By H. Alan Scott
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Tristan Schukraft is everywhere. As the founder of MISTR, a free online health platform offering PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis, a preventative HIV medication) and long-term HIV care, among other services, he has quietly become one of the most consequential figures in gay health. He's also the man behind Tryst, a growing collection of boutique hotels designed specifically for queer travelers, with locations in Puerto Vallarta and Fire Island and expansions planned for Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Provincetown, Massachusetts; and Chicago, Illinois. And if that weren't enough, last year he became the owner of the Abbey, the legendary West Hollywood gay bar.
This Pride, he sat down with the Parting Shot Podcast with H. Alan Scott. "I'm on this mission," he told Newsweek. "In addition to saving lives on the MISTR side, I'm preserving queer institutions like the Abbey and creating new ones like Tryst Hotels."
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Editor's Note: This conversation has been edited and condensed for publication.
You are inescapable in my feed, whether it's a friend at one of your hotels, someone talking about MISTR or news about the Abbey. How does it feel to be so popular?
It feels good. We're doing a lot, so if I'm in your feed, my PR and marketing teams are doing their jobs. I used to just go to the Abbey to party. Now I'm watching the operation.
Let's talk about MISTR. Accessing PrEP through traditional channels can be complicated, expensive and frankly sometimes humiliating. What inspired you to start it?
For the first time in a generation, we have the ability to eliminate HIV. If everyone who is negative is on PrEP and everyone who is positive is virally suppressed, this isn't a pipe dream. This is a matter of years. What a lot of people don't realize is that 100 people are diagnosed with HIV every day in the U.S. It's one pill a day to prevent it, one to treat it, now injectables, which are a real game changer.
But in the beginning, it was the repeated doctor's visits. Who has time for that? Some people don't feel comfortable talking to their doctor about their sexual activity. And if you had a $2,000 deductible, you were paying $800 just for labs.
I started MISTR eight years ago because I felt like we owed it to the generation before us. When I was 17 living in Amsterdam, I saw HIV-positive people who didn't think they had a future. They were selling their life insurance policies, quitting their jobs, living like they were running out of time. And then all of a sudden they started living, which was fantastic. But I did lose a friend to HIV during that period. Many people under 50 today have never experienced that kind of loss, so they might not fully understand the importance of prevention.
It started with helping 10 friends, then a hundred. I thought, we have to automate this. We launched at Palm Springs Pride aiming for 300 people on PrEP by year's end. We got 375. Now we process 600 people a day. We represent 20 percent of all PrEP prescriptions in the U.S., making us by far the biggest prescriber.
Can you explain how MISTR actually works, especially for people who may not have insurance?
Someone fills out an online health questionnaire and has a video consult with one of our doctors. If you're a good candidate, you can do your required testing at home or in person.
Once your labs are reviewed, the medication is shipped to your door in discreet packaging. Seventy percent of our patients are insured and 30 percent aren't, and those insured patients make it possible for us to provide MISTR free to the uninsured. By using MISTR, you're enabling us to serve people who have no other option.
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The privacy piece matters too. A lot of people who are at risk don't identify as gay or bisexual and would never walk into a clinic and disclose their sexual behavior.
From the beginning, I wanted something stigma-free. When MISTR launched, there was real shaming around Truvada (the primary drug used to prevent HIV-infection). You don't hear that anymore because PrEP has been normalized.
I once went to a clinic with a close friend, and the doctor asked how many people he'd slept with in the last 90 days. He said three. I said, 'Three? Not today, the question covers 90 days.' People feel like they can't be honest with their doctors. I always say the more honest you are, the better care you'll receive. With MISTR, you do everything in the privacy of your home. That matters whether you're in West Hollywood or a small town in Texas where the town doctor is the family doctor and you're not eager to get into it with them.
The CDC identifies 1.2 million people who should be on PrEP, and I believe anyone sexually active should consider it. This isn't a gay disease. Thirteen million people a year test positive for an STI. If you're one of them, you should be on PrEP.
