National
The joy of giving
Fleming finds meaningful work directing Bohnett Foundation’s LGBT grants
Michael Fleming spent a lot of time on planes last week.
After leaving his home in Los Angeles, he flew to Boston to attend a dinner for LGBT officials receiving leadership training at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
On Friday, he traveled to D.C. to speak with Latino college students taking part in a Capitol Hill internship program with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute. Before the day was out, he was on his way to New York to visit the city’s LGBT Community Center.
But for Fleming, who serves as executive director of the David Bohnett Foundation, the busy travel schedule isn’t unusual. He told the Blade he travels about 50 percent of the time for work.
“It’s totally valuable if you realize at the end of that flight, you’re meeting with really impressive and interesting people doing important work,” he said.
In the position he’s held since 2000, Fleming is charged with decision-making and oversight for grants that gay billionaire philanthropist David Bohnett makes to social justice causes through the foundation he chairs.
For 2010, Fleming estimates the Bohnett Foundation’s total amount of donations will top $5 million. Among the causes that are a priority for the organization are LGBT rights, gun control and the arts. Even animal language research gets a cut.
But donations to LGBT causes, Fleming said, land the most money, accounting for about 65 to 70 percent of the organization’s annual donations. Fleming noted that LGBT work is important for the foundation because such efforts are “very personal” for him and Bohnett, who are both gay.
“I think we’re passionate about it because it’s our lives and our rights and I think, as a funder, it’s the most important work we can be doing,” Fleming said.
Fleming said organizations that are working to advance same-sex marriage in the wake of Proposition 8 have been a priority for the Bohnett Foundation.
Funds are being directed to Equality California, the National Center for Lesbian Rights and Lambda Legal, he noted, as well as toward the ongoing legal battles and public education campaigns in California.
“So if this matter comes up on the ballot again, you’ve laid groundwork for victory next time,” Fleming said.
Fleming married his spouse, the Cuban-born Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Luis Lavin, in October 2008 when same-sex marriage was briefly legal in California.
After marriage rights for gay couples were taken away following the passage of Prop 8, Fleming said the measure’s success was “poignant for everyone who got married” before its passage.
“We realized how lucky we were to be able to [get married], but I think it’s especially poignant realizing that so many of our friends and colleagues now do not have the ability to do the same thing we did,” he said.
In addition to supporting groups working specifically to advance same-sex marriage, Fleming said the Bohnett Foundation provides funding to just about every national LGBT group, including the Human Rights Campaign.
In particular, Fleming said the foundation is a major contributor to HRC’s Historically Black Colleges & Universities Program, which educates students in leading viable LGBT programs on campus.
“It’s been another program that gets young people — those who are [attending] historically black colleges and universities — to come to D.C.,” Fleming said. “There’s training that they go through. They learn about the political process; they learn how to take those skills back to the campus.”
Michael Cole, an HRC spokesperson, said the “continued generosity” of the Bohnett Foundation has enabled the program for seven years to “combat homophobia and intolerance on campuses where they too often run rampant.”
“When we started the program, there was only a single campus with an LGBT student group and now we work to support 26 such groups at [historically black colleges and universities],” Cole said.
The Bohnett Foundation has also provided many local LGBT community centers throughout the country with cyber centers, or areas where LGBT people can access computers and the Internet free of charge. Fleming estimated that the foundation has provided funds and equipment for more than 70 cyber centers throughout the country.
“Some are in big cities, but there others that are in medium-sized cities, or smaller places,” he said.
The D.C. Center is among the facilities to receive a cyber center from the Bohnett Foundation.
David Mariner, executive director of the Center, said the donation of six new computers, a flatbed scanner and a color laser printer has been a very important part of the D.C. Center.
“What the cyber center does is give people an opportunity to access the Internet and find out about resources in the community that are available to them,” he said.
Mariner said the cyber center has been integral to the D.C. Center’s career development program and has allowed local LGBT residents to work on their resumes and job searches.
Political giving
Fleming wears another hat, serving as Bohnett’s political director and advising him on political candidates that would advance LGBT rights and social justice causes.
