25 faces: Leaders fighting HIV/AIDS in Colorado

2 Robert George

For Robert George, CAP Regional Director for Denver, HIV/AIDS is an issue of social justice.

“I’m really motivated by social justice issues,” George said. And today, “More women and more people of color are being affected.”

In the 1990s when George was in his 20s, said there was messaging about safe sex and HIV prevention that “you’d see every day.” George became a case manager at CAP 13 years ago, working to connect HIV patients with counsel and assistance. But in more recent times, George worries there are segments of the population that are missing the message.

“Now we’re in a more comfortable place where you can come out as gay, but people coming out later in life missed some of that messaging,” George said. Meanwhile young people seem to think it’s no longer an issue. And one of the problems with good messaging, he said, is residual fear and stigma around HIV.

Getting rid of the stigma means open conversations about the issue – with more openness around conversations with HIV-positive persons and more awareness of the risk that HIV-negative people still face.

“We shouldn’t have this fear around HIV anymore – we shouldn’t have a fear around getting tested, or talking about it with sexual partners, family and friends,” he said. “There’s still a stigma our community has about HIV/AIDS, and if there’s stigma you’re less likely to talk about it and less likely to get tested.”

George said that one goal should be learning to talk about sex in a healthy way. “If we talk about it as a healthy activity we all want to engage in, we can pull in better conversations about HIV. For those who are neg its about their needs and where they are, but for poz people sex is still an important part of their lives.”

It’s a challenging question, George said, to convince HIV-negative people that HIV is still an important issue while helping those who are already poz know that being infected isn’t the end of the world. “The theme of this year’s AIDS Walk,” George said, “is ‘It’s Not Over.’ We have a lot to do working for the benefit of those living with HIV, as well as preventing new infections.”