PrEP diversity – Page 2 – HIV stigmafighter

Put women first!

26 January 202410 February 2025hivstigmafighter

My lovely people,

The talk of ending HIV and AIDS has been going for ages, are we really going to end HIV and AIDS by 2030? To answer this question, we must ask ourselves what actions do we take in our HIV community to put people first? And more importantly, are we making sure to put women in charge?

There is always this inequality. We point it out, we are all aware of it, but concrete actions are hardly noticed. It seems that women are always the last to be thought about while their vulnerability around HIV is so visible. Yet, often we remain silent, indifferent. When will women be saved from this suffering of inequality? When will they not only be spoken about but also put in charge of addressing their challenges related to HIV and AIDS?

This January I am in my home country, Burundi, and my heart is broken when I talk to women in the communities. For example when I talk to a mother with child abandoned by the father, homeless women with children, or young girls begging on the street. Many of these women have no means or support network to take care of themselves and their children.

Some women resort to becoming a sex worker. This is not without danger, many of them are still sleeping on the streets and through their profession or whilst living on the streets there is a high chance of them being raped. Some told me that happens at least 3 times per week!

The rights of these women are being violated and need to be supported. No wonder it makes me angry when we shamelessly announce we want to end HIV and AIDS in 2030 while basic rights and needs of these women are not even met yet, or when there is no plan of making PrEP available as a preventive strategy to help these women to protect themselves from HIV. Where are our HIV allies when we need them most?

This month my focus is to initiate the strengthening of community-based groups working with vulnerable women to increase their awareness about health & HIV services and PrEP as a life-saving measure for HIV prevention and stigma reduction.

To make a lasting impact we must work directly with local actors, so I have teamed up with a local organisation called BAWA (Burundian Association for Women in Action). The first thing we did was to make sure we listen. We must understand the societal challenges the women face on a daily basis. And my goodness, they are many!

Many women reported they face domestic violence, some sex workers end up with pregnancy during their work and experience problems to register their children as sometimes they are arrested and have their IDs taken, women sleep on the streets without mosquito nets and suffer from malaria and since they are not registered they cannot get mosquito nets, some are being detained by police and taken to the countryside where they live in places without services, etc. It is very shocking. All of them came to the same conclusion, we need safety and protection!

Having talked about these challenges and how they affect their lives, we moved to listening to their ideas about how to improve their situation. And it became so apparent to me that they have really great ideas about how they can create a better future for themselves. For example, many women would wish to have access to PrEP or be able to protect themselves for example through condoms.

As BAWA works together with others to address the needs of these vulnerable women, we also organised a session together with them to interact with the women of BAWA. We discussed their strategies on how women can stay healthy & safe, and how to seek help when needed. This was also a great opportunity for me to share the latest on HIV prevention and treatment. So, I shared with them a whole range of preventive measures such as the dapivirine vaginal ring , PrEP pill or injectable PrEP. This is a part of the world where I clearly see the need for injectable PrEP as this will positively impact upon the health of vulnerable women. We were also able to make female and male condoms available, and most strongly preferred female condoms because they are a better means for them to protect themselves.

As is customary in our society, to end these fruitful sessions and collaborations in the Burundian grassroots (HIV) community we shared a great lunch together!

If we do not work with organisations such as BAWA and the vulnerable women they represent directly, ending HIV and AIDS by 2030 is an illusion! So, HIV allies pay attention, let’s make 2024 the year to get the balance right and make sure we address the challenges of women in the global South in our fight against HIV and AIDS.

Peace, Eliane

Can we be brave together?

25 August 202310 February 2025hivstigmafighter

My lovely people, in many cities all over the world we celebrate Pride in August. Pride is an important moment for the LGBTQIA+ Community to express themselves.

Thanks to an invitation from Sensoa Belgium, I was happily part of Antwerp Pride and contribute to their campaign Is PrEP iets voor jou? (is PrEP something for you?). A key moment was the parade on the 12^th of August. I found it very inspirational to join the parade and I also learned that still so many people are not aware or don’t even know about PrEP as a way to prevent someone HIV negative from getting HIV.