A major donor to the Democratic Party, Bohnett last year donated $30,400 to the Democratic National Committee, according to Federal Election Commission reports. Other donations have gone to the few Democratic candidates that could take Republican seats this fall, including a $2,000 contribution to Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan, who’s seeking to become the state’s next U.S. senator.
Other recipients of Bohnett’s donations are gay congressional candidates. Bohnett gave Steve Pougnet in California, the mayor of Palm Springs who’s running for Congress, $4,800 last year. David Cicilline in Rhode Island, the mayor of Providence who’s running for Congress, received $2,400.
Fleming said donations to the gay congressional candidates are important for Bohnett because they “stand a very good chance” of winning their races.
“We’ve long been … supporters of the [Gay & Lesbian] Victory Fund,” Fleming said. “It’s been one of the chief tenets of the Victory Fund that it’s really terrific to have friends, but it’s even better to have folks from our own community elected.”
Although there has been criticism that the Obama administration and Congress have not moved quickly enough on pro-LGBT legislation, Fleming said this perceived lack of progress hasn’t been a factor in his advice as Bohnett’s political director.
“I don’t just say, ‘Well, this administration may have let us down on this item,’” Fleming said. “I look at things in totality [and say], ‘Well, they may have succeeded here and succeeded there.’”
Sean Theriault, a gay government professor at the University of Texas, Austin, said even donating $30,000 to the Democratic National Committee in the grand scheme is “small potatoes.”
“Now, if he bundles that money with other ‘gay money,’ it gives him just that much more clout,” Theriault said. “What it probably buys him is access to politicians who are already supportive of the gay rights agenda.”
While he wears two hats, Fleming said that Bohnett’s donations to political candidates and the foundation’s contributions to social justice causes are really one-and-the-same mission.
“At the end of the day, those things are all tied together,” Fleming said. “What he believes in when he gives money to really terrific non-profit programs are also things that he would care about our elected leaders paying attention to.”
‘Relationships are primary’
While the fruits of contributing to candidates and campaigns are difficult to witness firsthand — except on election night or when pro-LGBT bills become law — keeping an eye on work resulting from the foundation’s contributions is a different story.
Fleming was able to witness such work upon his visit to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, where about 30 Latino college students last week gathered to hear from various speakers as part of their internship program.
As part of a $25,000 grant, the Bohnett Foundation paid for two Latino college students to attend the internship program: Jefrey Valasquez from Mount Saint Mary College in New York, and Rolando Rodriguez from Columbia University.
Waiting at the event for his turn to speak, Fleming was dressed in a summer grey suit, sensible attire for the 100-degree temperatures. Behind his silver spectacles was a face bronzed with a California tan.
When his turn to speak came, Fleming introduced himself to the students and noted how impressed he was with the students’ resumes. An organizer said that only 30 out of 396 applicants were accepted.
Fleming described the students as people who have already achieved much. He advised them to focus on the relationships they build over the course of their careers.
“My sense is that everything in life is about relationships,” Fleming said. “Relationships are primary; everything else is secondary.”
As an example, Fleming recounted that he first knew Bohnett as someone who worked out at his local gym in Los Angeles. That relationship ultimately landed him a position running the foundation.
Fleming also recalled how Bohnett in 1999 closed a huge deal after GeoCities — an early social networking website he founded — was sold to Yahoo for about $3 billion. A few months after the sale, Fleming said Bohnett invited him for breakfast after a workout.
“It was the worst restaurant,” Fleming recalled. “You made $3 billion. Why’d he take me to this dump?”
Fleming said Bohnett asked him to help him give away his money and wrote down on a napkin the social justice causes deserving of donations.
“He says, ‘I got $4 billion. Do you want to help me?’” Fleming said. “Something’s telling me go to the gym more often.”
Since he accepted the position, Fleming said the Bohnett Foundation has made donations to various causes, including leadership-training programs like the one in which the students attending the event were engaged.
Fleming said he takes particular pride in the Bohnett Foundation’s contributions to the Latino internship program because the Latino community often goes unfunded by other foundations. He noted that the average allocation of philanthropic dollars to non-Latinos per year is $62, while those in the Latino community receive around $4.20.
