HIV and Stigma Responses, Essay Example

Question: How do individuals diagnosed with HIV/AIDs perceive of stigma and how does enacted stigma impact their self and their identity?

Stigma attached to HIV/AIDs has increasingly been pinpointed as a prohibitive factor in the identification, treatment, and prevention of the illness despite the fact that stigma has declined since the epidemic broke out during the 1980s. The experience of being stigmatized germinates when individuals become the targets of discrimination in addition to, at the community and macro levels, the acceptability of prejudice to manifest. As such, those with HIV/AIDs anticipate the stigma attached to their conditions and view themselves as the target of prejudicial behavior. Negative sequelae manifest as a result of the stressor of stigma for having HIV/AIDS. The adverse impact of stigma on stigmatized individuals necessitates stigma to be framed as an outcome. Interestingly, stigma attached to HIV/AIDS is far different than the stigma attached to illnesses such as cancer and thus impact the self of the afflicted in dissonant manners. HIV/AIDS retains a more pejorative stigma due to the fact that the means of transmission are rendered non-normative and repudiated social behaviors such as through drug needles, man on man sexual intercourse, and having a large volume of sexual partners. Moreover, the aforementioned behaviors are voluntary ones, so those who are infected are perceived as being responsible for their disease. Such victim blaming is bolstered by religious perceptions about the AIDS epidemic. As such, it is unequivocal that societal factors can spawn changes in the self and must be taken into consideration when implementing interventions that are effective and productive in the abatement of stigma.

Response paper 1: Response paper one does a great job summarizing all of the articles and pinpointing the structural mechanisms that undergird community efforts to combat the stigmatization of those  living with HIV/AIDS. I think you could expound on victim blaming of those with HIV/AIDS for why they are blamed. Voluntary behaviors such as using unclean needles for drugs as well as homosexual sex. In addition, there needs to be a longer discussion of the stigma attached to African-American individuals with regards to the transmission of HIV/AIDS. Does race play a factor in the stigmatization of African-Americans and the higher prevalence of AID/AIDS? Or is there a more biological explanation? Teasing out the etiology of stigma for certain populations with regards to HIV/AIDS would provide nuance to your response paper. Washington notes how African-Americans are perceived to be vectors of HIV/AIDS that directly threatened the health of the white community (Washington 326). Parker and Aggleton underscore how stigma feeds on, bolsters, and reproduces racial inequities among many others.

Response Paper 2: This paper provides a good summary of the weekly literature with regards to LGB identity and the stigma attached to it at the micro and macro levels. While you provide many suggestions for confronting challenges to social cohesion and the dismantling of stigma attached to homosexuality, there should be a more in-depth discussion of the causal role rumination plays within the stigma-distress relationship. It is interesting that when an individual recalled an event of discrimination that the distress was prolonged.