If I were ever to choose something to describe my HIV-positive status it would not be an acronym.
How hard is it for people to say “positive person” or “positive people”? The element of truth that resonates here for me is the fact that both those terms are indicators of real, living, breathing entities. Too often we get caught up using acronyms and sometimes we forget that all those letters represent words that have meanings. Why do we perpetuate the notion that when we talk about HIV to others we insist that we differentiate ourselves as a group rather than as real individuals? Are we so entrenched in a research model that we can only be seen collectively? Are we saying that everyone is the same and doesn’t that help perpetuate the prejudice and stigma we are all fighting against?
Dehumanizing people has been a tradition among some who prefer not to see individuals but rather groups. This perspective blurs the understanding of “people”, which is a word in of itself that is spurned by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, because using it allows us to forget the inherent needs and wishes of the individual.
Do we not have more power collectively, you ask? Of course we do but we are still positive persons who should be recognized as who we are, not what we are.
Often, without being aware of it, our own community uses language that does not support or affirm the very persons we are trying to help. Sometimes we create a box that packages similar traits and assume this is a reference to all within a certain group, without recognition of nuance or shading. Then to add to this injury we shorten the label to a few letters understood by only those who are part of the cabal.
Is the record of criminalization in this country not enough to show that we perpetuate these stigmas on ourselves? Making me a PHA is imprisoning me in a pre-determined set of values, usually instituted by those with no knowledge of who I really am.