Daniel Töth, the proudly self-titled Queen of HIV, talks here about the impact of the stigma surrounding HIV, the need for greater public awareness of the U=U message and the trauma carried by a community who for so long lived in the shadow of HIV and AIDS. Portrait by Hazel Coonagh.

THE CONTINUED STIGMA SURROUNDING HIV

Your working assumption, whenever you deal with HIV, is that it’s an issue, it’s a thing, it’s dirty, you don’t talk about it. Once you come out with HIV, you may find a lot of understanding, but the assumption is that it’s always a problematic thing.

I was chatting to someone who was in their early 20’s, and they were saying that their age-peers had practically zero education about STIs and safe sex in school. If you couple that with the high incidence of HIV, these people who don’t know anything will just fill in the blanks with their own prejudices or assumptions. If you don’t even have proper sex ed, how do you battle stigma?