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Civic Innovator: Oriol Gutierrez

Oriol Gutierrez first came out when he was a high school senior nearly three decades ago, telling his best friend, but not his family, that he was gay. It wasn’t until 1996 that he finally told his parents and sister the truth.

Yet Gutiérrez kept another secret from them for 12 more years: while serving in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, a routine checkup disclosed that he was HIV-positive. “I believed that the news that I was gay would be difficult enough,” the first-generation Cuban-American explained in an essay he wrote in 2008 for POZ, a magazine that offers health news...

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