HIV & the LGBTQ Community

Recent HIV-related blog posts can be read here.

Overview

While HIV affects Americans from all walks of life, the epidemic continues to disproportionately impact gay and bisexual men_[1], transgender women, youth ages 13-24 and communities of color, particularly in the southern United States. While tremendous medical advances have helped HIV-positive individuals live longer, healthier lives, there remains no cure and tens of thousands of new infections occur every year. Insufficient funding for HIV programs, as well as prevention methods that are not scientifically sound and persistent stigma and discrimination continue to make it difficult to fight the epidemic and provide the best possible care to those living with HIV.

_{[2]     [3]}

HIV continues to disproportionately impact segments of the LGBTQ community

According to the CDC, there are over one million Americans currently living with HIV and approximately 50,000 new infections every year. Almost two-thirds of those new infections are among gay and bisexual men. Among groups identified at higher risk for infection, only among gay and bisexual men is the rate of new infections increasing – and the highest rate of new infections within that group is among black men ages 13-24. While data on the transgender community remains scarce, recent studies have shown extremely high rates among transgender women, who are nearly 34 times more likely to have HIV than other women.
 

Prevention, treatment and research programs are underfunded and often hampered by ideological restrictions

_[4]

Until recently, prevention efforts in the United States have not been focused on or funded in the communities hit hardest by the epidemic. While Congress has provided some increases in federal funding for prevention, treatment and research in recent years, decades of neglect and economic barriers mean that the needs still outstrip available resources. For example, many state AIDS Drug Assistance Programs (ADAPs), which help provide HIV medications to underinsured and uninsured individuals, have been forced to implement waiting lists and scale back the drugs that they provide. These federal programs are also hampered by policy decisions grounded in ideology rather than science – such as providing more than $1 billion for failed abstinence-only sex education, while barring any federal funds for scientifically-proven prevention through syringe exchange programs.
 

Discrimination puts LGBTQ people at risk for infection and burdens those living with HIV

In most states in our country (as well as at the federal level), there are little or no protections against discrimination in employment, housing, and other areas based on sexual orientation and gender identity. For minorities within the LGBTQ community, racial and other forms of bias compound an already challenging situation. The potential consequences – job loss, lack of access to healthcare, homelessness – can push individuals into risky behaviors that greatly increase their HIV risk and severely limit their ability to obtain adequate care once infected. Furthermore, despite societal progress in understanding HIV, people living with the virus still regularly encounter stigma, stereotyping and discrimination at work, at school, in healthcare settings, and elsewhere.

For example, more than thirty states have laws in place that have been used to prosecute people living with HIV. While originally intended to promote disclosure of one’s HIV status, these laws have failed to keep up with the medical science around HIV treatment and prevention. Many statutes include references to behaviors that cannot transmit the virus, such as spitting or biting. And even in states without HIV-specific statutes, people living with HIV can be prosecuted under general criminal laws. Ultimately, policies that “criminalize” HIV and people who have it run counter to public health, discourage HIV testing, and perpetuate stigma against people living with HIV.
 

What has the Obama administration done to address the epidemic within the LGBTQ community?