“Some of these foundations are not paying attention,” Fleming said. “I’m going to go out and rely on all of you to go out there and pay attention. Those numbers have to increase. There’s no excuse why they won’t.”
Fleming also stressed the importance of minority groups, including LGBT people, realizing that they’re part of a common coalition.
Recalling the fight in 2008 over Prop 8, Fleming said those advocating for the California measure sought to disrupt the coalition of traditionally progressive groups.
“And folks who don’t [want] people like me to get married — when they have to go look for a community that they thought would be their friend and vote against [Prop] 8, who’d they target?” Fleming asked the audience.
One of the students responded, “African Americans.”
“And?” Fleming asked.
“Latinos,” said another student.
“And they spend ridiculous sums of money trying to have a conversation in the Latino communities,” Fleming said. “The good news is that at end of the day, there was this poll out in the past week about marriage equality in California, and they’re the one minority community that’s over 50 percent in favor of it.”
Fleming said that those who care about LGBT civil rights are the same people who care about other people’s civil rights.
“The same folks who want to target you guys against me are the same ones that paint me as a middle-aged white guy and say, ‘Oh, you should [vote] this way on immigration,’” Fleming said. “They will break us up, they will target us. They will split us any way they can. Our communities, whatever communities we think we belong to, are much bigger than just one group, just one small group.”
Fleming said touring the country to see the benefits of his work is “overwhelming” because it’s far more informative than looking at grant reports.
“I think when you’re funding something,” he said, “especially an internship, especially something that involves young people, nothing compares to meeting them and hearing their stories and hearing what they learned working in Washington for the summer.”
The White House
As house Democrats release Epstein photos, Garcia continues to demand DOJ transparency
Blade this week sat down with gay House Oversight Committee ranking member
Democrats on the House Oversight Committee have released new photos from Jeffrey Epstein’s email and computer records, including images highlighting the relationship between President Donald Trump and the convicted sex offender.
Epstein, a wealthy financier, was found guilty of procuring a child for prostitution and sex trafficking, serving a 13-month prison sentence in 2008. At the time of his death in prison under mysterious circumstances, he was facing charges of sex trafficking and conspiracy to traffic minors.
Among those pictured in Epstein’s digital files are Trump, former President Bill Clinton, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, actor and director Woody Allen, economist Larry Summers, lawyer Alan Dershowitz, entrepreneurs Richard Branson and Bill Gates, and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor.
One photo shows Trump alongside Epstein and a woman at a Victoria’s Secret party in New York in 1997. American media outlets have published the image, while Getty Images identified the woman as model Ingrid Seynhaeve.
Oversight Committee Democrats are reviewing the full set of photos and plan to release additional images to the public in the coming days and weeks, emphasizing their commitment to protecting survivors’ identities.
With just a week left for the Justice Department to publish all files related to Epstein following the passage of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which requires the Justice Department to release most records connected to Epstein investigations, the Washington Blade sat down with U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the ranking member on the Oversight Committee to discuss the current push the release of more documents.
Garcia highlighted the committee’s commitment to transparency and accountability.
“We’ve said anything that we get we’re going to put out. We don’t care who is in the files … if you’ve harmed women and girls, then we’ve got to hold you accountable.”
He noted ongoing questions surrounding Trump’s relationship with Epstein, given their long history and the apparent break in friendship once Trump assumed public office.
“There’s been a lot of questions about … Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein. They were best friends for 10 years … met women there and girls.”
Prior to Trump’s presidency, it was widely reported that the two were friends who visited each other’s properties regularly. Additional reporting shows they socialized frequently throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, attending parties at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida and Epstein’s residences. Flight logs from an associate’s trial indicate Trump flew on Epstein’s private jet multiple times, and Epstein claimed Trump first had sex with his future wife, Melania Knauss, aboard the jet.
“We’ve provided evidence … [that leads to] questions about what the relationship was like between Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein.”
Garcia stressed the need for answers regarding the White House’s role in withholding information, questioning the sudden change in attitude toward releasing the files given Trump’s campaign promises.
“Why is the White House trying to cover this up? So if he’s not covering for himself … he’s covering up for his rich friends,” Garcia said. “Why the cover up? Who are you hiding for? I think that’s the question.”
