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Matthew Hodson

@matthewhodson.bsky.social
12K followers 4.5K following 5.3K posts

Shamelessly HIV+ actor, writer, public speaker based in London. Former CEO of aidsmap and Gay Men Fighting AIDS. He/him. 🏳️‍🌈🇪🇺🌍🌱

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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 18h
Trump’s transphobic politics obstruct the USA’s efforts to treat and prevent HIV… and a Reagan appointed Judge agrees.
advocate.com
Judge questions Trump policy forcing HIV providers to disregard transgender patients
A Reagan-appointed judge pressed the administration over rules that providers say could upend their relationships with trans patients.
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I attract some weird compliments on Insta.
Comment: Grandpa (gotta admit you were hella hot)Comment: Could’ve gotten my first abortion w you if was born at the same as u (I’m a boy)
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Anyone telling Madonna to ‘calm down grandma’ needs to know they’re only mimicking what critics have been saying for at least 33 years. She’s shrugged off slut shaming, ageism and sexism. She’s the best selling female artist of all time - and the 2026 VMAs Artist of the Year! All hail!
Smash Hits magazine in 1993 telling a 35 year old Madonna, looking fabulous in a black bra top, to ‘calm down grandma’.
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Never forget that Madonna served us one of the greatest moments in pop history.
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
HIV cases in Fiji surge with about 1 in 60 of the population now living with the virus. Almost 4 out of 5 are NOT on HIV treatment which not only saves lives but also prevents transmission.
bbc.co.uk
Fiji declares national emergency as HIV cases surge
One in 60 adults in the tiny Pacific nation of less than a million people are living with the virus.
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
On this day… 2020
On a balcony overlooking the Saronic Gulf. I have one hand raised with a resistance band flowing from my arm. I was pretty svelte at the time.
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
There’s now a weird gap between my nose and top lip. Guess that makes me a no mo’ homo.
Me, clean shaven for the first time in over a year.
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Trans rights are, in fact, human rights. Pass it on.
Me at Trans Pride this year. 
I’m holding a sign that reads:
I fight for trans rights now like I fought for gay rights in the 80s/90s. And YES! it’s the same fight. 
I’m a middle aged gay man wearing a vest and at this time I had a moustache.
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
My colleagues @eacsociety.bsky.social are doing a survey on the needs of women aged 40 and over who are living with HIV and resident in Europe. If this is you, please fill out this survey? form.jotform.com/252171402122...
form.jotform.com
The MenoHealth Survey
Please click the link to complete this form.
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Reposted by Matthew Hodson
wrendyhouse.bsky.social @wrendyhouse.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
It's not quite there, but in November I'm hoping to go see what looks to be a pretty damn queer production in Camden - Definitely genderqueer Romeo and director is NB. bsky.app/profile/matt...
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Today is #ADayWithHIV. Our visibility, as people living with HIV, challenges the ignorance and fear that results in stigma. On 22 Sept every year those of us who feel able to do so share something about our lives. So this is me, shamelessly HIV+. Oh yeah, and the ‘tache has gone… for now.
Me, working out this morning in pink vest, with a smile and a shaved lip.
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Well isn’t that lovely! Picked up a copy of Pink Orchids (the HIV Monologues) by Patrick Cash at last night’s @queertheatreuk.bsky.social class, only to discover that I’m in grand company in the Acknowledgements. Thanks Pats! 🙏🥰
The acknowledgements page at the back of the script. I’ve circled the paragraph that begins, ‘Then there are the chats over white wine on Ku Bar terrace with gay community expert David Stuart, the passion and fierceness of Matthew Hodson as he speaks and Richard Desmond’s stories and commitment to modern day sexual health.’The cover of Pink Orchids, showing Sean Hart (he played my dead lover in The Grass is Always Grindr) and Denholm Spurr (who I acted alongside in The Chemsex Monologues).
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
The Lib Dems reject the ‘unworkable and discriminatory’ EHRC guidance (which was passed without Parliamentary debate or meaningful engagement with trans people).
theguardian.com
Lib Dems reject ‘discriminatory and unworkable’ EHRC guidance on transgender people
Motion passed at party conference calls for new approach to implementing ruling that legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex only
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I was diagnosed with HIV in 1998. Without the advances in medical science that developed effective treatment, I would almost certainly be dead by now. I find the science scepticism embedded in the US Government terrifying.
theguardian.com
RFK Jr promises anti-vaxxers a ‘friend at the White House’ amid deadly measles outbreak
The US health secretary added that he would’ve made sweeping changes ‘on day one’ but he had to follow the law
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
The Spanish gay epic La Bola Negra has just won the Toronto International Film Festival’s People’s Choice award - a solid predictor of Oscar glory. I can’t wait to see this.
A still from La Bola Negra featuring handsome men in white vests.
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
HIV treatment halts transmission. An estimated 200,000 HIV infections have been prevented in the US since 2011 as a result of people being on HIV treatment. This figure could be higher. Only 56% of Americans with HIV are virally suppressed on treatment and unable to pass HIV on. In the UK it’s 92%.
