Join the 40 year fight: the evolving battle against AIDS ignorance
AIDS has progressed from a death sentence to HIV becoming a manageable condition but continues to carry the homophobic stigma after the epidemic
The stigma
The narrative of AIDS has changed. Whilst it has moved on from a death sentence, the ignorance and stigma surrounding the illness continues. In February 2022, figures for England from the UK Health Security Agency revealed that for the first time in ten years half of all new HIV diagnoses were in heterosexuals (49%), compared to 45% in gay and bisexual men. Despite this there is still a homophobic stigma surrounding the virus after forty years of fighting against it since the epidemic which began in the 1980s. Across these decades 27.2 million - 47.8 million people have died from AIDS related illnesses, 680,000 of these in 2020. This continued stigma was demonstrated by Kanye West in January when rumours spread of him saying Pete Davidson had AIDS. Potentially just a bitter attack, it shows how these unfounded accusations continue to be used as insults.
Ryan Gibson, an openly gay man who appeared on season two of BBC’s The Greatest Dancer, believes that ‘there is still ignorance towards HIV/AIDS to this day due to the ignorance that is still shown to the LGBTQ+ community. Because we are associated with the virus we still suffer regardless of the improved healthcare.’
Importance of education
Educating younger generations would be the first step into reducing the ignorance surrounding the virus. HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) is a virus that harms the cells in the immune system which damages the body’s ability to fight pathogens. AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) is the illness developed after the body has been damaged by HIV. AIDS cannot be transmitted from one person to another, however HIV can after contact with bodily fluids from a person with HIV. The most common methods of transmission are via unprotected anal or vaginal sex or sharing equipment such as needles with someone who is HIV positive. Ryan believes ‘the history of the virus and the effect it had on our community should be better covered in educational facilities.’
The truth behind loss
Reverend Ginny Brown Daniel who is currently running for Texas State Representative lost her dear friend Mark in 1993 due to AIDS. Ginny ‘came to adulthood in the climax of the AIDS crisis’ in Auburn, Alabama. With the views of the religious south ‘the trauma that society and faith communities did to those living and dying from AIDS, [has not been] unpacked [...] And we have not apologised [to] those who lost their lovers, their family members, those who had to lie. It is a sad expression for our global community.’
Mark was ‘outgoing [and] very friendly [...] he treated the football coach the same as the poorest people [...] and that really impressed upon me.’ Because of the ideologies during the epidemic Ginny explained that she ‘knew that Mark was gay, my parents knew that Mark was gay, but it was 1986, and in that place, in that culture, in the church, you didn't talk about it.’
So ‘when I came back home, in 1992, that Thanksgiving, I had heard that he was in the hospital, and that it was the flu. […] I was naive enough at first, to say, “This must have been a bad case of the flu.”’
The dismissal of LGBTQ+ lives
Ginny believes there are parallels between the AIDS and Covid pandemics. ‘At the very beginning [of the covid pandemic] that fear when we didn't have the vaccine. It took me back to those days [...] listening to my friends and the fear that they had.’ She also believed that if the majority of those dying from AIDS were heterosexual it ‘would have been treated just like Covid-19 [...] and that we would’ve found a cure, or we would be further along than we are today [...] Because it was gay men that were the majority who were contracting HIV and AIDS, and that that was society's way of condemning them [as] LGBTQ and AIDS were in that same, are in that same, sphere of abuse [and] discrimination.’
Ryan agreed, saying ‘Regardless of the modern technology used today I believe that if more non-LGBTQ+ members were diagnosed there would’ve been more of a worry and threat across everyone and not just the ignorance that was shown to our community.’
The power of the media and representation
The media throughout the epidemic was a tool that could’ve shared positive information, but instead spread homophobic opinions with headlines such as ‘Homosexual Diseases Threaten American Families’ displayed in the Moral Majority Report in July 1983 and ‘Britan Threatened by Gay Virus’ on the Mail on Sunday in the eighties. Ryan believes that this past media was ‘used against us for reasons to blame us for topics unrelated to our community, and that we are constantly reminded of it to make us feel unworthy, like we are to blame and that we aren’t normal’.
The way that more modern media such as Elite challenges stereotypes is a first step in removing the stigma. To further debunk this stereotype, AIDS is not a ‘gay man’s disease’ as of the 37.7 million people diagnosed with HIV in 2020, 53% identified as female.
The media with representation that impacted Ginny was the play ‘Angels in America’ and film ‘Philadelphia with Tom Hanks.’ However, coverage of celebrity influence moved her more, such as the actions of Princess Diana. ‘[For her] it wasn't just I’m going to stand next to you, or I’m going to shake your hand. It was I'm going to sit by your bedside.’ However recent shows such as Channel Four’s It’s a Sin, showing the reality behind the virus for Ryan was ‘such a moving piece of drama that I believe really opened a lot of peoples eyes and made people think again on how they perceive the virus.’
The future of HIV and AIDS
The progression of medical advances now give us hope as a third person was cured of HIV in February 2022. Antiretroviral therapy, which stops HIV from replicating itself within the body, has also managed to change the diagnosis from its previous death sentence status to a manageable condition which prevents further transmission. The next step towards this treatment is to alter the medication to be taken less often, making it easier to schedule and more cost effective.
Ginny believes that ‘What HIV and AIDS has done and continues to do, is to illuminate our humanity, both the good and the not good […]The good are those who leveraged their position or their relationships or their jobs in order to take care of people who are living with HIV and AIDS.’