AIDS group takes on potentially divisive stigma in the gay community over HIV status with new ‘One Community,’ billboard campaign in L.A. and New York featuring a line of self-identified HIV-positive and HIV-negative gay men in body-paint T-shirts with their respective sero-status printed across their chests.
Billboard campaign is an extension of AHF’s multi-faceted anti HIV stigma campaign, with this arm targeting gay men. Lined up side-by-side, the colors of the men’s body paint form the iconic gay rainbow.
LOS ANGELES (September 18, 2014) AIDS Healthcare Foundation is continuing to take HIV stigma head-on—this time, potentially divisive stigma in the gay community over an individual’s HIV-status—with a new ‘One Community,’ billboard campaign that started running this week in L.A. and New York in both English and Spanish. The billboards feature a line of self-identified HIV-positive and HIV-negative gay men with colorful body paint T-shirts printed with their respective HIV sero-status across their chests.
“Our ‘One Community’ billboard campaign is an extension of a multi-faceted anti HIV stigma campaign that AHF has been undertaking over the past few years, with this arm specifically targeting gay men with a message of fellowship, celebration and inclusion,” said Michael Weinstein, President of AIDS Healthcare Foundation. “Lined up side-by-side, the colors of the men’s body-painted chests form the iconic gay rainbow. Taken together with the message on their chests—their respective HIV status—I find this to be an incredibly simple, yet powerful message, one we will help break down barriers and foster community.”
The ‘One Community’ billboard campaign is an extension of a multi-faceted anti HIV stigma campaign that AHF has been undertaking over the past few years. ‘One Community’ billboards and transit shelter ads are started running in Brooklyn, New York, where AHF runs an AHF Pharmacy, an Out of the Closet store and free HIV testing program as well as in Los Angeles earlier this week.
AHF has also recently been running another billboard campaign addressing HIV stigma. Headlined, ‘God Loves HIV+ Me,’ each billboard features HIV-positive individuals in bright red T-shirts reading ‘HIV+’ across the front. The photos of the subjects—Hydeia Broadbent, an HIV/AIDS activist who has been HIV-positive since her birth 30 years ago, and Stone, another HIV/AIDS advocate, are bracketed by the text ‘God Loves”’ and ‘Me’ on each side, making these HIV-positive individuals part of the billboard headline in powerful, stigma-shattering imagery.