He confirmed that Trump is definitively in the Epstein files, though the extent remains unknown, but will be uncovered soon.
“We know that Trump’s in them. Yeah, he’s been told. We know that Trump’s in them in some way. As far as the extent of it … we don’t know.”
Garcia emphasized accountability for all powerful figures implicated, regardless of financial status, political party, or personal connections.
“All these powerful men that are walking around right now … after abusing, in some cases, 14‑ and 15‑year‑old girls, they have to be held accountable,” he said. “There has to be justice for those survivors and the American public deserves the truth about who was involved in that.”
He added that while he is the ranking member, he will ensure the oversight committee will use all available political tools, including subpoenas — potentially even for the president.
“We want to subpoena anyone that we can … everyone’s kind of on the table.”
He also emphasized accountability for all powerful figures implicated, regardless of financial status, political party, or relationship with the president.
“For me, they’re about justice and doing the right thing,” Garcia said. “This is about women who … were girls and children when they were being abused, trafficked, in some cases, raped. And these women deserve justice.”
“The survivors are strong.”
Deputy White House Press Secretary Abigail Jackson issued a statement regarding the release the photos, echoing previous comments from Republicans on the timing and framing of the photos by the Oversight Committee.
“Once again, House Democrats are selectively releasing cherry-picked photos with random redactions to try and create a false narrative,” Jackson said.
“The Democrat hoax against President Trump has been repeatedly debunked and the Trump administration has done more for Epstein’s victims than Democrats ever have by repeatedly calling for transparency, releasing thousands of pages of documents, and calling for further investigations into Epstein’s Democrat friends,”
In a press release on Friday, Garcia called for immediate DOJ action:
“It is time to end this White House cover-up and bring justice to the survivors of Jeffrey Epstein and his powerful friends. These disturbing photos raise even more questions about Epstein and his relationships with some of the most powerful men in the world. We will not rest until the American people get the truth. The Department of Justice must release all the files, NOW.”
(Photo courtesy of the U.S. House Oversight Committee)
The White House
White House deadnames highest-ranking transgender official
Rachel Levine’s portrait altered at HHS
Admiral Rachel Levine — the first transgender person ever confirmed by the U.S. Senate and the highest-ranking trans official in American history — had her official portrait in the Humphrey Building altered, with staff replacing her correct name with her deadname, the name she has not used since 2011.
NPR first reported the change, and an HHS spokesperson confirmed to the outlet that Levine’s portrait had recently been altered. A digital photograph obtained by NPR shows Levine’s former (male) name typed on a placard beneath the portrait, placed under the glass of the frame.
Levine served as a four-star admiral in the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps under the Biden-Harris administration and was appointed the 17th assistant secretary for health.
During her tenure, Levine oversaw the Commissioned Corps and helped lead national public-health initiatives, including the federal COVID-19 response and vaccination strategy; efforts to address rising syphilis infection rates; HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programs; and strategies to combat the opioid epidemic, particularly through expanded harm-reduction approaches for the communities most affected.
The Trump-Vance administration’s decision to publicly deadname Levine is widely viewed within the trans community as demeaning and disrespectful. The move comes amid a series of federal policy reversals targeting LGBTQ Americans, particularly trans youth seeking gender-affirming care.
Those actions include: weakening workplace protections for LGBTQ employees; limiting restroom access; downgrading gender-identity discrimination cases; pressuring hospitals to end gender-affirming care; cutting HIV research and prevention funding; removing LGBTQ crisis resources; restricting access to trans-inclusive medical policies for veterans and young people; supporting trans sports bans and threatening funding for teams that include trans athletes; and forcing schools and universities to eliminate DEI and LGBTQ offices, inclusive curricula, gender-neutral bathrooms, and books or training materials addressing LGBTQ issues.
