Would you publicly date, marry, or build a family with someone living with HIV? Why or why not?

This question came up recently on my feed from The Reunion Project

That’s a tougher question for me to answer than you might expect. Especially because I’m a person living with HIV.

My current self would say yes without hesitation. I know and trust the science of U=U. I know how extraordinarily effective PrEP is. I know that people living with HIV can date, have sex, marry, and build families without transmitting HIV to their partners.

But if you asked my pre-diagnosis self, before 2012?

I have to be honest. I probably would have said no.

I routinely avoided hooking up with people who disclosed that they were living with HIV. Not many people were open about their status then, but when someone was, I often saw their disclosure as a reason to avoid them.

That is difficult to admit now.

Some of it reflects the world we lived in at the time. We did not yet have the evidence and public-health messaging around U=U that we have today. PrEP was only just becoming available. HIV was still surrounded by enormous fear, misinformation, and stigma.

But I can’t blame all of it on the times.

Some of it was me.

I was afraid of HIV. I was even afraid to get tested because I didn’t want to know my own status. And that fear absolutely affected how I saw and treated people who were already living openly with HIV.

There is an uncomfortable irony in becoming part of a community I once kept at a distance.

Today, I know better. I get tested regularly for other STIs. I understand the science. And I understand something else that my younger self didn’t: someone telling you they are living with HIV is not giving you a reason to fear them. They are trusting you with something deeply personal.

I wish my younger self had understood that.

I wish I had tested regularly. I wish I had known the science. And I wish I had questioned whether the people I was afraid of actually posed the risk I imagined they did.

I can’t change how I thought then. But I can be honest about it now.

Because ending HIV stigma isn’t only about challenging other people’s prejudices. Sometimes it means confronting the ones we carried ourselves.

Keep Tellin’ the Story,

Professor Peacock