When I was released from prison, in January 2011, I knew that I needed a new life plan. I was now not only a gay black man with HIV, but also a convicted felon and registered sex offender. My career had been in the state appellate court system, but they could not hire a convicted felon.
Should It Be a Crime to Have Sex While Living With HIV?
Today’s article is a response by guest columnist Mark Hubbard to “Should It Be a Crime to Expose One to HIV?” an article appearing on TheRoot.com by The Root contributer Keli Goff. “Should It Be a Crime to Have Sex While Living With HIV?”
US: ACLU supports the REPEAL HIV Discrimination Act
While science has vastly advanced since the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic more than 30 years ago, the ways in which many criminal laws treat people living with HIV look like throwbacks to the dark days of the past when fear and misinformation about HIV and how it is transmitted wer…
US: Advocate editorial supports REPEAL HIV Discrimination Act
This past week, U.S. representative Barbara Lee reintroduced a bill to repeal HIV criminalization laws across the nation, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. Earlier this year, LGBT people went on red alert when a public health bill in Kansas proposed that people living with HIV could be quarantined.
Lambda Legal Urges Congress to Pass the REPEAL HIV Discrimination Act
Lambda Legal is voicing its support the REPEAL HIV Discrimination Act, which would encourage states to reconsider laws and practices that unfairly target people with HIV for consensual sex and conduct that poses no real risk of HIV transmission. Scott Schoettes, Lambda Legal’s HIV Project Director, says: “The more messages we can send to states to modernize or eliminate HIV criminalization laws the better—and that is exactly what this bill does. It is high time the nation’s HIV criminalization laws reflect the current reality of living with HIV, both from medical and social perspectives. Except for perhaps the most extreme cases, the criminal law is far too blunt an instrument to address the subtle dynamics of HIV disclosure.”
US: Excellent article by Ari Ezra Waldman explaining why US HIV criminalisation laws are unjust and how to move forward
In Georgia, a woman was sentenced to eight years in jail for failing to disclose her HIV status to a male partner, despite witnesses’ statements that he already knew she was HIV positive. There’s a man in Ohio who is serving 40 years for failing to tell his ex-girlfriend that he was HIV positive, even though the case was motivated by an ex-lover’s jealous rage.
Advocates Urge Repeal of U.S. Laws Criminalizing HIV
Advocates Urge Repeal of U.S. Laws Criminalizing HIV The producer of a new documentary about criminalizing those with HIV summed up such laws’ effects at a public showing of the film. “These horrendous punishments are vastly disproportionate to the crime,” said the film’s producer, Sero Project founder Sean Strub.
US: Todd Heywood's analytical history of how the US developed HIV-specific criminal statutes and why there's now a movement to modernise or repeal these laws
In the late fall of 1988, state lawmakers and representatives from major insurance and pharmaceutical companies were hard at work addressing the looming AIDS crisis for the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative-leaning think tank that produces state-based business-friendly model legislation.
Four Stories: The Effects of HIV Criminalization on Sex and Intimacy
“As a trans woman living with HIV, I’m always worried that if I don’t disclose to my partner before we even approach the bedroom that they’ll turn around and charge me with a crime. When you have to tell a potential partner that you’re trans and poz, there’s always a fear that they will use that information to make your life hell.
4 States With Scientifically Unsound Laws Criminalizing HIV
1. Missouri: It is unlawful for any individual knowingly infected with HIV to bite another person. The law also specifically prohibits the use of a condom as a defense in a nondisclosure case. 2. Michigan: It is a felony, with a four-year jail sentence, for those who know they are HIV-positive to engage in “sexual penetration, however slight” without first disclosing that status to a partner.