From HRC Blog

December 6, 2014 by Guest contributor

IMAGE: AIDS Ribbon Post submitted by Ernest Massiah, Regional Director, UNAIDS Caribbean Regional Support Team

World AIDS Day is a time for us to remember all those who have lost their lives to HIV/AIDS over the past year and to recommit ourselves to ending the epidemic. This year, HRC is shining a spotlight on some of the people and communities often overlooked in the struggle to combat HIV and AIDS, including people living in the Caribbean.

I grew up on a small Caribbean island, a small space where notions of what you could be were limited. The “master narrative” did not accommodate difference; and avoiding shame and having “a sense of common decency” were top concerns. In this world – the universe as I knew it – sex, sexuality and sexual orientation were taboo subjects and being LGBT was anathema to notions of decency. In my 20s, when HIV appeared, these taboos rose in unison; HIV opened conversations that were difficult and often bigoted but essential.

I learned about prejudice at an early age, in the schoolyard. That playground taught me who I was supposed to be prejudiced against and who was supposed to be prejudiced against me. And in that multi-ethnic Caribbean island, with a small, chattering middle class, the options for discrimination were endless. Being a “buller,” the local name for gay men, ensured your isolation. The yard had boundaries, and fears and offered protection – if you stayed inside and kept quiet.

The Caribbean media’s discussion of homosexuality has always been in everyone’s yard, in every boys’ school. What has changed is the code – the way of speaking about it. Our small world has changed because of the media. People are watching Modern Family – and, enjoying it.

In 2013, in Trinidad and Tobago, the small island where I was born, a recent poll showed that 78 percent of people said there should be no discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and 1 in 2 said that persons living with HIV should be protected from discrimination. This is not the island of my childhood. This is not the narrow school yard and its taunts.

But these signs of change are juxtaposed against an unpleasant reality. The first Caribbean Men’s Internet Survey (CARIMIS)* showed that 63 percent of the respondents have been visually intimidated, 64 percent verbally abused and 17 percent physically abused. And, while many men are “out,” over 50 percent are not out at work, school, or to family. The dominant narrative is not changing as fast as it should, and this is affecting men’s lives and health. In CARIMIS, internalized homo-negativity scores were highest among men who had not been tested for HIV. The data shows that fear of discussing sexual history is a deterrent to HIV testing for approximately 40 percent of the population.

Could it be that as a society we are now starting to have a different perspective on sex and sexual orientation? We should, because in some Caribbean nations, an estimated 3 of every 10 new HIV infections are among men who have sex with men.

We cannot avoid the unpleasant reality that violence and stigma against LGBT populations is a major barrier to HIV prevention, which more broadly affects Caribbean societies. I am hopeful that these shifts explain why more Caribbean people are saying they would hang out with their gay friends. Maybe, Caribbean societies are becoming more accepting. But, our laws still lag behind the times.

For more on this story go to: http://www.hrc.org/blog/entry/world-aids-day-hiv-and-lgbt-stigma-in-the-caribbean