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National Gay Men’s HIV/AIDS Awareness Day 2021 – POZ

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Monday, September 27, marks National Gay Men’s HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (NGMHAAD) 2021. “Each year on this day, we direct attention to the continuing and disproportionate impact of HIV on gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men in the United States,” writes Demetre Daskalakis, MD, MPH, a gay doctor and activist who leads HIV prevention efforts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in an opinion piece on HIV.gov.

“As we continue to work together during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic,” he writes, “we strengthen our commitment to ending the HIV epidemic by expanding HIV testing, prevention and treatment, and reducing HIV stigma. To succeed, we will need to increase efforts supporting gay and bisexual men, who bear the greatest burden of new HIV infections.… The disruption of traditional HIV testing services over the last 19 months has made self-testing a great option for some people to take an HIV test, learn their status, and get the benefits of today’s prevention and treatment tools.”

Sample posts and tweets about the awareness day are embedded throughout this article. For more, and to find events near you, search #GMHAAD.

The CDC created a fact sheet titled “HIV and Gay and Bisexual Men” that’s available as a PDF full of infographics. The latest data show that:

  • In 2019, about 1.2 million people were living with HIV in the United States. Of those, 754,700 were gay and bisexual men.
  • Gay and bisexual men accounted for 69% of new HIV diagnoses in 2019 in the United States. In other words, 25,552 of the total 36,801 new HIV cases were among men who have sex with men.
  • Among the gay and bisexual men who tested HIV positive in 2019, 37% (9,421 men) were African American, 32% (8,223) were Latino, 25% (6,489) were white, 2% (629) were multiracial, 2% (592) were Asian, 1% (141) were American Indian/Alaska Native and less than 1% (57) were Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander.
  • From 2015 to 2019, HIV diagnoses decreased 9% among gay and bisexual men, although this included a 5% increase among men 55 and older and a 31% increase among American Indian and Alaska Natives.
  • Compared with all people diagnosed with HIV, gay and bisexual men are more likely to be undetectable. In fact, 78% received some care, 59% were retained in care and 68% were virally suppressed.

The CDC further breaks down HIV data for African-American gay and bisexual men as well as Latino gay and bisexual men.

“Racism, HIV stigma and homophobia can negatively impact risk-taking behaviors, knowledge of HIV status, HIV care and other needed services for many African-American gay and bisexual men,” writes the CDC, adding that “African-American gay and bisexual men have lower percentages of viral suppression compared to gay and bisexual men of other races/ethnicities. Because of the low percentages of viral suppression, the higher prevalence of HIV in that population, and the greater likelihood of having sexual partners of the same race, compared with other races/ethnicities, African-American gay and bisexual men are at greater risk of being exposed to HIV.”

“Latino gay and bisexual men are more likely to report that their last sex partner was older, compared to white or African-American gay and bisexual men,” writes the CDC. “Having older partners may increase the likelihood of being exposed to HIV because an older partner is more likely to have had more sexual partners or other risks and is more likely to have HIV.”

Visit CDC.gov to download NGMHAAD graphics you can share on social media; you’ll also find sample text you can include in your posts and tweets, in both English and Spanish. For example:

Facebook: Today is National Gay Men’s HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, a day to stop HIV stigma and to #StartTalkingHIV: talk about testing, condoms, PrEP, and medicines that treat HIV. https://bit.ly/2WM4q4U #NGMHAAD #StopHIVTogether

Twitter: Hoy es el Día Nacional de Concientización sobre el VIH/SIDA Entre los Hombres Gais, un día para detener el estigma del VIH. #IniciaHablandoVIH: habla sobre las pruebas, condones, PrEP, y las medicinas que tratan el VIH. https://bit.ly/3yyOu2Y #NGMHAAD #DetengamosJuntoselVIH

Instagram: Today is National Gay Men’s HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, a day to stop HIV stigma and to #StartTalkingHIV: talk about testing, condoms, PrEP, and medicines that treat HIV. #NGMHAAD #StopHIVTogether

To read a collection of stories in POZ related to men who have sex with men, click the hashtags #Gay and #LGBTQ. You’ll find articles such as: