As HIV Rates Fall Nationally, Latinx Communities Remain Disproportionately Impacted. Why?

Bay Curious, KQED’s podcast that explores the Bay Area’s unique local legends, interesting landmarks and uncovered histories, is inviting listeners to take off their headphones and take a walk in a park.

On Nov. 4 and 5, our journalists will take small groups on guided tours of the National AIDS Memorial Grove in Golden Gate Park, where they’ll tell stories about the formation of the memorial, known as The Grove. Along the way, there will be performances reflecting on the people who are remembered in the space.

Overall, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, has declined in the United States by 6% since 2010. But there’s been an escalation of new infections — 14% — in the Latinx community, particularly among gay and bisexual men. According to 2019 data from the CDC, Hispanic Americans accounted for almost 30% of new HIV infections while making up only about 18% of the country’s population.

In California, about 40% of residents identify as Hispanic or Latino, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

Francisco Buchting, vice president of grants, programs and communications at Horizons Foundation, which invests in LGBTQ nonprofits, told KQED there is a stigma about HIV in the Latinx community.

“When HIV first started, it was the ‘gay cancer,’” he said. “Even in the present, it continues — homophobia — in parts of our community.”

In the 1980s, the face of the HIV movement was white, gay men. That, consequently, often left minorities absent from research literature, outreach initiatives and early treatment. In addition to homophobia, the entrenched religious beliefs in the Latinx diaspora contributed to the stigmatization of HIV.

Moral judgments about male same-gender relationships and fears of contagion dominated the public religious response during the first five or six years of the HIV epidemic, according to the National Center for Biotechnology Information. Additionally, the cultural value of machismo may create reluctance to acknowledge risky behaviors such as male-to-male sexual contact or substance misuse, according to the CDC.

Esperanza Macias, policy and communications director with the Instituto Familiar de La Raza, a San Francisco organization that promotes health in the Latino community, said gay Latin men often had to combat living outside of the stereotypes of being a dominant alpha male because they would face harassment and assault.

“A lot of men met in areas that ended up not being safe. That was the only way that they were able to explore their sexuality,” Macias said. “And, unfortunately, it was an unsafe way. And because they weren’t able to share that with their partners, oftentimes, their partners would also get HIV.”

The 2019 CDC data found that both Hispanic men and women were four times as likely to have AIDS — the condition caused by HIV — as compared to white men and women. It also found that Hispanic men were twice as likely to die of HIV infection than non-Hispanic white men, while Hispanic women were three times as likely to die than non-Hispanic white women.

Buchting told KQED that a growing shift in recent decades to abstinence-only sex education in the U.S. and Latin America, fueled by conservatism and religion, complicated HIV prevention efforts.

“I think within the religion piece, especially in the space that I fund internationally, we look at religious fundamentalism as one of the driving forces for this — [the] safe, secure, legal access to comprehensive reproductive rights, including abortion or LGBTI rights,” he added.

Macias, who has worked to teach youth of color about sexually transmitted diseases like HIV, said the push for abstinence messaging wasn’t good for the health of young people who have hormones and are naturally curious.