World AIDS Day 2014

Today is World AIDS Day 2014 in which we remember all the people we have lost due to the epidemic worldwide and take stock of where we are internationally in terms of eradicating it.

While there has been progress over the last thirty years in terms of combating the virus, we still have a long way to go in order to achieve the goal of an AIDS free generation.

The transgender community is one of the groups affected by HIV/AIDS as the 2000 Washington Transgender Needs Assessment first alarmingly brought to our attention.

One of the issues that Trans HIV/AIDS activists and our allies are trying to get rectified is for the CDC and senior level policy makers to separate trans people from the MSM (men having sex with men) statistics so that we can be more accurately tracked and so that funding can be directed at trans populations instead of having our people inflating the MSM numbers so that gay orgs doing the work to fight HIV/AIDS in our community get funding and we don't .

It also causes problems in collecting statistics when you refer to a trans feminine woman in a survey as a 'man having sex with a man'.   That needs to change ASAP. 

I've lost relatives and friends to AIDS, and I like everyone else, including the people infected with HIV and the researchers and doctors working to find a way to cure it, would love to see the goal of an AIDS free generation become a reality.