The first book I wrote, The Name of This Book Is Secret, I put the word damn in it. But it has made me think about the words I choose to use and not use-about the good words and the bad.Īs a children’s author and the father of twins, I excel at censoring myself. The law, which prohibits discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity in a manner that is not “developmentally appropriate,” is deliberately, devilishly vague. Just look at the T-shirts and protest signs: “#SayGay” is the new “We’re here. I’ve never wanted to say it more.įlorida’s infuriating “Don’t Say Gay” law has given new power to an old word. Longitudinal association of HIV conspiracy beliefs with sexual risk among black males living with HIV. Sexual networks and HIV risk among black men who have sex with men in 6 U.S. HIV and African American gay and bisexual men. Poverty rates by race/ethnicity.Ĭenters for Disease Control and Prevention. doi:10.1093/ije/dyq057Ĭenters for Disease Control and Prevention. HIV transmission risk through anal intercourse: Systematic review, meta-analysis and implications for HIV prevention. HIV-related stigma within communities of gay men: A literature review. Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections.
doi:10.1016/j.annepidem.2017.02.003Ĭenters for Disease Control and Prevention. Lifetime risk of a diagnosis of HIV infection in the United States. Hess KL, Hu X, Lansky A, Mermin J, Hall HI. Compounding this is the stigmatization of gay black men on both the individual and community level, which further drives at-risk individuals away from accessing care. Stigma, both perceived and real, fuels HIV rates among black Americans who may fear disclosure of their status.According to a study from Harvard Medical School in 2011, such beliefs contribute to decreased survival time in black men by discouraging appropriate treatment behavior, including the consistent use of condoms and linkage to HIV-specific care. Distrust of public health authorities can often reinforce negative attitudes about HIV prevention and treatment, increasing denialism and even conspiracy beliefs.Only 59% of those treated for HIV remain in care. Failures of social, police, judicial, and public health services within lower-income communities tend to fuel a general distrust in government programs, including those aimed at HIV testing and prevention.
As older men are more likely to have HIV, gay black men tend to get infected at a far younger age than their heterosexual male counterparts. Gay men of color often have sex with older men as a result of these smaller sexual networks.As such, the likelihood of transmission increases simply because there is an inherently higher rate of HIV already within the network. Gay men of color tend to have sex with their own race, according to the CDC, meaning that their sexual networks are smaller and more exclusive.Southern states can regularly exceed these figures, such as in Louisiana, where 30% of the black population lives in poverty.
In 2018, the poverty rate among black Americans was 22% versus 9% in whites.