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
I’m delighted to announce that I’ll be playing Lord Capulet in an exciting reimagination of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet at the Etcetera Theatre in Camden, 23- 26 November. www.etceteratheatrecamden.com/events/romeo...
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
I am so excited to see Andrew Scott play Ian Charleson in Elsinore.
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
A couple asked a vicar if their wedding exit music could be ‘that Robin Hood song’. As a result they left the church to the strains of ‘Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen…’ rather than the ‘Everything I do, I do it for you’ they were hoping for. True story (apparently).
static.klipy.com
Cary Elwes as Robin Hood Shrugs
ALT: Cary Elwes as Robin Hood Shrugs
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Reposted by Matthew Hodson
Tom Coates @tomcoates.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
I was thirteen, knew I was gay. I wouldn’t come out to friends for another five years and to family for another eight. This is exactly what the time was like.
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
I told my mother I was gay when I was 18. It was 1985. Her response was, “Well I expect you’ll get AIDS and die then.” #ComingOutStories
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
47 LGBTQ people have been arrested in Türkiye after raids on bars, clubs and gay rights organisations. Homosexuality is not illegal in Türkiye, the arrests have been made under the pretext of ‘protecting families’ - a strategy we’ve seen before and doubtless will see again.
bbc.co.uk
Turkish police detain dozens in raids on gay bars and homes of LGBTQ+ activists
Human rights groups in Turkey have accused the government of using a family- values campaign to target the LGBTQ+ community.
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
1987 / 2026.
Two photos of me, seated, smiling to my right. 
They’re identical poses but I’m 42 years older in the 2nd one.
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
Viktor Orban banned Pride and passed a law to prevent lesbian or gay couples from adopting. Viktor Orban got booted out and his homophobic laws are being scrapped. Good!
reuters.com
Hungary PM Magyar says to scrap Orban-era restriction on gay adoption
Hungary's government will change legislation passed in 2020 by Viktor Orban's former government that had effectively banned gay adoption, Prime ​Minister Peter Magyar said on Saturday.
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
It’s been a year since Domzee, my companion for 20 years, died. I miss him every day. I think I always will.
Domzee, a very handsome tux cat. Domzee pretending to love me back.
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
I was diagnosed with HIV and told I had 20 years to live. That was 29 years ago. It’s a flex!
Pic of me yesterday. 59 year old gay guy flexing his bicep.
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
The first gay kiss on a children’s TV programme was edited out by the BBC - and then secretly reinserted by a mystery employee. A fascinating story from the era of Thatcher and Section 28 by @scottygb.bsky.social.
theguardian.com
‘That was all secret’: the ‘gay mole’ who fought the BBC to show the first queer kiss on kids’ TV
Everyone thinks Byker Grove broke the taboo in 1994, but another teen drama got there first. Here’s the astonishing story of Two of Us, which put a gay relationship on UK screens – and was the origina...
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 10/09/2026
A potential game changer in HIV prevention, ‘two jabs a year’ PrEP, fails to be approved for use on the NHS. i-base.info/htb/54605
i-base.info
NICE fails to approve lenacapavir for HIV PrEP: will feedback lead to the right outcome in November? | HIV i-Base
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
I don’t need AI to show you what I looked like in the 80s. AI consumes huge amounts of energy and scarce water resources and rips off genuine creatives. Do you really need to use it?
Me in 1986. I have a shoulder length mullet and very skinny arms.
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
Strength and love to all those taking part in the mass lobby of Parliament today, demanding that the cruel, costly and practically unworkable EHRC guidance be scrapped. Making rules about trans lives without trans people being involved in that process makes no sense. @transsolidarity.bsky.social
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
A man looking like a bearded somewhat the draggled Keanu Reeves sat opposite me on the tube. He seemed to be glancing at me rather a lot and as I got off, it was clear that he was cruising me. That almost NEVER happens to me these days. 🥰
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Reposted by Matthew Hodson
Dr Panti Bliss-Cabrera @pantibliss.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
They showed us Midnight Express in school to warn us off drugs and drug smuggling but all it did was throw hot sweaty gorgeous Brad Davis petrol onto the bonfire of my homosexual awakening and for that I'm forever grateful to the Franciscans
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
The actor Brad Davis (Midnight Express, Querelle, Chariots of Fire) died of AIDS aged 41 on this day in 1991. I think he may have been the most beautiful man ever.
Brad Davis in a still from Querelle. 
He’s wearing a very low cut vest. He’s dark and swarthy but his face has a vulnerability to it, akin to James Dean.
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Grindr settles out of court after claims that it shared personal information, including HIV status, with advertisers. Your HIV status should be your own information, which you choose to share - or not. But if it wasn’t for the fear and ignorance we routinely face, this wouldn’t be such an issue.
theguardian.com
Grindr pays £26m to settle UK lawsuit over allegedly sharing users’ HIV status
US-owned dating app allegedly allowed ad firms access to private information in breach of UK law
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Reposted by Matthew Hodson
elizabeth is apparently a witchy vamp? @thatelizabeth.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
History repeats itself, first as a tragedy and then as a farce
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
Therapy with broadly neutralising antibodies (bNAbs) succeeds in maintaining undetectable HIV in about half of trial participants for up to 3 years. There is still no cure for HIV but… “We finally understand what we have to do in order to achieve a cure.” (Professor Michel Nussenzweig).
aidsmap.com
'We finally understand what we have to do': antibody studies point the way to an HIV cure
The 26th International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2026) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, featured few new scientific breakthroughs in terms of vaccines or cures for HIV.
