Get It Straight: Being Gay + Testing For HIV = Fear

If you are a gay man, you will understand this; if you are a straight person and do not have a close gay friend (if that is your situation you should re-think your life, gay friends can teach you a lot -just saying) it’s time for you to know this:

Being gay and get tested for HIV sucks.

Since the first reported cases of HIV-AIDS in the 80’s in the US and around the World, anti-gay campaigns and media sensationalism have spread the idea that the infection was only for people with homosexual tendencies, specially men. Misinformation, fear and ignorance filled everyone’s mind.

In the US the estimated incidence of HIV has remained stable overall in recent years, at about 50,000 new HIV infections per year. Luckily now you can live a long life with it. But we are still afraid. I know that gay and bisexual men are the vast majority of the cases, but that is not the point of this post. Today I just want to share my experience.

Going to take the test for the first time was one of the hardest things I have had to do. I could not tell anybody. I had had a sexual encounter with somebody I did not know. Not unprotected, but it had been with a guy, so I was supposed to get tested. I went to a doctor and I told him I wanted to do a blood test to control my cholesterol and, hey, why not a HIV test, too.I could not tell him I was gay, but I did say I had sex with somebody I had just met. I needed his prescription to take it to the clinic. I went and had my blood drawn, that was the easy part. The hard part was to wait, wait and wait. It took six days for the results to be ready, but it felt like a million.

Going back to the clinic I could not stop thinking about how much easier it would be with a friend at my side. But nobody knew I was gay, so I had no other choice. I was sure that everything would be fine, aren’t they obligated to call you if there is something wrong?- I was trying to control my nerves. I could not stop shaking. I handed over the receipt and they gave me the results. I went outside and started walking. I could not open the envelope. By the corner I encouraged myself to do it. I read everything else and by the last page, the one with the HIV test, I was paralyzed. -What is going to happen if I am positive?, I will have to tell my parents that I am gay and that I have AIDS, I will move to a small town, Should I leave school?- So many things popped into my head. Despair. Anxiety. Hate. Fear, strong, deep fear. I was a child alone confronting his worst enemy. I thought about people saying -He had it coming, he is gay you know- and even worst things.

Time went fast. I realized I had been at that corner for 20 minutes. I had to do it. I knew I was not strong enough, but did I have another choice? No. So I did it. “HIV non reactive”. I cried. I cried all the way to my therapy appointment. I had therapy that day. Coincidence? I called my dad to tell him about how good my cholesterol was. I wanted to celebrate my negative results, but because I could not say that, I just celebrated being healthy. I went to therapy and I told my therapist I was gay. She was the first straight person to know it.

Years passed and I kept testing once a year. By the third year of doing it I started wondering -Why should the LGBTQ community be more scared of being tested than straight people? All my friends were straight, they had unprotected sex and they did not do annual blood tests. They were not afraid. I had the misconception that you could have the virus for three years without appearing in the test -the so called window period-. So there was no relaxing time for me. I would have been so much more relieved if I had known that the real period was only three to six months.

Every test was as scary as the first one. And not because I had unprotected sex. It was because of the news and the ignorance. My ignorance and collective public ignorance. And it was because of fear. Fear did not allow me to do research and know the real ways you can contract HIV (kissing is NOT one of them), or that HIV does not mean AIDS or that I could live with AIDS- for me it was the equivalent of a death sentence and that is a very unfortunate feeling for the people who live with it. Fear did not allow me to tell people that I was gay until I was 22 years old. Fear was my worst enemy, not HIV. And the Media was his sidekick.

Now that I am married that fear has gone away. But I remember it vividly. Today thanks to the amazing new campaigns I can say that a lot of my friends, gay and straight (and everyone in between) get tested regularly and are careful. These campaigns have been helping society to stay more informed and set aside malformed judgements. HIV is not a gay disease anymore. But I still feel uncomfortable when someone is tested, even on tv. I still fear the worst. But at least I know that for some time now, it is not just our fight. We are not outcasts as LGBTQ people anymore. Today there are fewer people scared to share who they really are. Today there are less people going to have the HIV test with no companion. Today we are not alone.