Track 15: #SingingStigma

If you have been following me on social media for a minute or know me in real life, I am sure you have heard my villain origin story. Or maybe you found me through the song EndTheStigma on my debut album Testimony.

Boy accepts he is bi.

Boy tries to find himself with men.

Several men take advantage of him months after coming out.

Boy finds out he has HIV at sixteen.

Blah blah blah.

But here is the part I do not talk about enough.

What it took to become undetectable in the 2008 to 2011 era.

I hit undetectable in the summer of 2011, right in the heart of the DMV, during a time when folks still treated HIV like a countdown. Becoming undetectable became my way of telling the men I was dealing with, “Relax, I am not a threat to you.”

Not because I owed anyone reassurance, but because at that time it was the only way some people would even see you as human.

Fast forward to now.

We have science.

We have U=U.

We have education at our fingertips.

We have representation.

But stigma?

Stigma evolved like it signed up for a fitness plan.

You can still feel the shift when someone hears the word undetectable.

That pause.

That silence that fills the room.

That flicker behind the eyes where you can see the wheels turning.

Some folks hear undetectable and feel relief.

Some feel fear.

Some feel overshadowed, like someone else’s status somehow takes attention away from their own negative status.

Others feel confused because nobody ever explained any of this to them.

Then there are the quiet ones.

The ones who stay silent.

Not because they are deceitful.

Not because they are reckless.

But because telling someone your status feels like handing them your softest wound and hoping they handle it with care.

You have seen how fast rejection can hit.

You have watched faces change.

You have seen interest vanish.

You have heard the cruelty people are capable of.

So you keep your truth tucked close and hope that intimacy does not demand too much of you.

To you, hear me clearly:

You are not dirty.

You are not less than.

You are not wrong for wanting safety before you share your story.

Your trauma does not make disclosure easy, even when you are undetectable, even when you have done everything right.

But the truth will always protect you better than silence.

Not because you owe anyone your wounds,

but because the people who are meant for you will not treat your truth like a warning label.

They will honor it.

They will stay.

They will choose you fully without flinching.

And for my negative men reading this, hear me clearly:

You are not the enemy either.

Your fear is human.

Your caution is valid.

Your desire for safety is real.

And you are not without protection in this generation.

Condoms exist.

PrEP exists.

Doxy PrEP exists.

Science has given you real tools to protect your body.

Just like science gave us U=U.

So nobody’s safety has to depend on blind trust.

Nobody has to move through intimacy without options.

Nobody has to navigate this alone.

The problem is not positive folks.

The problem is not undetectable folks.

The problem is not negative folks.

The problem is stigma.

The problem is silence.

The problem is the lies people tell because they are afraid of being rejected before someone sees who they are beyond a status.

Your HIV status does not make you dangerous.

Your silence does not make you manipulative.

Your fear does not make you broken.

Your honesty does not make you a burden.

We all deserve safety.

We all deserve clarity.

We all deserve intimacy and desire without shame hovering over our heads.

I became undetectable at twenty one because medicine saved my life.

But telling the truth is what saved my spirit.

If we want to end stigma for real, we have to stop treating HIV status like a moral ranking and start treating each other with compassion, information and grown folk honesty.

We cannot heal what we refuse to talk about. If this opened your eyes or your heart, amplify it. Let someone else feel seen today. That is what #SingingStigma is all about.

Like it. Share it. And use your voice to sing against stigma.