Also missing from the messaging around HIV is that for a long time, people thought it was a gay disease that had nothing to do with women, and it wasn’t their business, she said.
“Now we’re finding out that it’s sitting right here in the middle of the heterosexual community … . It’s not that Black woman is doing something that other races aren’t doing, but the Black woman has more vulnerabilities to contracting this virus that is the positive proof of the socio-economic disparities,” she argued.
HIV/AIDS is still on fire among Black females 13 to 24 years old and older women, according to attorney Vanessa Johnson of the Positive Women’s Network-USA, the National Black Women’s HIV/AIDS Network, and the National Women and AIDS Collective.
“The young people, because they haven’t lived long enough, and in addition to that, if they’ve had traumatic family or life experiences, trust is an issue,” she said. “Older women are still believing that ‘I’m not one of those people that HIV would impact.’ They still think it’s gay men or sex workers or trans-women, everybody but a churchgoing women,” Atty. Johnson explained.
Also impacted are women in their 30s and 40s, who are transitioning in their relationships, as well as divorce and marriage rates, which Atty. Johnson labeled “weird.”
“It could be married, unmarried, or a lot of women think if ‘I’m with this man, then I’m okay,’ but then they might have had four relationships in a year,” she said.
“And then there’s still the issue of married women who believe that because they’re married, they’re protected, or women in long-term relationships that believe because they’ve been with this man forever, that that’s not going to happen to us … . But at the end of the day … unless you’re walking around with his genitalia in your pocketbook, how do you know?” Atty. Johnson asked.
She continued, “I think the canary in the mine is sexually transmitted diseases, and those are off the chain, particularly among young people.” She citied chlamydia as particularly dangerous because it could lead to sterility, but people overlook it because it’s not associated with death, she said.
“With HIV, we have treatment, but it’s treatment for life. … HIV is a robber. It robs families, communities, and future generations, because the connections are not being made,” she said.