HIV Prevention and the Need for Gender-Transformative Approaches

Abstract

Initially, HIV and AIDS in North America was conceptualized as a health issue impacting only gay males and which, as a result, has often been blamed for the slow response on the part of public health to this growing health crisis. Further, the long-standing consequences associated with framing of the key HIV risk paradigm messages as a gay disease can be found in gender-blind prevention responses from public health; the overlooking of other populations at risk of contracting HIV, including their absence in clinical trials; and an overall lack of gender-transformative approaches to addressing the underlying health and social disparities driving the pandemic in Canada and the United States. Although the use of gender-transformative HIV prevention approaches is now more commonplace, the legacy of these early gender-blind responses provide a compelling case study for the need to reorient public health policies and programmes to better meet the needs of diverse populations who, some 30 years later, remain disproportionately impacted by HIV and other sexually transmitted and bloodborne infections.