KNOWhomo

LGBTQ* KNOW Your Status

Statistics from AIDS.gov

Gay, Bisexual, and Other

Men Who Have Sex with Men (MSM):

By risk group, gay, bisexual, and other MSM of all races remain the population most severely affected by HIV.

• MSM account for more than half (53%) of all new HIV infections in the U.S. each year, as well as nearly half (48%) of people living with HIV.
• While CDC estimates that MSM account for just 4% of the U.S. male population aged 13 and older, the rate of new HIV diagnoses among MSM in the U.S. is more than 44 times that of other men and more than 40 times that of women.
• White MSM account for the largest number of annual new HIV infections of any group in the U.S., followed closely by black MSM.
• MSM is the only risk group in the U.S. in which new HIV infections have been increasing since the early 1990s.

Note: You sexual education is often left to your own research. Many schools do not provide strong Sexual Education classes. More schools do not offer any safe sex information for the LGBTQ* community. 

Educate Yourself. 

Be an example. Be a better person. Be Safe!

To find an HIV/AIDS testing center near you, check in with the National HIV and STD Testing Resource Page.

LGBTQ* Bans and Health Codes 

Since 1983, during the advancing years of HIV/AIDS scare, the FAC (Federal Advisory Committee) has placed a ban on gay* men donating blood. When filling out the blood donation questionnaire provided, donors are asked (if male) if they have slept with another male since 1977. If they answer yes, they are then told they cannot donate.

The FAC will be reviewing the policy again in the next few years (it failed to overturn the ban in 2010). 

KNOW Your Status.

KNOW Your Partner’s Status.

KNOWledge! 

GYT (Get Yourself Tested)

National HIV and STD Testing Resource page: http://www.hivtest.org/

LGBTQ* KNOW Your Status

Statistics from AIDS.gov

Gay, Bisexual, and Other

Men Who Have Sex with Men (MSM):

By risk group, gay, bisexual, and other MSM of all races remain the population most severely affected by HIV.

• MSM account for more than half (53%) of all new HIV infections in the U.S. each year, as well as nearly half (48%) of people living with HIV.
• While CDC estimates that MSM account for just 4% of the U.S. male population aged 13 and older, the rate of new HIV diagnoses among MSM in the U.S. is more than 44 times that of other men and more than 40 times that of women.
• White MSM account for the largest number of annual new HIV infections of any group in the U.S., followed closely by black MSM.
• MSM is the only risk group in the U.S. in which new HIV infections have been increasing since the early 1990s.

Note: You sexual education is often left to your own research. Many schools do not provide strong Sexual Education classes. More schools do not offer any safe sex information for the LGBTQ* community. 

Educate Yourself. 

Be an example. Be a better person. Be Safe!

To find an HIV/AIDS testing center near you, check in with the National HIV and STD Testing Resource Page.

December 1st — World Aids Day

Learn. Educate. Live.

LGBTQ* Allies You Should Know

(and probably never heard of)

ZELDA RUBINSTEIN

(following text from ADVOCATE)

The fearless contributions of one tough “mother.

Back in 1984, when the mere mention of aids induced panic, Poltergeistactress Zelda Rubinstein did something truly brave by lending her face to one of the first state-funded safe-sex campaigns directed at gay men.

Posters depicting Rubinstein as a caring mom urging her “sons” to play safe were plastered all over Los Angeles’s buses and buildings before going national and then international-they were spotted on phone booths as far away as Madrid.

“I paid a very big price careerwise,” Rubinstein says of the attention, which predated Elizabeth Taylor’s and Madonna’s AIDS involvement by at least a year.

A quarter century after their debut, Rubinstein’s posters have found a second life — no séances required. Physician Irene Adams, an AIDS specialist in Brazil, is bringing Mother’s lessons to her nation as part of a new youth outreach initiative.

The 76-year-old Rubinstein is ready to help once again: “I would do a fund-raiser for this cause anywhere in the world.

(Rubinstein passed in 2010)

Photographer and Subjects Unknown

Taken in San Francisco in the 1980s.

—from the documentary We Were Here  about the early days of HIV/AIDS in the U.S.A. 

AIDS MEMORIAL QUILT NATIONAL DISPLAY SCHEDULE