The Trump–Vance administration has also expanded federal censorship by removing LGBTQ language from surveys, agency websites, Smithsonian materials, and human-rights reports; blocking Pride recognitions; creating federal communications that misgender trans women; imposing passport and travel barriers for trans Americans; lifting protections for trans service members; limiting benefits and care for LGBTQ veterans; and pressuring states, universities, and hospitals to end trans-inclusive policies under threat of losing federal research, education, or Medicaid funds. The administration has additionally deported LGBTQ asylum seekers to unsafe conditions, removed LGBTQ issues from global human-rights reporting, and escalated anti-trans rhetoric at public events.
These actions stand in stark contrast to Levine’s public-health record. As assistant secretary for health, she worked to expand LGBTQ+ health data collection, promote equitable vaccine distribution, strengthen national health-equity initiatives, and reduce care disparities experienced by historically underserved communities, including LGBTQ populations. Within HHS, she led councils and task forces dedicated to reducing structural barriers to care and improving community outcomes.
Before joining the federal government, Levine oversaw health and safety for nearly 13 million residents as Pennsylvania’s physician general from 2015–2017 and as Pennsylvania secretary of health from 2018–2021.
Asked by NPR about the alteration of her official portrait, Levine responded that it had been an honor to serve as assistant secretary for health, adding: “I’m not going to comment on this type of petty action.”
Health
The harsh truth about HIV phobia in gay dating
HIV and stigma remain baked into queer dating culture
Uncloseted Media published this article on Dec. 9.
This story was produced with the support of MISTR, a telehealth platform offering free online access to PrEP, DoxyPEP, STI testing, Hepatitis C testing and treatment and long-term HIV care across the U.S. MISTR did not have any editorial input into the content of this story.
By SAM DONNDELINGER | In his room, 19-year-old Cody Nester toggles between Grindr profiles on his phone.
As he senses chemistry with a match, he knows he has to flag something that could be a deal breaker.
“Did you see on my profile that I’m HIV positive?” he writes.
The reply arrives instantly.
“You’re disgusting. I don’t know why you’re on here.” Seconds later, the profile disappears, suggesting Nester is blocked.
“He went out of his way to say that. People could at least be more aware, ask questions, and understand the reality [of living with HIV] instead of attacking us,” Nester told Uncloseted Media.
“I would say 95 percent of people respond that way,” says Nester, who lives in Hollywood, Fla., and works at a Mexican restaurant. “The entire conversation is going fine. They’re down to meet up and then right when I mention [HIV], it’s always, ‘Oh no, never mind.’”
Some other messages he’s received include:
“You’ll never get anything in your life.”
“Why don’t you die?”
“Why are you on here?”
More often, it’s silence, a cold “No” or a sudden block.
“It’s like you’re a white fish in a school of black fish,” he says. “You’re immediately the odd one out.”
Even though Nester’s undetectable status makes it impossible for him to transmit HIV to partners during sex, he experiences stigma around HIV, something which nearly 90 percent of Americans agree still exists, according to a 2022 GLAAD report. And a survey shared in 2019 found that 64 percent of respondents would feel uncomfortable having sex with someone living with HIV, even on effective treatment. The emotional cost of this stigma is a significant barrier to intimacy and can result in a loss of self-esteem, fear of disclosure and suicidal thoughts.
What the science says — and why it doesn’t seem to matter
“The fear comes from antiquated ideas around HIV,” says Xavier A. Erguera, senior clinical research coordinator at University of California, San Francisco,’s Division of HIV, Infectious Diseases & Global Medicine. “A lot of people who are newly diagnosed still fear it’s a death sentence. Even though we have medications now to treat it effectively, and it’s basically a chronic condition, people haven’t caught up.”
Since 1996, antiretroviral therapies have developed to where they can suppress the virus to levels so low that it is undetectable in the blood, and thus not able to be transmitted to sexual partners. This is known as Undetectable = Untransmittable, or U=U. According to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report from 2024, 65 percent of HIV-positive cases are virally suppressed.
Another line of defense is pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), which reduces the risk of acquiring HIV from sexual intercourse by roughly 99 percent when taken as prescribed. Approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 2012, the medication launched as a once-a-day pill and was hailed as a breakthrough as it transformed the sex lives of gay men, which had been shaped by decades of fear about HIV complications and about where AIDS came from.
