Not Anonymous

Plural. Stigma
1. a mark of disgrace or infamy; a stain or reproach, as on one's reputation.
[...]
6. Archaic . a mark made by a branding iron on the skin of a criminal or slave.

One of the problems with discussing HIV/AIDS is that you always have to go to the history. The history of AIDS in the West is a pretty disgusting. The mistreatment of those infected with HIV in the United States and Great Britain is pretty well recorded - I personally like Simon Watney's book Imagine Hope: AIDS and Gay Identity as both a perspective and a critical reading of AIDS.
Because like it or not, HIV/AIDS has been a huge influence on queer culture, queer relationships and the way we conceptualise HIV/AIDS as a social phenomenon.

In my previous post I wrote about the frustration regarding the notion that those who are discriminated against bear the responsibility with regards to their "image", in other words, that gays (and lesbians and bisexuals and trans* people and queers in general) are partially themselves to blame when it comes to the stigma we are forced to live with.

My anger at that concept and the conceptualisation that we are deviant in essence because of our incompatibility with heteronormative gender-binary and male supremacist culture, has not waned - if anything, hearing the panel and discussion last night about the discriminatory paragraph that prevents gays and men who have/had sex with men (MSM) from donating blood, has strengthened my opinion regarding the wrongful notion of what HIV/AIDS means in the gay community in Israel.

Because you see, the QUILTBAG (let's be honest, the gay) Outreach Branch of the Israel AIDS Task Force (Hebrew) goes along with the letter coming out of the Ministry of Health and the Israeli Blood Bank guidelines (which go in accordance to the Red Cross, the FDA and the other US and Canadian blood donation organisations). The guidelines are Zero Tolerance to risk groups.

Now, I know, after 20 years and the migration of crisis (supposedly) Gays should not be regarded as a risk group - after all, HIV doesn't discriminate and statistics show that nearly half of HIV+ people are women.

I'd also add that in my locale - there is a sweeping ban (Zero Tolerance) with regards to people who have immigrated from Africa (meaning the major Ethiopian community living here can't donate blood) and drug users who use needle and snorting paraphernalia to consume the drugs.

The "dregs of society". Not much has changed in 20 years, right? The weakest and most disenfranchised members of society are also the most susceptible to disease and lack of treatment (not such a huge problem in Israel, as treatment for HIV is well funded due to our partial public health services).

However, HIV is a huge and growing problem within the Israeli gay (gay men and MSM) community. Whereas in the other groups that are prohibited from donating there is a stabilising trend (and even a reduction in infection), gays and MSM have risen steadily over the past eight years.

The disproportion between the percentage of HIV+ among gay men in accordance to their actual number in the general population is staggering.

In the last year, 140 new positives were identified through blood donations alone - all of them were from men who had had unsafe sex with other men.

in 2010, in a country with public health service, progressive legislation (via court precedences and not parliamentary bills, I have to say) regarding queer rights and banks on gay tourism, the statistics are truly horrific.
A 40% rise in less than ten years. Fucking hell.

The representative from the AIDS Task Force was adamant regarding the ban and acknowledged that while the language is discriminatory (there's no escaping that) gays and MSM in Israel create a higher risk of infection due to positive blood entering the blood bank - the HIV test in top of the market - reducing the detection window from three months to 11 days - still, he said, there are those who always want to skew the statistics and will come to donate 8 days after a careless encounter - the guy didn't show a whole lot of faith when it comes to humanity. I'm inclined to agree.

To me, the rise in positives in the gay community shows a failing in sex and health education and a lackadaisical attitude when it comes to practising safe sex - apparently there's also a syphilis epidemic rampaging through the Tel-Aviv gay community - oh, yeah, great sex tourist spot!

All of this. Everything. None of that has anything to do with the fact queers are maligned and discriminated against as a population within a hetronormative society.

The fact that HIV can be found in higher concentration among gays and MSM in Israel doesn't mean the discriminatory clause if legitimate - but opening up the form to interpretation as to what safe sex is (because let's face it, safe sec is not just putting on a rubber before tab a goes into slot b - reductive sex acts are reductive) is not something worth the public health risk.

Prior to last night I was sure that the clause also prevented gays and MSM from being insured by the blood bank should something happen and they would need a transfusion. You see in Israel - due to us being all social and shit - grant a year's worth of blood insurance with every donation (people who have donated 10 pints get life long insurance) - positive people can be insured, they can go and donate and mark the box that says "Not for Transfusion" and the blood is then either chucked or taken to be studied, but that person in insured.

This is something, I think, most people in Israel aren't aware of.

