Reclaiming HIV As a Gay Disease

UNITED STATES: "HIV Advocates Demand Re-Gaying of Prevention"
Gay City News (New York City) (09.25.08):: Duncan Osborne

Citing CDC data, AIDS advocates are calling for a renewed focus on preventing HIV infections among gay men, by both the government and the gay community itself. New HIV/AIDS diagnoses increased 8.6 percent among men who have sex with men (MSM) during 2001-2006, and MSM was the sole transmission category to increase, CDC reported in June.

"[We] have been essentially ignoring gay men of all colors in addressing this epidemic," said Jim Pickett, advocacy director of AIDS Foundation of Chicago. "Instead, we have chosen the politically expedient path of pushing the false notion of a generalized epidemic in which 'we are all at risk.'"

For the last 15 years, de-gaying of HIV/AIDS was an approach taken by much of the AIDS community, the media, and other institutions, wrote Walt Senterfitt, board co-chair of the Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project, in CHAMP's September newsletter.

HIV prevention resources should match the impact of the disease among gays, said Pickett and Senterfitt. But just as important, "We have to claim this, we as gay men have to own this," Pickett said. Some gay men may be tired of reading studies reporting bad news about their peers and HIV, Pickett acknowledged. "I think there's also real burnout in having it be our defining issue," he said. "Their eyes glaze over at the letters HIV and AIDS; It's negative and exhausting."

In 2006, the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center launched the campaign "HIV is a gay disease. Own it. End it." But some in the community saw it as defamatory, identifying gays with AIDS. "It aroused this tremendously negative, overwhelmingly negative response in the community," Senterfitt said.

A national AIDS strategy should be launched using CDC's data to prioritize resources and interventions, and set prevention targets, advocates said.

"The data are the data," said Sean R. Cahill, managing director of public policy, research, and community health at Gay Men's Health Crisis. "We are three in five of the new infections. I think we should be honest and I think that we should talk about health disparities."