Ji Wallace

Gender: Male

Sexuality: Gay

DOB: 23 June 1977  

Ethnicity: White

Occupation: Former Olympic gymnast, gymnastics coach, activist

Note 1: Has HIV

Australian gymnast and Olympian Ji Wallace came out for the second time. The world already knew he was gay. Now we know he is HIV positive. The importance of this revelation cannot be underestimated. The stigma surrounding HIV and AIDS is tremendous.

In 2010, according to the World Health Organization, 34 million people were living with HIV/AIDS. The same year, 2.7 million people were newly infected with the disease and 1.8 million died of it. In Belgium, 1 out of 20 gay men is HIV positive. Personally I don’t know anyone who is HIV positive although I know a lot more than 20 gay men. You can no longer tell by looking at someone if he or she is HIV positive, unlike in the beginning of the HIV crisis when there was no medication to slow the disease down. Nowadays people have a choice to reveal their HIV status or not, and most of the time they keep it to themselves or share it only with a handful of people. I don’t blame them. The social stigma surrounding HIV and AIDS can ruin your life. All over the world HIV positive people are being subjected to discrimination and violence. They are being ostracized, rejected and avoided by the people they know. Their human rights are being violated by compulsory HIV testing without prior consent or protection of confidentiality. They have difficulties finding a job, getting insurance, renting a house, getting access to education, and in some countries even getting access to medical assistance.

Being HIV positive is being associated with promiscuity, homosexuality, bisexuality, sex workers and intravenous drug use. This might come as a shock, but not all HIV positive people are promiscuous homosexual heroin addicts that go cruising for money every night. And even if they were, that would be no reason to judge them. HIV is not - as Belgian archbishop André Léonard said - a form of immanent justice. The compassion that is shown for people that have a life threatening disease is being denied to HIV positive people. Unlike other diseases the public at large still sees HIV as something you have brought on to yourself. Unless of course you caught HIV from blood transfusion. That’s why we don’t want those promiscuous gay men to donate blood! Sigh.