support call, donate to do what you can to support the space, and also have that accountability. Now, we also have a men's group. I'll talk about that later, but yeah, the process is the same.
Courtney Brame: So you get vetted via support call and then when you're ready you make a donation to the fund that is prevalent to your option. So it's the women's the men's support group and you will receive the link within 30 minutes to an hour before. You ain't got to worry about nothing else. And if you don't get the link, reach out to me. I'll take care of you. But this process is smooth. I've already seen how it works. I've tested it.'m I got this. All right. if you don't want a support group that's led facilitated by a man, click the women led support groups and you'll be taken to various herpes support groups for women. So, it's not something positive. I recognize again I'm a man. So, here are spaces that have been facilitated by women. We've got Drew Rabinol who's in Rochester, New York, and online. We've got love profound which is u for everyone. It's for people of all genders. This is online.
Courtney Brame: And I think this is run by Devon Elise Wilson, who runs Love Profound, in New York City. but yeah, that's for people. I think there might be an annual in-person thing. we talked and she said she did want to do more inerson stuff, so I'll update this as necessary. Save*, shout out to Trisha. She runs a support group for women and queers. So, if you're not a cisgender heterosexual man, you can join this group. So, this is a support group that is led by a queer woman. And that's what I got for you. And then, of course, the virtual support group for women, which is not led by a woman. This one's me. So, this will just take you back to being able to sign up if you don't like any of the options that are available to All right? And mine are all just donation based. You get what you can and then you're at All right? I don't like to put a minimum on this, but please don't donate 75 cents.
Courtney Brame: And I hate that I have to say this, what you can afford. I heard someone say this before, pay what you can, but make sure it's enough to where you're a little bit uncomfortable. And it's that value that you assign to whatever it is that you're giving to that reflects what you get back out of it. All right. So, I'm going to close these alternative women support groups tabs. And now we go to the men's group. All right, fellas. This is like a I don't want to call it the locker room, but I wanted to have that feel, right? So, this is not therapy. We need to have one-on-one support calls as well first. Just like a one-on-one call. I hear y intentions. We talk through it a little bit and we see if this is a space that's right for you. There's a men's content page as well.
00:20:00
Courtney Brame: And this is where I ran a nonprofit organization very shortly called Self. And I put on emotional wellness Symposia for men. And this was if y'all know Brick City Buddha. he was one of our guests on there. We talk about Doc Digler, that's Brick City Buddha. with Jeremy from Let's a podcast on black masculinity. Cam Frasier talking about sex. He's a men's coach and sex educator in Australia. Day Dr. Rod. And then who was this one? This one was with Mike Joseph, the detoxicity podcast. I about I am controversy on Instagram, Anthony Tony. This was another conversation where we spoke about leadership or the absence of it. And then Teddy the comedian, shout out to him for being vulnerable and sharing his experience with suicide ideation and ego.
Courtney Brame: But these are resources that can be found. All of this just supplements what's already there. I thought this was useful. And even though I'm not running Self as a nonprofit organization anymore, it is still a podcast, but my own self-exloration decompression chamber for me that still exists as a podcast. It's kind of like my out loud journal. But that's for me. And if anybody wants to listen to maybe you can learn from it, cool. But I'm not structuring that in a way that it's like a thing I'm selling. It's just me expressing myself. So that is what the men's content hub is about. You'll see those videos there and it's easy to navigate. If you're reading and you're interested, click the thing. It'll open the tab and you can come back to it later. All right. donations required. You got to donate to participate in the groups and then you'll get the link if you donate.
Courtney Brame: I will know if you donate it because I had someone donate. but to the wrong organization. They donated to another the herpes cure advocacy program. Shout out to them. and he sent me a receipt. I was like, that's not me, bro. He was like, yeah, I donated already. Give me I'm on my call. No. So, we're donating to something positive for positive people. and again, this is a yoga informed approach. I'm not going to come in and talk to y'all about the yoga philosophy and everything. I got to shorten these white space gaps here. so I'll take care of that. Let me make sure to do that here, too. of course, the pin doesn't work. Men page. Shorten gaps. Okay. All right. so that's the support options. I think that's the biggest thing that I wanted to share with y'all.
Courtney Brame: is just how to navigate that more than anything. Yoga for herpes, that's yoga therapy, stigma informed training. So if you work at a healthcare organization, if you are a mental health, this is for you. So, we train people from a very stigma informed approach to navigating herpes conversations with patients, with clients. And this is where you can find more information about that. our goal is to minimize stigma. We want to minimize the psychological, behavioral, the social impacts of stigma, but we do that just in general by minimizing it. So, we go into the public health field.
