HIV stigmas persist despite advancements in treatment and prevention

Despite major strides in HIV treatment and prevention, a new report shows a large portion of the country lacks awareness of these medical advances.

The “State of HIV Stigma” report by the Los Angeles-based LGBTQ+ rights organization GLAAD found that fewer Americans feel comfortable around family members with HIV, and more than 40% do not believe in the science behind prevention and treatment.

TC Caldwell, executive director of The Knights and Orchids Society, a nonprofit organization that provides care to Black LGBTQ+ people across Alabama and the South, emphasized the need to make information more digestible, rather than relying on frequently cited statistics.

Need for better communications

“I may not understand viral load. I may not understand all these things, but when you make it accessible in a way that the people who are most affected by it can understand it, we’ll be able to move further along instead of just throwing numbers and data at them,” Caldwell explained.

Medical advances include prevention, such as taking pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP, and medications designed to decrease HIV in a person to an untransmittable level.

The distrust of medical advances is paired with recent Trump administration decisions terminating more than $600 million in HIV and sexually transmitted infection prevention grants. Administration officials argued the grants didn’t align with agency priorities and labeled the efforts ideologically motivated.

Meanwhile, the report highlighted just 30% of Gen Z adults are knowledgeable about HIV prevention and treatment, despite being the most LGBTQ-friendly generation in history. Older generations report nearly double the rate of knowledge on the issue.

Caldwell said younger generations are not being given the same warnings about sexual experimentation as those who grew up during the AIDS epidemic, and some young adults are becoming sexually active later in life.

“A lot of these kids, when they start college, that’s their first time experimenting. That’s their first time even with their sexuality, even with sex, even with intimacy,” Caldwell noted. “I think a lot of it is the visibility piece. This generation does not have the same fears that we did coming up.”

According to the Department of Health and Human Services, more than 1 million people across the country are living with HIV, and nearly 15% do not know it.