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
And that’s a wrap! With the cast of The Offline Action Group - a comedy about what we’d do if we suddenly lost the internet.
Me taking a crowd selfie.
The Offline Action Group is a comedy about a group of concerned citizens assembling in response to the crisis of the internet going down.
There are about 20 people in the shot.
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 05/09/2026
Freddie Mercury, one of the greatest vocalists and performers of our times, was born on this day 80 years ago. He died aged 45. AIDS not only took our friends and lovers, it robbed us of a generation of artists and the beautiful, extraordinary work they may otherwise have given us.
static.klipy.com
Freddie Mercury Live Performance
Alt: Freddie Mercury Live Performance
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Fitness mission: bigger shoulders before I hit 60! Watch this space.
Me (59 year old gay with a moustache and some muscle) in a sleeveless vest with arrows pointing at my shoulders.
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Reposted by Matthew Hodson
scott dagostino @scottdagostino.ca · 31/08/2026
Great thread from a fellow gay man in his 50s (are we “queer elders” now?) 😂 Growing up in a homophobic culture did me a lot of damage but it also gave me an empathy for others who’ve been marginalized and a willingness to advocate that has been good for me. A better world is always possible 👇🏼
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
The Oresteia at @bridgetheatre.bsky.social made for one of the most thrilling evenings I’ve ever spent in the theatre (and I’ve spent many, many evenings in the theatre). It’s epic, inventive and totally gripping. It’s on until the end of next week. Do see it if you can.
Me outside the Bridge standing by a poster for the show.
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 02/09/2026
Goodness runs in the Parton family.
Someone on Threads posting about a person with long hair and short shorts:
‘This is a whole dude dress like a chick in down town Waco leaving the bus station.’
Stella replies ‘So?’
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Lesson 8: If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. #Sondheim #musicals
Insta stories post from Sunday in the Park with George - London:
Following Ariana Grande’s withdrawal, Jonathan Bailey has informed the producers that he has also decided to withdraw from Sunday in the Park with George.
Work on the production continues. Casting discussions are actively underway, and the creative team is reshaping the production around a new company, while preserving the ambition and artistic integrity of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s musical.
Further casting and production details will be announced in due course. 

We shall see.
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Reposted by Matthew Hodson
Joseph Healy @verde1957.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
World premiere tonight of a play on #Ireland and how it treated thousands of gay men with #AIDS in the 80s/90s sending them to London to die.I have acted as a survivor consultant Never Forget! upstairsatthegatehouse.com Mammy's House #theatre #LGBTQ #Diaspora #Stigma @matthewhodson.bsky.social 🇮🇪🏳️‍🌈🏥⚰️
upstairsatthegatehouse.com
Upstairs at the Gatehouse – Award Winning London Theatre
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Research.
Cartoon (I wish I had the credit, please let me know if you know) of Thanos sitting in front of a screen which reads ‘How to snap only 1 specific person out of existence’.
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Reposted by Matthew Hodson
John D in Bawlmer 🏳️‍🌈 @johnd73.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Trans rights are human rights are inalienable rights, in the US and the UK and everywhere else! 🏳️‍⚧️
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
They’d been living together for four years when Freddie Mercury said he had something to tell her. He said, “I think I’m bisexual.” I said, “No, Freddie, I think you’re gay.” He didn’t argue. Mary Austin lifts the lid on her relationship with Freddie Mercury.
theguardian.com
The extraordinary untold story of Freddie Mercury: Mary Austin on her best friend – and love of her life
He was Queen’s flamboyant frontman. She was his shy girlfriend, dreaming of marriage until they both realised he preferred men. Thirty-five years after his death, in the week he would have turned 80, ...
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Reposted by Matthew Hodson
Kate @rebelraising.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
This is something I also feel. And I think that the framing of same sex marriage as the capstone on "equality" is both pathetic and tragic. We learned things from having to forge our own spaces, families and language. Queer insights *matter* and have mostly been thrown away in favour of assimilation
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Matthew Hodson @matthewhodson.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
“HIV does not make people dangerous to know, so you can shake their hands and give them a hug. Heaven knows they need it.” - Princess Diana Before effective HIV treatment, in a climate of fear and ignorance further fuelled by homophobia, Princess Diana with a small gesture made a huge difference.
One of many photos of Princess Diana shaking hands with a man with AIDS. 
She is not wearing gloves, which was unusual for Royalty and deeply impactful for a time when people were so scared of AIDS that those with it were often shunned and isolated.
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Reposted by Matthew Hodson
Rev. Pop🦋 @cullavagga.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
There is much upon which to meditate here. Much!
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