“Internal logic doesn’t reflect what we know scientifically,” says Kim Koester, associate professor in the Department of Medicine at UCSF. “I was very optimistic when PrEP came out. The drug works, so why wouldn’t everyone use it?”
Even with PrEP use on the rise, less than 600,000 Americans used it in 2024, and Koester says skepticism and judgments about taking the drug persist.
“The phobia is pervasive,” Koester told Uncloseted Media. “People believe that others get the disease because of their lifestyle. … PrEP was supposed to be the antidote to the threat of HIV, reduce the anxiety, and make you more open to who you are and the sex you want. It’s supposed to be liberating. It is part of the answer. But it’s not enough. We don’t have enough people using PrEP for it to make the dent in the stigma we need.”
According to a 2023 study of seven informants living with HIV, public stigma stems from problematic views from society that those living with HIV are “a dangerous transmission source,” “disgraceful” and “violators of social and religious norms who have committed deviant behavior.”
Laramie Smith, assistant professor of Global Public Health at the University of California, San Diego, says this stigma is unwarranted and fueled by misunderstanding:
“With today’s treatments, it shouldn’t be a life-altering identity shift. It should be no different than, ‘I have diabetes.’ If you’re virally suppressed, it shouldn’t matter whether you’re friends with someone, whether you’re sleeping with someone — the science shows us that.”
How HIV phobia shows up online
Nester, who contracted HIV last year from a Grindr hook-up who insisted he was negative, says he is just starting to accept his diagnosis. “I didn’t go back on the apps for a long time after that. It messed with my mental health … realizing I’d have to take medication for the rest of my life.”
Since he started dating again this year, returning to apps like Grindr and Sniffies, he has faced a new normal. He tries to do everything “right” and disclose his status early. Even on his Grindr profile, he identifies as “poz,” slang for HIV-positive.
Still, he says most people ghost him once they find out. “The second I bring it up, it’s ‘No,’” says Nester. “The amount of discrimination you get … it’s always the same pattern. … People don’t know, and they don’t want to know. It messes with you.”
This discrimination may be fueled by a deprioritization of HIV awareness programs across the country. Earlier this month, the U.S. State Department did not commemorate World AIDS Day for the first time in 37 years. HIV prevention programs have been slashed, especially in conservative districts, and only 25 states and D.C. require both HIV and sex education. In many states, health curricula often lag behind current science and omit teaching about PrEP, gay sex and concepts like U=U. Research shows that Gen Z is currently the least educated generation about HIV.
“I could go all day explaining HIV, but people don’t want to listen,” says Nester, who is part of Gen Z. “People don’t want to learn about it; they just want to avoid it.”
HIV anxiety and public stigma shaped by history
Even in more progressive areas, stigma still exists. Damian Jack, a 45-year-old from Brooklyn, remembers sitting in an exam room in 2009 as a doctor explained how low his T-cell count was, which is a hallmark of HIV infection.
“I started hysterically crying,” he told Uncloseted Media. “HIV meant death. That’s what I thought.”
In 1981, when Jack was 1 year old, the first reports of a mysterious and deadly immune deficiency syndrome, which would later be named AIDS, appeared in the U.S. Growing up, Jack saw countless terrifying images of men on their deathbeds with Kaposi sarcoma, the purple lesions the media once called “gay cancer.” Public misinformation and fearmongering spread ideas that AIDS was a disease that “only gay men and drug users get.” And politicians often equated it with homosexuality and moral failure, calling it a “gay plague.” It wasn’t until September 1985, four years after the crisis began and thousands had died, that President Ronald Reagan first publicly mentioned AIDS.
Decades later, the emotional residue of that era and the shame associated with the virus lingers.
Hours after learning of his diagnosis, Jack faced his first encounter with rejection. He already had a date planned that night, and his doctor and friends encouraged him to go.
They had a great time until the date asked him: “Are you negative or positive?”
He told the truth.
“It was just understood there wouldn’t be a second date,” says Jack. “I remember thinking, ‘This is how dating is going to be now.’ I felt so anxious telling guys. It followed me everywhere. I don’t think that anxiety ever truly goes away.”
The emotional impact of HIV stigma
For those who are HIV-negative, experts say that “stigma’s whole design is to ‘other.’”
