Today is World AIDS Day. Aids.gov and The National Institute on Drug Abuse are asking bloggers to "Unite for World AIDS Day 2008." I am posting a few videos below as well as some helpful resources. As always, feel free to post reactions in the comments section. I would also like to invite all of the contributors to share your thoughts and experiences in a new posts. I'm trying to gather my thoughts.
Find an HIV Testing Site near you.
World AIDS Day: http://www.worldaidscampaign.org/
AIDS.gov: http://aids.gov/
AIDS.gov Blog: http://blog.aids.gov/
Alliance Library System: http://www.alliancelibrarysystem.com/
Alliance Virtual Library: http://infoisland.org/
Health Info Island Blog: http://healthinfoisland.blogspot.com/
Info Island Blog: http://infoisland.org/
National Library of Medicine: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/
Sexual Health Sim in SL: http://sl-sexualhealth.org.uk/
Metaverse Messenger (article): http://www.metaversemessenger.com/
pdf/2008/10/MM20081014.pdf
2 comments:
Before I check out the videos and other media associated with this post, I want to let readers know you can get tested for FREE at your local health department. Someone very close to me is director of public health for a major urban city's health department. She informed me most health departments test for free all of the time. If the service is not free, it is pro-rated based upon income. Worse case scenario, HIV/AIDS testing will be free today ONLY in honor/support of WAD.
Also, while you are present, go ahead and get screened/tested for all other STIs. Worse case scenario here, this may not be a free/pro-rated service.
KNOW YOUR STATUS!
I love the videos. And if I weren't waiting with bated breath to head to the airport I would try to attend an event today.
This day, and the events happening, is the final inspiration for me to (officially) rejoin my sisterhood. I miss doing these events.
So I'm going to be honest. I do know my status--but I only got tested recently. I actually never thought about getting tested before because I was on the "it could never happen to me"/"my bf is so faithful" meme. Which is stupid for a variety of reasons, all the reasons you can think of.
Those were the most nerve-wracking 20 minutes ever. I was with Diva Feminist and another soror, and at one point all I kept thinking was, "What if it is positive? What are they going to think? This seemed like a good idea at the time..."
World AIDS Day is important to me personally for a variety of reasons. Because I think a lot of quarter-age females think like me and don't bother to get tested. Because it offers up a day where getting tested is like voting--you're a dummy if you DON'T do it and you get looked at like a dummy if you don't have your Know Your Status sticker. Because it offers up free tests, in the streets, at your workplace, at the community center--basically in your path so that you have no excuses not to take the fifteen to twenty minutes and get tested.
And especially because it lets those who do test positive--or have those minutes of total nervousness during the wait period of the test--know that even if they are positive, there are resources, people, and a community out there than can help.
The stigma is still there. There is the new "Down Lo" stigma and the "all Africans and Haitians have AIDS stigma." And for me, there is still some 80s baby "Gay disease" stigma that I have worked out in an academic sense but may not have fully internalized. There is a lot that I need to learn, a lot of people I know need to support better, and activity in the community in general I need to push myself to be involved in. For my own sake and for others. It is a process.
But World AIDS Day is so crucial and so important still. Because at least for one day, the whole world is talking about it. And the more difficult the conversation, the more we are learning from it.
Let's get stuff done.
*This comment is practically a blog post, sorry IC.
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