Quote Originally Posted by Dzinerbear View Post
Nice idea. However, may I suggest you remove the word "clean." As an HIV-positive man I am profondly offended and hurt when I hear things like "I'm clean, UB2," or "disease and drug free."

The implication is that if you're "clean" I must be dirty. Or that if you're "disease free" you're somehow better than me who is what, "disease ridden?"

Also, you don't contract HIV/AIDS, one becomes infected with HIV; AIDS is the set of conditions that appear later when an immune system has been compromised. People who are HIV-positive do not necessarily have AIDS.

I understand what you're trying to do, Chip, but it might be a good idea to run these things by someone who is positive to catch stuff like this. I think mistakes like this could call into question whether this guy really is a social worker in the field. He should know these things, at least I think he should.
Michael,

I really appreciate this, though I also feel about 2 inches tall right now You're totally right about the language. When I think about it, it's no less insensitive than having a straight company write content for a gay site and unintentionally say a lot of incredibly offensive things, or people making racist remarks, or anything like that.

Jesse really is a social worker and does really work with HIV positive people every day, though it's with at-risk youth and youth who are very newly diagnosed, so it's likely that he isn't as familiar with the language because he hasn't so far worked with many people living with HIV longer term.

He's very sensitive to language about things like "client" vs "patient" and using language that empowers and so I'm certain he will be horrified. When we pass on the comments to him, I'm sure he'll do his own research and talk with the staff at his youth center to learn the correct terminology.

AJ and I wrote most of the text of what he was saying, so we are the ones that take the responsibility for the insensitive language.

But... this is EXACTLY why we put it out for input from the GWW community. So far, we've gotten a lot of very helpful and useful criticism. which we really appreciate. Please keep it coming.