Heterosexism and HIV

Cases of systematic oppression can be found all throughout history. With continuum of time the type of oppressive system usually changes as well, but the same basic patterns can be seen again and again. Put simply, larger, more powerful groups in society will view themselves as superior based on their majority-rules mentality. Moreover, the often-skewed opinions of these groups tend to become more encouraged when various stereotypes come into play. Sure, most existing stereotypes have some level of truth to them (if they didn't, where would they have come from in the first place?), but then again they can only tell us so much about a certain group of people before they become unreliable.

A prime example of what is described above is oppressive heterosexism, at least when it comes to dealing with the AIDS epidemic. Even before the emergence of HIV, homosexuals endured a never-ending amount of stigma and oppression because they were a well-defined minority (on a global perspective), and because the church largely influenced the opinions of people in society when it came to sexual orientation. In other words, the homosexual community was already worldly looked-down on before HIV even came into the picture. Then when it appeared that the only HIV cases resided in gay men, the oppression was further encouraged.

It seems to me that the blame for heterosexism should be placed on global ignorance. For instance, AIDS was originally called GRIDS--"Gay Related Immune Definciency Syndrome"--because society had no idea what actually caused the disease and didn't know it could be spread to women and innocent children as well. Thus, with no evidence to disprove the stereotypical theories people were free to blame the AIDS outbreak on the gay lifestyle, assuming it was the result of "bad morals". Since the discovery of the HIV virus and how it works the oppression against the non-straight community has lessoned some--at least in the United States--but unfortunately we still have a way to go because a lot of the stigma with gay men and AIDS still exists today. If more people knew more about the disease and how it is spread (or, rather, prevented), I feel the number of annual cases could decrease. People seem to be becoming more educated here in our country, so to better the current situation the world's best bet would be to reach out to poorer countries that might not know as much as they should. Prevent one case, and you will prevent many more!