Courtney Brame: We go into therapy, practices, clinics, public health, whatever. And we offer, what that video is our promo. It's a promotion of what it is that we offer at something positive for positive people. We create scripts. We bring in educators or people who have lived experiences with herpes. And these are volunteers or paid people to come in and they sit across from your clinician while they take a history. At the end of that, we exchange feedback from the group. and you get to see what it was like to have this person as your patient and get feedback from them because We don't get feedback from people, especially in settings where there's a huge inherent power dynamic like you're the provider, they're the patient, So, that is what the experience is that we create. It is not a cheap experience. So, yeah, if you want that, we got to talk that that's a customizable thing.
Courtney Brame: However, what we do have are the herpes stigma conference recordings. So, those recordings will help physicians. So, I'll click that here. So, we've got Evelyn's minimizing herpes statement healthcare. You can download her presentation here and you can share that among your staff. We also have Nikia Fernandez who is a sex therapist. She speaks about the psychological effects, how to support your clients if you are a mental health professional. We also have Dakota Rampen, youth sexuality educator, who speaks to minimizing stigma in youth sex education. You can also access that recording. And then finally, not to say we saving in the best for last or anything, but I need to remove that lock. All right. Just learn something else.
00:25:00
Courtney Brame: Hold on. Conferences cuz that one comes with the password and it shouldn't. Remove password. there All and then there's the here we go. Descriptive analysis of the 2024 herpes stigma survey that is led by me. I speak to a lot of the information that people want when they're diagnosed with herpes, but we don't have information We don't have the data. We don't have the research. But I present this virtually. Again, this is something that's available for purchase for you and your staff. this isn't really marketed to individuals living with herpes. So, if this is something that you're looking for as just a person who's curious, reach out to me.
Courtney Brame: I don't think that you should pay $165 for that. But institutions, organizations, trainings, I have to make this something for sale. All right. so that is all of the downloadable stuff for the stigmafree training. I love that it does open new tabs. People told me to do that and I was like, "No, I don't want people to feel spammed." But I reality is it's a business. you can see the board members. There's Elise, Evelyn, Jordan, and Amber. Shout out to all of them for keeping me in check. We also have the press page. This is where you'll find 97% of the media that I've been a guest on different podcast.
Courtney Brame: So you can see anywhere where something positive for positive people or Courtney are mentioned talking about herpes, talking about stigma. it's a long list of links to where I've been featured, where something positive's been featured. And then here you can see the reviews, what people are saying. And here's also an option for you to review us. We need for people to be able to see what people are getting out of it. from a podcast 2, 2020, these are very old reviews. It's like people just stopped doing it. But I also think A lot of the promotion that I've done has been on Instagram and Instagram has not been friendly lately. we've got the podcast. If you're someone who wants to be a podcast guest on the best herpes podcast that exists, click here. Just scroll down a little bit.
Courtney Brame: be a podcast guest, we have a search bar for you to be able to type in the search bar whatever it is that you're looking for. So, for example, if you're looking for discord and dating and you type that in the search box, what that'll do is it's going to browse something positive for positive people archives. You'll see episode 325 that talks about discord and dating. This must not have a photo with it. you'll see disclosing an nominogamy. the discord and dating series. This was a series of podcasts I did interviewing the partners of people who were living with herpes talking about transmission rates. and the titles and the descriptions offer just information on what you will hear in the podcast episode. All right, so that is one way to use this.
Courtney Brame: If you are looking to disclose, you can type in disclosure and what will pop up is also things on the website. So a disclosure workshop, Evelyn's episode 99 on deceptive disclosure, non-disclosure, the free herpes. that's no longer free because that expi So you can register for that and download that. Where's $2.99? That's wild. that episode 299 isn't on here. okay. See more. It might be there. All right. So, that's how you can navigate the podcast tab. And then the services. I already showed you that. Contact. Now, there's a lot more pages, but a lot of these pages aren't relevant. if you are someone looking for the damn, I got to include that some kind of way.
Courtney Brame: If you're looking for some of the videos, the stuff that you want to pay for, the herpes stigma com friends, the dating and disclosure workshops, the presentations that we've had and done. You can download these things for purchase. We also have our 400th podcast episode coming up. I'm anticipating that being the week of December 12th. That'll be episode 400. And so, yeah, we want to just have a get together. It'll be a talent show, karaoke at the house in New York City. I already paid for the space. I ain't sold no tickets, so we going to see what worst case scenario, I'm in that b*** having a party by myself. All right, so I hope to see y'all there. but yeah, I like for this to be donation based. You donate what you can and you help us with just facilitating the atmosphere.
