New York Times Report: Poor And Black Men Are The Face Of HIV/AIDS

The New York Times today published an excellent front-page article on the direction that the HIV/AIDS pandemic has taken in recent years.

The AIDS epidemic in America is rapidly becoming concentrated among poor, young black and Hispanic men who have sex with men. Despite years of progress in preventing and treating H.I.V. in the middle class, the number of new infections nationwide remains stubbornly stuck at 50,000 a year — more and more of them in these men, who make up less than 1 percent of the population. Giselle, a homeless 23-year-old transgender woman with cafe-au-lait skin, could be called the new face of the epidemic. “I tested positive about a year ago,” said Giselle, who was born male but now has a girlish hair spout, wears a T-shirt tight across a feminine chest and identifies herself as a woman. “I don’t know how, exactly. I was homeless. I was escorting. I’ve been raped.” [snip]

Nationally, 25 percent of new infections are in black and Hispanic men, and in New York City it is 45 percent, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the city’s health department. Nationally, when only men under 25 infected through gay sex are counted, 80 percent are black or Hispanic — even though they engage in less high-risk behavior than their white peers. The prospects for change look grim. Critics say little is being done to save this group, and none of it with any great urgency. “There wasn’t even an ad campaign aimed at young black men until last year — what’s that about?” said Krishna Stone, a spokeswoman for GMHC, which was founded in the 1980s as the Gay Men’s Health Crisis.

The article goes on to cite the work of the Ali Forney Center and other organizations struggling to serve young black gay men. Read the full article.