wrt ‘hivliving’ i really hope no one treats it like a joke or silly tumblr thing, because this girl hurt people – she used her made-up identities to insert herself into conversations she should’ve never been a part of, and the backlash of this is going to hurt even more people that are actually HIV+ and trafficking survivours. it’s going to make people less likely to be believed, and have a knock-on effect with people not donating to those that really need it, because people will just assume they’re faking.
I know a lot of us are suffering from alarm fatigue because of this sort of thing constantly happening (people lying about their identities on Tumblr dot hell in order to talk over minorities), but actual HIV+ people are really negatively affected by this.
If anyone is looking for educational resources, Pozmagazine on tumblr (US-based) has fantastic articles and it’s an award-winning online and print magazine that’s been around since 1994, so you don’t have to worry about people faking for discourse cred.
If you have the ability to volunteer at your local gay men’s health centre (this one is UK-based), DO IT.
Please don’t lose hope because of some assholes online. Please keep supporting the HIV+ people in your life.
thanks so much for providing resources. at a time like this, and in the current political climate, we need to look out and care for each other more than ever.
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Mooncustafer 