
This world lost a remarkable young man this month when Antron-Reshaud Olukayode, a 33-year-old HIV educator, writer, and performance artist from Atlanta died of AIDS.
Antron lived with HIV for nearly 20 years. He died of AIDS. It is enormously important that we say that.
His many friends and social media supporters might be forgiven for not knowing the cause of Antron’s death, given it has not been mentioned anywhere in the avalanche of remembrances online or in the announcements of his passing by the HIV community groups and media outlets with which Antron was involved.
How is it, then, that a longtime HIV activist could die from AIDS without the word being spoken? Someone who appeared in a national CDC campaign (“Let’s Stop HIV Together”), who wrote poetry about living with HIV and was an active member of the Evolution Project, Atlanta’s community program for young gay black men?
AIDS is a syndrome that destroys the immune system and leaves it vulnerable to deadly conditions that a healthy immune system can fight, so technically, the specific cause of death is never AIDS itself (which is why obituaries will say someone died of “AIDS-related complications”). It might be pneumocystis pneumonia, for instance, a deadly lung infection common among AIDS patients. In Antron’s case, he developed Kaposi sarcoma, a dangerous cancer that spread from his skin to his other organs during a month-long hospital stay before his death.
It can be tempting to hide the cause of death in a world of HIV stigma and shame. In an obituary, pneumocystis pneumonia can become, well, regular pneumonia. Kaposi sarcoma becomes cancer – which has been reported as Antron’s cause of death. When “family wishes” and “privacy” enter the equation, the word “AIDS” rarely makes the final cut. Amazing, really, that this remains the case nearly two generations after the epidemic began.
Antron was a hero and a source of amazement to me. When I met him in 2009, he walked into my home to film the first in a video series known as “The Real Poz Guys of Atlanta.” He was the youngest of a group of gay men living with HIV and we all loved him at first sight. He was sweet, flirty, honest, wounded, and gloriously at home in his vibrant black skin. He was also completely transparent about his diagnosis.
I don’t believe for a moment that Antron would want his death from AIDS to remain a secret. He wrote often about the social pressures of living with HIV but he was never, ever ashamed of himself or his circumstance. In one of his last social media postings from the hospital, he lashed out at his community for using him as a target of gossip instead of ministering to him. Antron said he had cancer in that posting as a way, I believe, of appeasing those who didn’t really care about him.
It was a convenient truth for Antron at the time, but not the real one. And if we have learned anything in 2017, it is that the truth matters. Antron just didn’t live long enough to tell it.
Those of us who knew and loved Antron must call out AIDS and its destructive presence in our community. Otherwise, we are ignoring the very thing that killed our friend. It’s as if Antron was shot to death and no one will admit that the weapon was a gun.
My dear Antron is now one of more than 5,000 people in the US who will die of AIDS this year. With World AIDS Day approaching on December 1st, there will be candlelight vigils and ceremonies in which the names of the dead are recited.
I intend to seek out one of those events, so that I can say the name Antron-Reshaud Olukayode out loud. It is the least I can do for this man and for his courageous service to us all.
Read more My Fabulous Disease at Marksking.com
Author Profile

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Mark S. King is a GLAAD Award winner who has been writing and speaking about living with HIV since testing positive in 1985. His blog, My Fabulous Disease, chronicles his life as a gay man and recovering addict living with HIV. King was named "LGBTQ Journalist of the Year" by the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association. He attributes his remarkable longevity with the virus to working in partnership with his doctor, the love of a good man, and double chocolate brownies made from scratch.
Photo credit: Matt Roth
Mark S. King
MyFabulousDisease.com
2020 LGBTQ Journalist of the Year (NLGJA)
2020 GLAAD Award for Outstanding Blog
2020 #OUT100 (OUT Magazine)