Gateway Chronicle 2021

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decision to ban all members of the MSM category
from donating blood despite the existence of the
ELISA test for HIV by 1895. This occurred when,
as a result of AIDS, blood shortages were common
and consequently the blood supply was artificially
constrained when blood was desperately needed.
Combined together, these all present examples of
the direct line from homophobia to harmful policies
that exacerbated the difficulties facing those with
AIDS.
While homophobia and stigma created issues for
those suffering from HIV through religious and
political oversight, it was perhaps the casual, everyday
stigma that caused the most immediate problems.
Though medical professionals played a vital
role in dealing with the epidemic, a number had
adopted society’s wider fear and still in 2014 15%
of gay and bisexual patients with HIV reported
receiving poor treatment by doctors, the percentage
being far larger in the 80s and 90s. As a result, gay
and bisexual men became less likely to be tested
and receive treatment, less aware of whether they
had the virus and whether they were spreading it.
Furthermore, as experiences of homophobia are
shown to increase the likelihood of substance abuse
and more risky sexual behaviour, it is unsurprising
that HIV spread so rapidly through the community.
Compounded upon this, housing discrimination
and workplace discrimination harmed the security
of both members of the LGBTQ+ community and
those suffering from AIDS whilst simultaneously
suffering social ostracization resulting from incorrect
beliefs that HIV could be spread from skin-toskin
contact or through the air. A harrowing example
of how discrimination and HIV intersect is the
fact that even now 14% of transgender women have
HIV. This is partly because discrimination causes
transgender people to face higher rates of homelessness,
unemployment and poverty so many are
forced to engage in sex work, a field where people
become five times more likely to be diagnosed with
HIV. This link between discrimination and vulnerability
to HIV becomes starker when observing what
happens when racism intersects with the previous
issues: 44% of black transgender women have HIV
while gay black men are 16 times more likely to be
infected than gay white men. Barriers arising from
institutionalised racism combine with poverty to
heighten the dangers of homophobia and leave vulnerable
members of the population exposed to HIV.
Facing stigma or indifference from most unaffected
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by the illness, the LGBTQ+ community was forced
to carry out its own activism. ACT UP became a
central organisation working to end the AIDS epidemic,
and whether it was placing a giant condom
over the house of homophobic senator Jesse Helms
or spreading the ashes of dead loved ones on the
lawn of the White House to protest George Bush’s
inaction, they were involved. Meanwhile, in response
to the ban on MSM donating blood, lesbian
women performed blood drives to help supply blood
to the depleted reserves desperately needed by those
with AIDS. The importance of campaigning in
educating the public, calming panic and accelerating
Members of AIDS activist group ACT UP
hold a banner stating “Silence Equals Death”
and signs of prominent U.S politicians at a
demonstration held on October 11, 1988