Category: Health and Fitness
Challenge: Pledge to get yourself tested
Sponsor: Face AIDS
Action: I pledged and got tested last week. Glad to know my status so that I can make safe and responsible decisions!
Austin's Thoughts:
I realized that although I consider myself an advocate for counseling and testing, I had never been tested myself! So I sat down at my computer the other night, logged onto my university’s health services site, and scheduled an appointment to be tested for HIV. That evening at dinner I told my friends that I was going to get tested and that they should too. Conversation at the table froze. “But what if someone knew you were getting tested?” one of my best friends quietly asked. “Like maybe a girl would find out and start a rumor about you that you were HIV+ and then no one would want to go near you.”
I responded that knowing your status prepares you to make safe and responsible decisions. HIV is no longer a death sentence in the West as it once was. My friends murmured their assent, said they might get tested, and went back to dinner.
It wasn’t until later that night that I realized what that conversation meant. Here I am at an incredible university (Stanford) that prides itself on reason, acceptance, and its progressive attitude, yet old stigmas that surround HIV remain entrenched in young, extraordinarily intelligent students! And less that 30 miles from San Francisco, one of the American epicenters of the virus in the 1980’s! I went to bed disturbed, but resolute in my conviction for the need for testing on campuses across the country. If we can’t squash the stigma surrounded by testing at home, how can we hope to do so abroad? We must confront our own prejudices about HIV/AIDS before we can effectively promote HIV-related services abroad. Getting tested was my way of beginning that process.
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