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In some circles, the symbol is associated with bug chasing (when HIV-negative people seek HIV), gifting (when people with HIV have sex with bug chasers in order to pass HIV on to them), and stealthing (which has different definitions but is widely considered the practice of attempting to transmit HIV to someone without their knowledge). I argued that the tattoo conveys the false idea that we are dangerous social miscreants hell-bent on infecting others - a story some people still believe. The post, titled "Poz Guys, We Are Not Toxic Waste," was very angry, judgmental, and prudish. I started blogging, and some months later I wrote a blog post blasting the biohazard tattoo.
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I was horrified that this would be my life - virus fetishists and skin lesions and illicit internet chat rooms filled with biohazard symbols. This was before PrEP became part of the queer lexicon (playmates and friends would not start casually referencing Truvada until two years later). I quickly clicked down a dark rabbit hole of poz-phobic Tumblr posts, "pozzing" stories, and black-and-white photos of AIDS patients. That night, I searched the internet for information about HIV for the first time. The woman on the other end of the line seemed disorganized and squeaked out, "We need you to come in." I was a senior in college and was walking to my car after a morning yoga session when I got a call from the student clinic. I discovered the symbol on a damp, balmy day in Savannah, Georgia, when I tested positive at 21 years old. For queer men, the idea had some practicality: Such tattoos would wordlessly communicate HIV-positive status to others and make the business of disclosure easier.Īmong the many HIV-related tattoos, one has become widely recognizable: the international biohazard symbol, which appears on medical packaging for hazardous materials like viral samples and used hypodermic needles. In 2011, London South Bank University professor Richard Sawdon Smith told CNN that many people living with HIV may have gotten HIV tattoos as an act of defiance to Buckley's proposal. They "should be tattooed in the upper forearm, to protect common-needle users, and on the buttocks, to prevent the victimization of other homosexuals," Buckley wrote.īuckley's proposal, among the earliest known mentions of a codified HIV tattoo, spurred several backlash letters, with immediate comparison made to the treatment of Jews in Nazi Germany.