00:30:00
Courtney Brame: If you're someone who knows a good caterer or food truck or something, we can have that pull up outside. I would ideally be able to pay for the entertainment, pay for the food, and just cover some type of a bar tab that people are able to get a free drink or something like that if they want alcoholic or non-alcoholic. there's going to be a dance floor. What I want to emphasize is the socializing and the talent show. And I'm going to have a guest performance from someone who I think people here will be very excited about. So, yeah, that's what I'm looking for. That's what I'm looking forward to, especially with this event and putting all this together, this has been It's been a journey to get to this point. because it's not an easy thing, especially doing this on my own and struggling with asking for help and trying to figure out and identify help from people who I can trust to help. I can't tell you how many times people have been like, "Courtney, I want to help."
Courtney Brame: and then I give them the task and then I never hear from them again. So yeah, it's a little bit of a challenge, but we're doing what we can with what we got to work with. making all of this accessible and available. And one thing that I know I noticed yeah, when you click the logo, it takes you to the homepage. You scroll down to the bottom and you see just about everything. Trainings, the data, you can take the survey, you can review our past statistics. whenever you are at the website, these will take you to everything you need to get to. Why is this going to taking the survey? We're supposed to be reviewing statistics. And this one should be taking the survey. So, I need to fix that, too.
Courtney Brame: bottom home. All right. got to fix that as but the herpes frequently asked questions, we've got the herpes blog. I invite you if you have a story, maybe you don't want to talk about it. But if you want to write something and just send it to me and I can put it up on the blog, do that. I'm going to be writing here more. I am a writer for the** Sexual Wellness Center. Shout out to Dr. Lori Batiggo who's the director of that. and not everything, is fit for p* Sexual Wellness Center. A lot of it is for here. I answer a lot of questions people have on the blog of theirs. So now, I think that as I'm getting into a groove and a rhythm, some of the more nuanced things can be added here to something positive for positive people herpes blog.
Courtney Brame: but yeah, on this blog you'll find useful readings, things like that. I'm still going to do the podcast. I always view the podcast as a blog, but it's a conversation. So, I come here and I can just type something up that tells a story, beginning, middle, end, and we go from there. But you'll see herpes is a disclosure, not a confession. You'll see herpes and spiritual healing. that's a topic that I'm very big on is the spiritual aspect of living with herpes.
Courtney Brame: And then the female to male transmission rates. Does anyone really care? Honestly, no. But that's there. and then I was at the bottom here. Yeah, the herpes support for women, the newsletter, the blog, statistics, the FAQ, and the statistics. And then there's also at home herpes test kits if you're looking for one of those. Here's the data. So, we got slides, we got some graphics if people are curious about those things. And then if you want to watch that presentation, this is my presentation from the 2024 herpes stigma conference where I go over the statistics and data that we got in for that. All right, so I'm going to go ahead and stop sharing my screen. it is very important that you subscribe to the newsletter. I can't say that enough.
Courtney Brame: If you are someone who is living with herpes and you're navigating stigma, I don't care if you're in your ideal relationship right now, anything can happen. If you're single and you feel so far disconnected from this, anything can happen. And so, if you find yourself looking for this information, I ain't going nowhere. I feel like every time I try and leave or try and stop doing this, my life goes to s***. So, I'm going to go ahead and just listen, take the hint, and make this what I do. This is what I do. I'm committed to it transmitting stigma into healing both for myself and other people. And I'm working on some, feelings that I have around rejection right now as well personally. And I look forward to being able to just hold and facilitate the spaces in order to help other people do that. Also wanted to mention, there are no LGBT or trans or non-binary herpes advocates or activists that exist that I'm aware of.
00:35:00
Courtney Brame: And partially I think because the LGBT community does have a lot more support as it relates to stigma, stereotypes and identity and a lot more straight people or people who've been socialized men or women, they just don't experience that. So there's a little less resilience when it comes to navigating an STI diagsis, a herpes diagnosis, because there's just an unfamiliarity with that. One thing that I've learned from queer people in general is that there's this balance of challenge and liberation, there's more liberation that comes out of challenging identity and getting to a place of being able to express themselves. This herpes diagnosis shouldn't be something that's super impactful.
Courtney Brame: I can't speak for everybody's experience, but I know that there's a lot more support and welcomeness in the LGBT community, the sex positivity communities, and a lot of cisgender heterosexual women don't necessarily have access to or don't know exists. So, because I've been facilitating these spaces mostly for women, it makes sense for me to continue to do that and just say, "Hey, here's for women." and also create a space that's not for women so that the people who are men feel comfortable with that. I can't facilitate an LGBT only non-binary gender non-conforming space. That's not my experience. I don't talk to enough people that warrant the demand for that. if someone emerges from nowhere and they want to facilitate that, awesome.
Courtney Brame: I'll look for consistency, and then maybe offer an endorsement to be able to guide people there. But right now, safe s****, queer and fe women and women and queers, I believe, that's the only alternative that I'm aware of at this point in time. so yeah, the alternatives are out there and I'm happy to have a website complete. It's updated there. There's little technical things I got to fix, but that's nothing. I can do that real quick. but I appreciate you for if you listened, if you watched this and you went through the presentation with me, the sharing screen or whatever. Thank you so much. last couple things that I want to leave y'all with.
