October 29, 2008

New Website Shows Faces of Positive Women in U.S.

Last week, the Southern AIDS Coalition and Test for Life launched a new website called the Southern AIDS Living Quilt (livingquilt.org) to help destigmatize HIV infection among U.S. women, The Times-Picayune reports. The site features video interviews with HIV-positive women, giving them a forum to disclose their status.

One of the first interviewees is Gina Brown, an HIV-positive caseworker for a New Orleans-based AIDS service organization called NO-AIDS Task Force. Brown said that for 11 years no one except relatives and friends knew her status. That changed after Hurricane Katrina, which displaced her to Dallas, where the found the courage to reveal her secret to the world.

When she was diagnosed in 1994, Brown said, HIV/AIDS was still considered “a gay man’s disease. I wish that other women had stood up then, before I became infected, and told me that this disease was a real possibility in my life.”

According to the article, in New Orleans alone, women made up 67 percent of new infections in 2007.

Search: Southern AIDS Coalition, Test for Life, New Orleans, Katrina

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Previous Comments:

Phyllis Marks, New York, 2008-11-21 15:07:11
I'm 66years old and I've been living with Aids since 1986. I had non hodgkins lymphoma in 1991 and so me other challenges today My t cells are 462 and my virile load is undetectalbe. That's something coming from zero T cells and 1million and 4oohundered viral load.I'd love to speak to other positive women so write you have my e-mail address.

Linda Jones, St. Louis, 2008-11-03 12:06:57
kudo's to you Gina keep up the good work. I Love you just for being who you are.

passionatesoul, baltimore, 2008-10-30 22:41:55
i feel as if this is a wonderful thing to do i was diagnosed in 2005 my tcells were 121 now in 2008 my tcells are 568 what a miracle i would love to get invovled in wman living with hiv/aids and submit my story