For the first time in history, trans persons are being recognized in the mainstream and their identities are being embraced like never before. Laverne Cox’s cover story for Time and Amazon Prime’s original series Transparent winning four Emmys are examples of this recognition.
Kinda.
Today is National Transgender HIV Testing Day.
Truth is, the trans persons in the media are not representative of the norm. The findings of the National Transgender Discrimination Survey — a survey that collected responses from more than 6,000 transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals — give a clearer picture, and it’s not pretty. The authors of this study found trans persons faced adversity in almost all aspects of life, from experiencing double the rate of unemployment to suffering through a high rate of violent attacks (26 percent and 10 percent of the respondents reported being physically and sexually assaulted, respectively) because of their gender identities. Among all these results, I found one to be particularly unsettling:
“Respondents reported over four times the national average of HIV infection, with rates higher among transgender people of color.”
To me, a person born after the AIDS epidemic of the ’80s and privileged with a world that now has readily accessible condoms and HIV prevention medication (i.e., Truvada), HIV seemed like a relic of the past. Examining the amount of new HIV infections in the cisgender population (0.4 percent for females and 1.2 percent for males), this is an easy assumption to make. I was wrong. Other studies echoed the large disparities of HIV incidence and prevalence in trans persons. One systematic review uncovered four studies that found that 24.8 to 30.6 percent of male-to-female (MTF) transgender persons tested positive for HIV. Another study — conducted in Ontario, Canada — sampled 433 trans persons and found 7 percent of female-to-male (FTM) transgender persons and 19 percent of MTF persons had a high-risk sexual experience in the last year. Yet another found that 35 percent of MTF persons (and 2 percent of FTM persons) had HIV, and again, persons of color — in this case, African-American identified individuals — were at a greater risk. Indeed, in this study, African-American trans persons (FTM and MTF) were approximately three to 12 times more likely to have HIV. Given these data, the cynic in me questions, “Is anyone even trying to prevent HIV in trans persons?” Continue reading