Bill Hall, 71, has been fighting for his life for 38 years. These days, he’s feeling worn out.
Hall contracted HIV, the virus that can cause AIDS, in 1986. Since then, he has battled depression, heart disease, diabetes, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, kidney cancer and prostate cancer. This year, Hall has been hospitalized five times with dangerous infections and life-threatening internal bleeding.
But that’s only part of what Hall, a gay man, has dealt with. Hall was born into the Tlingit tribe in a small fishing village in Alaska. He was separated from his family at age 9 and sent to a government boarding school. There, he told me, he endured years of bullying and sexual abuse that “killed my spirit.” […]
Click here to view the full piece. This story was originally published by The Washington Post on December 23, 2024.
