Regulars: Column

Paul Ward

Time for change

Paul Ward asks us to start tackling stigma and ignorance of HIV from within our own community.

his year’s Pride takes place almost exactly 26 years to the day since Terry Higgins became the first person in the UK to die with HIV. It is an anniversary which is likely to go largely unmarked but the changes we have seen in the years since then have been astonishing.
Back then, for most people an HIV diagnosis was tantamount to a death sentence. Someone diagnosed today can expect to live almost as long as someone without HIV.

Back then, an HIV diagnosis invariably meant for many, a major upheaval in lifestyle, and the prospect of swapping work for welfare benefits. Today, the majority of us with HIV work, and lead active lives.

Indeed many of us have assimilated our HIV into our everyday lives to such an extent, that HIV is more invisible today in the gay community with over 30,000 gay men living with HIV than it was a decade ago with less than 15,000 gay men diagnosed with HIV. And therein lies the problem.

Indeed many of us have assimilated our HIV into our everyday lives to such an extent, that HIV is more invisible today in the gay community with over 30,000 gay men living with HIV than it was a decade ago with less than 15,000 gay men diagnosed with HIV.”

For that invisibility means that many of the unhealthy attitudes towards HIV in the gay community have not gone away. Research shows that the majority of gay men still expect a positive man to disclose his HIV before having sex, placing the burden on men with HIV to initiate safe sex. Many men still have negative views about those of us with HIV, indeed there are still too many positive men who report bad experiences when they disclose their HIV. This is backed up by research which THT commissioned showing that nearly half of negative & untested men wouldn’t want to have sex with a positive man.

This was brought home to me recently in a Vauxhall bar, overhearing a conversation between three guys about a friend who’d told one of them about his HIV. They were adamant that he only had himself to blame, and that they hoped he hadn’t given it to them.
Enraged by this, I turned to them, telling them what I thought of their somewhat neolithic attitudes to HIV. Not perhaps an easy thing for all of us to do, but with one in ten gay men in cities such as London and Brighton having HIV there is strength in numbers.
But even if it is not easy, those of us with HIV do have our part to play in tackling attitudes about HIV. We can redouble our efforts to carry rubbers, and to talk about safer sex. We can make sure that we have regular sexual health screens, and if we think we might have an STI, get it checked and treated quickly. We can get involved as a member, volunteer or campaigner in a charity like GMFA or THT. And we can all do our bit to challenge HIV stigma when we come across it. Tackling stigma also begins at home though, and there is much more for many positive men to do tackle their own stigma about other positive men who also have Hep C, or other communities where HIV is common.

Surely, 26 years after Terry Higgins died its time for the gay community to challenge its own stigma towards HIV (and indeed HepC) and for many gay men to get over their attitudes towards HIV, and banish stigma from our community for ever. PN