Let's talk about SISTR, the platform built to reach beyond the gay male community, and your work with Cardi B around National PrEP Day. Women of color are a hugely underserved population in this conversation.
Thirty-five percent of our patient base does not identify as gay, and 14 percent are women. Women of color are among the highest-risk demographics for HIV, and 53 percent of the world's HIV-positive population is women.
For National PrEP Day, we hosted an event at the Abbey with Dua Lipa and Cardi B. I told Cardi that many women of color don't know what PrEP is and have to be convinced to seek it out. I said, they are not going to listen to a white guy telling them they need PrEP. But people admire you. You have a real opportunity to communicate this in your own words. She went home and did an hour-long Instagram Live, pure Cardi B, and that's what resonates.
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You've also brought the Real Housewives to Capitol Hill to advocate for PrEP funding.
We get a million visitors a year at the Abbey, so it's no accident you walk in and see MISTR advertising. With Housewives on the Hill, it's about reaching different audiences. PrEP is a bipartisan issue, and the Housewives turned out to be rock stars on the Hill. We filled the room and had people waiting outside. I said, if I can get seven Housewives to agree on one thing, we can get Congress to do the same.
From the outside, it seems like you have built an extraordinary number of businesses at once. How did you get here?
It did not happen overnight. I'm 47 now, 35 on Grindr for those keeping track. [laughs] I started my first company at 21, doing e-ticketing for the airline industry while living in Hong Kong. My father wanted me back, so he offered me a $10,000 loan for my business idea. That wasn't enough, so I imported 457 Razor scooters and sold them at swap meets, schools, office buildings, grocery stores, anywhere someone would buy one. I thought I'd sell out in two weeks. I sold the last six on Christmas Eve. I took the $16,000 I made, combined it with the loan and started my first company, which eventually raised around $18 million.
After stepping down from that company, I briefly ran for office in West Hollywood. Running is a lot of work, but the worst part is asking for campaign donations. I've always been a serial entrepreneur. I started MISTR eight years ago.
A couple of years ago I was on the beach in Puerto Rico, maybe one or two mojitos in, and I thought: why is there a parking lot on this beach? This should be a boutique beach club. The parking lot wasn't for sale, but the hotel next door was, and it already had the name Tryst on it. I took it as a sign. A lot of people think I named the hotels after myself. I didn't. My childhood nickname was Tris, so it was close enough. Then, right after I agreed to buy Tryst, the Abbey went up for sale. I couldn't let that happen. The Abbey is like the Bloomingdale's of the mall. If it closes, the rest of the neighborhood starts to close with it. I closed on the Abbey on a Friday and the hotel in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico on a Monday.
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Walk us through the Tryst expansion. Where are we headed?
Puerto Vallarta is the flagship and it's open. Rio de Janeiro and Provincetown are likely next. Fire Island has been under construction for two years, waiting on permits. Rio is going to be massive. Wilton Manors and Chicago round out seven hotels.
What's the vision behind Tryst as a product?
I was tired of five-star hotels where there's no music by the pool and you can't get a protein shake. So I built the hotel for me. Eight hundred thread count sheets, a shower wand in every bathroom, 24-hour room service, a Bon Appétit menu for your dog. I also wanted a space where no one questions you about how many people are checking in or who's sharing a bed. We're not gay-friendly, we're not hetero-friendly. We're gay and everyone's welcome. If you're not comfortable seeing two men kiss, it's probably not the place for you. But when you walk into one of our lobbies, you're going to hear Dua Lipa, Lady Gaga and Madonna. That's the experience.
Last thing: you have six boyfriends. How does that work, and does it ever get exhausting?
I always say I have more energy than all of them combined. Their response is that I have that energy because I'm sucking the youth out of them.
It's really three throuples that evolved organically. We all started as friends, but now they're like sisters to each other. It's a real relationship, what we call the familia. Someone once asked me my greatest achievement in life. I said having six Latino boyfriends who are happy 50 percent of the time.
It wasn't the plan, and yes, it can be exhausting. But it started practically enough: it was cheaper than paying all their rent separately. Now everybody just lives in the hotel.
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