HIV-Negative Men Are Still Choosing Stigma Over Science

Mathew Rodriguez writes about the recent research demonstrating that most HIV negative men do not believe U=U: “In the era of U=U, believing that HIV-positive people with an undetectable viral load can pass the virus is akin to denying climate change.”

“HIV-negative men need to do better. On a purely human level, the phenomena behind the data is that HIV-negative men refuse to see HIV-positive people as anything other than a virus floating in their blood. When a microscopic virus eclipses someone’s personhood, then something’s gone awry.”

“As a fellow HIV-negative man, I understand the myriad reasons that you might not yet believe that undetectable = untransmittable. It’s not actually about learning something new, but unlearning lifelong messages that just being gay, and loving other men, would most likely lead to acquiring HIV.” Read more at Into.