Women and HIV/AIDS

Many women have been infected with the HIV/AIDS virus. The majority of HIV/AIDS cases in women are directly influenced by high-risk sexual activities, injectional drug use, the spread of medical misinformation, and the lack of adequate reproductive health resources in the United States.[1] Women of color, LGBT women, homeless women, women in the sex trade, and women intravenous drug users are at a high-risk for contracting the HIV/AIDS virus.[2][3][4] In an article published by the Annual Review of Sociology, Celeste Watkins Hayes, an American sociologist, scholar, and professor wrote, "Women are more likely to be forced into survival-focused behaviors such as transactional sex for money, housing, protection, employment, and other basic needs; power-imbalanced relationships with older men; and other partnerings in which they cannot dictate the terms of condom use, monogamy, or HIV."[1][2] The largest motivator to become part of the sex trade was addiction, the second largest being basic needs (housing, food), and the third was to support their children/family.[5]

From the start of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the U.S., women have been excluded and erased from the medical, governmental, and societal institutions that aim to prevent and treat HIV/AIDS.[6] Initially, the medical community in the U.S. deemed lesbian, bisexual and queer women, as well as women who have sex with women (WSW), immune to the HIV/AIDS virus.[3] Although this was later corrected, the spread of such false information had resulted in many women engaging in high risk sexual activities, due to the belief that they were unable to contract the HIV/AIDS virus.[3] Lesbian, bisexual, and queer women who become infected with HIV/AIDS are statistically classified in the U.S. as heterosexual, intravenous drug, or indefinable transmission, despite the fact that it could have been contracted from another woman.[3] Lesbian, bisexual, and queer women who are infected with the HIV/AIDS virus through sexual assault by men are also statistically categorized as heterosexual transmission.[3] Transgender women are also especially vulnerable to HIV/AIDS transmission due to socioecological barriers that impact access to resources.[7] Women with HIV/AIDS have been excluded from medical studies, clinical trials, financial grants, reproductive health resources, and an adequate HIV education.[2] Women with the HIV/AIDS virus got less attention from medical, governmental, and societal institutions because of the focus on men with the HIV/AIDS virus.[6]

  1. ^ a b Watkins-Hayes, Celeste (2014-07-30). "Intersectionality and the Sociology of HIV/AIDS: Past, Present, and Future Research Directions". Annual Review of Sociology. 40 (1): 431–457. doi:10.1146/annurev-soc-071312-145621. ISSN 0360-0572.
  2. ^ a b c Pinkham, Sophie; Malinowska-Sempruch, Kasia (2008). "Women, Harm Reduction and HIV". Reproductive Health Matters. 16 (31): 168–181. doi:10.1016/s0968-8080(08)31345-7. ISSN 0968-8080. PMID 18513618. S2CID 41960235.
  3. ^ a b c d e Logie, Carmen H.; Gibson, Margaret F. (2013). "A mark that is no mark? Queer women and violence in HIV discourse". Culture, Health & Sexuality. 15 (1): 29–43. doi:10.1080/13691058.2012.738430. ISSN 1369-1058. PMID 23140506. S2CID 205797540.
  4. ^ Logan, Jennifer L.; Frye, Alison; Pursell, Haley O.; Anderson-Nathe, Michael; Scholl, Juliana E.; Korthuis, P. Todd (2013). "Correlates of HIV Risk Behaviors Among Homeless and Unstably Housed Young Adults. Public health reports". Public Health Reports. 128 (3): 153–160. doi:10.1177/003335491312800305. PMC 3610067. PMID 23633730.
  5. ^ Footer, Katherine H. A., Rebecca Hamilton White, Ju Nyeong Park, Michele R. Decker, Alexandra Lutnick, and Susan G. Sherman. “Entry to Sex Trade and Long-Term Vulnerabilities of Female Sex Workers Who Enter the Sex Trade Before the Age of Eighteen.” Journal of urban health 97, no. 3 (2020): 406–417.
  6. ^ a b "A history of HIV/AIDS in women: Shifting narrative and a structural call to arms". American Psychological Association. Retrieved 2019-04-23.
  7. ^ Jain, Jennifer P., Miranda Hill, Kristi E. Gamarel, Glenn-Milo Santos, Mallory O. Johnson, Torsten B. Neilands, Samantha E. Dilworth, Cathy J. Reback, and Jae Sevelius. “Socio-Ecological Barriers to Viral Suppression Among Transgender Women Living with HIV in San Francisco and Los Angeles, California.” AIDS and behavior (2023).