Now, what to do about the fact that in 2010 so HIV is back to being on a steep rise among gay men and MSM in Israel? Sex education has to be overhauled. Badly. This is not a gay issue, this is an overall social issue. But it is pertinent for gays and queers in general.
The definition of sex needs to be inclusive and not exclusive and needs to be spoken about in a candid way - sex is not a hunky dory activity, even if it is generally speaking fun - anyone can catch an STD. AIDS is stigmatised due to history, alas.

So, while my opinion regarding HIV/AIDS and the stigma attached to the disease due to homophobia has not changed, because Christ, how the fuck can one excuse homophobia in any way, shape and form. My opinion regarding the clause is that it's really the least of our problems. It is a minuscule issue when one looks at the statistics and you go "What the fuck?!".
The blood bank, rightfully, doesn't want to open itself up to risk.

The risk for a gay man to be infected is higher than a straight man or straight woman or a gay woman, simply because there are more gays and MSM who are positive - that's the issue. The blood donor clause is so far down on the list of concerns, I feel kind of silly that I've ever made a big deal out of it.

Today is AIDS Awareness Day.
And looking through my other AIDS Awareness posts, I figured that talking about it a little differently was warranted.

It's a matter of fact that everyday is AIDS awareness day, because every day we need to talk and practice safe sex, practice safe use of needles and remember those who lost their lives and continue to lose their lives due to stigma and negligence.

Because it is due to stigma and negligence that HIV/AIDS was not treated like the health crisis it was and is and is instead still treated like a physical punishment brought upon the immorality of certain people's existence.

I was born in the age of HIV/AIDS. By the time I was child in the 90's various movies and PSA's were produced and shown across the world regarding AIDS.

Two incidences of popular culture remain ingrained in me regarding HIV/AIDS and I'm pretty sure they're not the ones that most people thing about when they recall how they were introduced to AIDS via popular culture.

The first time I heard about HIV/AIDS was when I was about seven or eight I think, yes at the time that Philadelphia was around. It was during that time that Degrassi High was syndicated in the afternoons on the Israel Broadcast Channel (one of the two Israeli channels available at the time as we did not have cable services yet) and Degrassi (both Junior and High) dealt with issues that to this day would spark controversy - I don't know about the Next Gen, but I have clear memories of that show (I'm kind of proud of my mother for allowing me to watch it unsupervised).

One of the sagas in Degrassi was to do with a boy who had unprotected sex with a girl and at the start of the season he got a phone call informing him that she has HIV and he should get tested. I don't remember how I felt when I watched it, but I remember how that boy looked - petrified. That episode (should Wiki be believed) was first aired in Canada in 1990 - I saw it two or three years later.

The second time was quite a few years later. HIV/AIDS in the context that I lived in, was something that happened to "other people", to "those people". I had no idea who these "people" were. When I was 11 or 12, I had my first sex-ed class, in which periods and nocturnal emissions were explained. I really couldn't fathom why that was important at this point in my life - I already knew all that, the perks of having two older sisters, a no-nonsense mother and pharmacist for a dad.

At the time, I was very much into the show (please don't mock, this was pre-Buffy!) Touched by an Angel, so this was about 1996 - Philadelphia had come and gone (which I never saw at the time, the first time I saw it had to be when I was about 14 or 15) and Gia hadn't been made yet (which is one of the first movies I saw that had explicit lesbian sexuality in it - yeah, I know! - which I also saw on an AIDS special broadcast on a movie channel of some kind).

Touched by an Angel also had an AIDS special and I remember it very clearly. It was about a father who disapproved of his son, because the son did not follow the path the father had wanted for him.
I remember crying when the son died and thinking about it now, it's fairly clear that the son was supposed to be gay, but of course, this is never stated explicitly.

But the metaphor that runs through the plot moved me, despite it's heavy handedness. You see, the father was a violin maker and he's been tasked to make a violin o the day his son was born, but woe, the wood had a flaw in the grain and so the violin was never completed. At the time, I didn't get it, but obviously the unfinished violin that is flawed is the son and the flaw is AIDS and by proxy, his gayness, because AIDS is what happens when you're gay.

By the time I was 13, I knew that "those people" who had AIDS were gay men.

Despite the fact that more than 20 years have gone by and statistics show that HIV/AIDS is most prevalent in Sub-Saharan Africa and that those who have HIV/AIDS are people of every age, sex and gender (68% of all people with AIDS live in that region). South Africa has more people living with HIV/AIDS than any other country.

In Israel there is an increase in HIV infections among gay men:

Cases of HIV increasing among gay men
Israel's health care system plans to address the trend by introducing streamlined HIV examinations next year.
By Dan Even

The number of gay men in Israel with HIV is on the rise, according to data released this week ahead of World AIDS Day, which is observed today. Israel's health care system plans to address the trend by introducing streamlined HIV examinations next year.

