I was recently recommended to watch a show called It’s A Sin, and I binged the entire thing within five hours.
If you haven’t heard of it before, It’s A Sin is a five-episode miniseries which follows a group of gay men who move to London in 1981, but the fast-developing HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United Kingdom impacts their lives.
I believe everyone can take a lesson or two away from this show: whether you’re straight, gay, lesbian, doesn’t matter. Chances are, you may not know as much about the HIV/AIDS epidemic as much as you think you do.
And before you keep reading, this isn’t a review or a recap. In fact, this post won’t contain any spoilers at all — because I think everyone can benefit from watching this show, and my writing can’t do the show justice.
Instead, the show highlights an important lesson many of the viewers take away with them when they finish watching.
This lesson is one of the most important ones many LGBT activists are still fighting to end: stop making assumptions or judging those who are living with HIV/AIDS.
Many people today still make others feel ashamed for living with HIV — roughly one in eight people who are diagnosed with HIV are denied health services due to the stigma around it.
While the stigma today isn’t the same as it was during the time period in It’s A Sin, we can’t pretend everyone is welcoming those who do have it with open arms. Because after all, that isn’t the truth. If I told you I have HIV, which I don’t, how would you react? Would you be confused, angry, disgusted, and stop being my friend? or would you be empathetic, caring, and understanding?
The human brain likes to tell ourselves we would be empathetic and understanding. But you won’t know the true answer until you’re put in that situation yourself.
“Whenever AIDS has won, stigma, shame, distrust, discrimination and apathy was on its side. Every time AIDS has been defeated, it has been because of trust, openness, dialogue between individuals and communities, family support, human solidarity, and the human perseverance to find new paths and solutions.”
Michel Sidibé, Executive Director of UNAIDS
During the 1980’s, the time period in which It’s A Sin is set in, almost nobody knew anything about HIV/AIDS (at the time it was called the “gay flu”) and how it was transmitted. This meant people were afraid of those who were sick and would avoid them like the plague. And when people would die of eventual AIDS, their family would say they died of pneumonia or cancer.
The fear people have against those who are living with HIV/AIDS also means that a lot of people falsely believe that:
- HIV/AIDS is a death sentence: while there was no cure or treatment for HIV/AIDS in the 1980’s, many people who are diagnosed with HIV today go on to live normal life expectancies, just like you and I. And those who take their medication prescribed daily, will eventually get an undetectable viral load, meaning they will not be able to transmit HIV to an HIV-negative person.
- HIV is only transmitted through sex: incorrect. HIV can be transmitted in various ways, by coming into direct contact with certain body fluids: blood, semen, rectal or vaginal fluids, and breast milk. For transmission to actually happen, these fluids must enter an HIV-negative person’s body through the rectum, vagina, mouth, tip of the penis, open cuts or sores, or by direct injection (needles).
- HIV is the result of personal irresponsibility or moral fault: many people who are living with HIV aren’t aware they have it. Approximately 1.4 million people in the U.S. are living with HIV, and 14 per cent aren’t aware of it. To save you the math, that’s 196,000 people who are unknowingly transmitting HIV to other people. So, no, HIV isn’t the result of irresponsibility. An HIV diagnosis doesn’t make someone dirty or irresponsible. You don’t know until you get tested.
In It’s A Sin, the stigma around HIV/AIDS is heartbreaking to watch — because it’s difficult to put yourself in those shoes. But it opens up a conversation more of us need to be having. And while it’s a cliché, don’t judge a book by its cover. You never know what someone who is living with HIV/AIDS may be going through.
Leave your ignorance at the door. It isn’t welcome in 2021.
To learn more about the HIV/AIDS stigma, click here.
To donate to AIDS United, click here.
To watch It’s A Sin on Prime Video (for my fellow Canadians), click here.
THE GAY BIBLE 