“The ‘us versus them’ creates that false sense of safety when it comes to HIV,” says Smith. “If I can believe that someone did something to deserve their diagnosis, and I’m not that [kind of person], then I’m safe.”
This othering is painful and can lead to shame, fear and isolation, and it is linked to a higher risk of depression and anxiety.
“If I’m undesirable, and that’s what those messages are communicating, that threatens your sense of safety, your sense of belonging and the fundamental desire we all have to be loved,” Smith says. “And that starts to reinforce the thinking that ‘I am not worthy. This virus that I have means that I’m not lovable. I am not safe showing up among other men.’”
“I pretend it doesn’t hurt, but some things do sting a little bit,” Nester says. “You start thinking, ‘Am I really that disgusting? Am I really that singled out?’”
When public stigma turns inward
“Internalized stigma is what occurs when applying the stereotypes about who gets HIV, the prejudice, the negative feelings, onto yourself,” says Smith.
In 2024, 38 percent of people living with HIV reported internalized stigma. And studies show that it can predict hopelessness and lower quality of life, even when people are engaged in care or virally suppressed.
Internalized stigma can also affect how people practice safe sex and communicate about the virus. A 2019 survey of men who have sex with men found that individuals who perceived greater community-level stigma were less likely to be aware of — and use — safer-sex functions available on dating apps, such as HIV-status disclosure fields, as well as sexual health information and resources.
“[HIV phobia] is probably the most intense, subvert bigotry I think you could experience,” Joseph Monroe Jr., a 48-year-old living in the Bronx, told Uncloseted Media.
On dating apps, men have messaged him things like, “You look like you’ve got that thing” and “Go ahead and infect someone else.”
Monroe has also dealt with misinformed people who rudely opine about how he contracted the virus: “Who fucked you? That’s how you got it, right?” people will say to him.
“You end up internalizing all these stereotypes about who gets HIV — that you were promiscuous, that you didn’t care about yourself, that you did something wrong,” says Smith. “You carry that in, and then you have to relearn: ‘No, I didn’t. This is just a health condition.’”
What HIV acceptance looks like and raising awareness
For those living with HIV, acceptance feels far away.
“You’re living under this threat of HIV and the threat that others find you threatening. It inhabits you socially and sexually,” Koester says. “People are hunkering down. Not putting themselves out there and having a mediocre quality of life. To have a sense of empowerment, you have to be legitimate and seen in the world and it’s hard to do that with the stigma that exists.”
Researchers say the path forward lies as much in conversation as in medicine.
Koester says she talks about HIV and PrEP anywhere she can, including in salons, cafes and restaurants. “Whenever I get into a cab with someone, I’m going to bring up HIV so the driver gets accustomed to hearing about it. … We have a long way to go in terms of exposure and awareness and every little bit helps.”
Part of this lies in increasing awareness through targeted marketing campaigns. PrEP is still profoundly misunderstood outside major urban centers, with uneven uptake among minority groups and usage gaps in the Bible Belt. And a 2022 U.S. survey found that 54.5 percent of people living with HIV didn’t know what U=U meant, and less than half of Americans agree that people living with HIV who are on proper medications cannot transmit the virus.
While eradicating stigma is slow, there is hope for acceptance.
Years after Jack’s diagnosis, in 2021, he told a man he was on a third date with that he was HIV-positive but undetectable. His date’s reply was almost casual:
“Oh — is that it? I thought you were going to say you had a boyfriend or something. I’m on PrEP. You’re fine.”
“It felt so good to hear him say that and accept me,” says Jack. “I was like, ‘This is my person. You’re my person.’” One year later, they got married.
Back in Florida, 19-year-old Cody Nester isn’t feeling this acceptance. He still scrolls past profiles that read “Only negative guys” and tries to ignore the hateful messages.
“It still hurts, but I know it’s coming from fear,” he says. “I wasn’t too informed about HIV before I got it. … When I got it, I really jumped into the rabbit hole and began to learn. I really do think [HIV and stigma] is because people are not knowledgeable. … When people don’t know details, they tend to get scared.”
Additional reporting by Nandika Chatterjee.
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