In 2009, 382 new cases of HIV infection among gay men were reported in Israel. In 2008, 390 new cases among gay men were reported. Both figures are higher than the average annual figure for HIV incidence among homosexual males in Israel between 2005-2009, which stood at 360.
[...]
Between 1981 and the end of 2009, a total of 6,147 new cases of HIV were recorded in Israel. Of this total, 1,104 died of AIDS and 173 left the country.

Up through the end of 2009, 4,870 persons were known to be living with the HIV virus in Israel. Estimates hold that there are 7,000 such persons today.

To conclude. One of my peeves is that HIV/AIDS is stigmatized, the fact that whenever I donate blood that section regarding unsafe sex with a man who has had sex with a man after 1979 enrages me every time, though my blood pressure remains superb.
And it is stigmatized because the it broke out and took hold of a population that was already disenfranchised and marginalized. The fact that it was framed as a "Gay disease" continued to haunt and continues to create disinformation regarding the risks of HIV and how it is actually transmitted.

Remove the stigma. Find a vaccine. Stop the unnecessary body count and educate ourselves on what HIV/AIDS actually is, does and how we can reduce risk to ourselves and others.

But in very small amounts.

I was watching the first part of Stephen Fry's documentary HIV and Me (2007).

During this episode he goes to South Africa (which still has the most appalling policy when it comes to HIV/AIDS even though over 25% of the population is infected - the majority of infections pass through unprotected heterosexual sexual encounters. In South Africa this it's not a "Gay Disease" and never was - but the stigma remains.

While there, Stephen Fry meets journalist and AIDS activist Lucky Mazibuko who takes him on an excursion to a school in which he gives an informative lecture to little kids.

On the wall of their class there were two slogans:
Being HIV positive is not a curse.

Being HIV positive is normal

As I watched I felt very moved by the sight of these kids speaking so candidly about safe sex and how you can't HIV/AIDS from touching someone, kissing someone, sharing food with someone, etc.

And then Mr. Mazimbuko brings out a t-shirt that says: I am leading the way to an AIDS free world, referring of course, to these well-informed kids who live the reality of the disease along with Mr. Mazimbuko.

I promptly burst into tears.

How pathetic am I?

You can find the documentary in very good quality on YouTube, link to the first part of the first episode (out of two) here.

Yesterday, I had an on-line discussion about my paranoia about getting pregnant due to the truly woman un-friendly procedures pregnant women have to go through in order to obtain a legal abortion.
STD's were never something I was concerned about because every sexual encounter I ever had been with a condom (if it were with a man) and knowing my partner's history (if I were with a woman - yeah, those were not always as safe as they should be).
Lesbian sex has the lowest risk factor when it comes to contracting HIV/AIDS - that doesn't mean you are safe - especially if you have sores on your genitalia, mouth or a cut on your hands or some such.

Dental dams are not as available as they should be (which is bloody irritating) - and they're not just for Dykes y'all!

Any way. AIDS is a year round issue, not just Documentaries, Movies and Stories. It's an epidemic that is constantly on the rise.

The Israel AIDS Task Force says the number of infected in 2009 is expected to rise - currently there are an estimated 6,275 infected people some of whom are unaware of their status.
Number of people with HIV reaches all-time high in 2009.

On a less preachy note; I remember hearing about AIDS for the first time when I heard that Tom Hanks won the Oscar for his performance in Philadelphia.
That was 1993, I was 8.
I did not understand what AIDS was until I was in the 10th grade (I was 15 and the year was 2000) in which we had a sex-ed class and were were given little notes that has + and - written on them.
We were told to walk around the class in a random way, to keep one note and give out a note to other kids that we randomly encountered.
After that we sat down and the sex-ed educator asked everyone who had a + note to stand up. I and a great many other kids stood up and were told that we were now infected with HIV.

The sex-ed classes were pretty good in explaining how to have safe-sex, that a condom fits everyone and a boy who says the rubber "doesn't fit" is lying - which was hilarious to see all those cocky boys squirm in their seats.
That little experiment left a sour taste in my mouth as it could have been any STD, which is was the educator said, but the example used was AIDS.

In this same class (we had about three, if I recall correctly) there was talk about homosexuality which made me so freakin' uncomfortable. Homophobia was rampant and I was 15 and just realising I was "not like everybody else".
The fact that everyone was saying that AIDS could only occur between two men and all that, which the educator contradicted expertly I must add, but that didn't stop the crass homophobia after class.
It was depressing.

I wish I knew what the state of sex-education in high schools are today - ten years down the line - I can't think it's much changed.

warlordkittens wrote a very informative post about the risks, and how to stay safe in regards to HIV between women.

You can find it here at her journal.