Courtney Brame: again December 12th in New York City or Brooklyn specifically, we're going to host the 400th podcast episode, 8yearish anniversary of Something Positive for Positive People as a Podcast. there are things coming up. I'm going to be presenting at the Midwest Love Fest in Indianapolis, November 7th through 9th, which is the day before My birthday's November 10th. so I'll be back here in New York on the 9th so I can get my black ass up and go to work. I got to work on the 10th. and also we'll be facilitating a support group on the 10th. hey we take this seriously around here. All right. So there's that and then before that actually next week I need to make my presentation the health conference as a national sexual health conference.
Courtney Brame: I'm going to be presenting on herpes informed approach to minimizing stigma in healthcare settings. So, I'm looking forward to being able to do that as well and just share my experience, my story, what people have shared with me a couple of statistics and be able to give people some takeaways from language and offer the stigma free training that we offer. It's so funny I can just say that here but I haven't made the presentation yet. I'm resistant to making presentations, It's crazy. The National Sex Ed Conference in February in Baltimore. I'll be presenting there. And then there's also the Ending the Epidemic Conference that's going to be in Albany, New York. I'll be presenting there as So, lots of stuff happening this winter. You'll see a little bit less of me on social media because yeah, this stuff is really picking up now.
00:40:00
Courtney Brame: And I think it's because I've found myself in alignment with being where I'm in an environment that is validating to my identity. I don't feel I don't feel stuck. I feel like I'm moving with purpose, moving in the right direction, and aligned people, opportunities, challenges, relationships, everything that's coming into my bubble is grounding and supportive of my identity expression. So, I probably look different.
Courtney Brame: That's one of the reasons I wanted to do the video as well is just to show my face. I don't think I really have since being in this place. I'll say that I've consistently been good for about two I've been good for a while and I think that I got called out yesterday for dumbing down or dimming the light and Hiding is and it's one thing when my therapist says it, but it's another thing when a person says it.
Courtney Brame: And yeah, that's true. I'm very nervous and uncomfortable about putting my experiences back out there, my lived experiences, and speaking so openly. and being myself. And this is something that I'm reconciling. I'm talking to my therapist. We're working on it. We ain't seeing each other twice a week anymore, but we are still seeing each other. Last thing I want to do is be like, " I'm good. to stop seeing my therapist and then need to see my therapist twice a week again. We ain't doing that no more. But yeah, I appreciate everybody who's checked on me who's, wondered if I was okay and people who show up for karaoke. So if you're in New York, I love going to karaoke on Wednesday nights, usually 7:30 p.m. in Brooklyn. So if that's something that you're curious about or interested in, hit me up.
Courtney Brame: once I was able to get six of us together, which is big for me cuz a lot of people don't like showing up to things. But I regularly extend the invite. That's my thing. I like to go there, get wings, and see people perform and sing and dance, socialize, and I might even perform myself. You know what I mean? But yeah, where we are right now, it's a good place. And I'm happy to be sharing this update. coming again. just last episode said, y'all can still help me be a podcast guest, write a testimonial, write a blog, do something, join a support group, sign up for a call, become a yoga therapy client.
Courtney Brame: If you have anything to offer, if you are someone in the mental health field and you are comfortable with facilitating support groups and you are someone I can trust, let's connect. Let's connect and get this going. I'm getting older. I'm about to be 37. Not to say I'm going to die shortly after 37, but when I'm gone, this stops. I realize how much of the life I am the lifeline for this. I want this to be a community thing.
Courtney Brame: I want for this to be an organization, for it to be something that people are proud to talk about, that people share, that people come into and they invite people into, and for it to not be a thing just like how HIV is a community the organizations are community led and people who are in the community, there is no shame that keeps them from being part of making progress towards something that's a big deal, So, yeah, this is me putting that call out. I'm here. I'm doing it. I'm remaining consistent. sorry for trying to leave y'all back when I was pursuing, being in the family, having a family, and thinking that I needed to do something different. My I won't do it again. It won't happen again. That's one thing. I do not make the same mistake twice. It might look a little different, but I ain't gonna do that.
Courtney Brame: So, the advocacy is I'm 10 toes down, locked in. getting ready to go into So, Zukfest is this weekend in New York City. I look forward to getting my practice moves on. Can't wait. And, yeah, that's it. Take the survey if you haven't already and just play around on the site. let me know what your thoughts are about it. give me some kind of feedback because I just be doing this s*** and randomly I hear from a person that is like why don't you have this more people would like and it's like no one told me that so if y'all don't tell me I don't know I just do what I'm supposed to be doing that's my philosophy all right till next time stay present