During Pride, Antwerp transforms into a brave space where everyone can be who they are within a respectful society. This also means having the courage to stand up and act against stigma and discrimination. Therefore, I was very proud to promote PrEP Diversity. As I pointed out, many people, especially women, with a migrant background are still overseen in stigma reduction and prevention efforts and still do not have equal access to PrEP. I am proud that I contributed to making Antwerp an even braver space by demanding PrEp diversity!

During Antwerp Pride I also celebrated many performances of local artists with so many people who truly felt safe to express themselves in this brave space. It fills me with joy to see them join Pride and be themselves because we manage to create this brave space.

Yet, let’s not forget that many cannot be who they are in their homelands. I wish a brave space would exist anywhere in the world, and not only during one week of Pride each year. A brave space should really not be an event like Christmas, where we wait the whole year to celebrate for a few days and then move on again. We should be able to express ourselves every day!

Frederick Douglass once said “If there is no struggle, there is no progress”, and we should work hard with communities, organisations and governments to promote and protect the human rights of all persons, including the LGBTQIA+ community, without stigma and discrimination.

So let us normalise brave spaces, and the easiest way is to start with yourself by creating a space in your heart to accept and respect each and everyone’s choice to be themselves every day of the year!

Can we all be Brave together?

Peace,

Eliane

Dragtivism

28 April 202316 July 2026hivstigmafighter

Hello my lovely people.

It’s always a pleasure to share with you the stories that inspired you and the World. This time we are going to talk about Drag. While a lot of you may have heard of drag and drag queens as performance arts, many of you may not yet be familiar with drag kings.

I am proudly part of a family called the House of Løst Bois, the first house of Drag KINGS in the Netherlands based in Amsterdam. With our lovely Mother Taka Taka and Father Julius. Everybody has a reason to do drag. In fact, my passion for drag has been there the whole of my life, but I just did not give it a name. When I was little, I already liked dressing up like a boy and play ‘boys games’, fishing in the Ninga river, go birds hunting or climbing trees. I am so grateful that my parents understood me and did the best to allow me who I wanted to be.

Why am I Eric TheDragKing? When I was 5 I was crying a lot telling my mother “I don’t want to be a girl!” One day my mum was tired of my cries and she said “OK, you are now a boy and your name is Eric”. From that day on I was so happy for people to call me Eric instead Eliane, allowing me to be myself as a kid.

Then, at high school I joined a theather group of drummers and dancers which is traditionally performed by men in Burundi. I was the only girl in the group. So, one day when we were on the stage performing, the MC publicly announced that between the boys performing there was also a girl between them! And I was dressed up, had a great haircut and dancing so well that the audience was not able to spot me amongst the boys! For me what really mattered was to be myself and show that a girl is as talented as a man if they are given a chance!

So, now I am Eric TheDragKing, the king who lives with HIV. As I have experienced and seen many times what stigma does, I dance HIV and AIDS stigma away to inspire and empower whoever living with HIV and not open about it. Living healthy and embrace who we are is much stronger than the tiny virus. To perform drag is another powerful way for me to fight stigma and discrimination, and bring change to people and communities.

This month I was part of an event called Becoming: Drag, organized at Likeminds in collaboration with the House of Hopelezz and the House of Løst Bois . If you suffer from queerphobia, this was not right place to be. The queer world is where everyone feels at home. We felt a big sense of community connecting to the audience via our performances. It was a very inspiring evening where the audience was also part of the performance, dressed up in glitter, colourful hair and beautiful dresses. It was all fabulous! Please have a look at the pictures made by Kiriacademy.

I loved the talk show between our Mother Taka Taka, Father Julius and Mother Jennifer Hopelezz about drag values and how drag can be used as activism in many ways, for example as a form of protest or for prevention, for example on PrEP. Hence the word Dragtivism!

Yes, Eric TheDragKing is a Dragtivist! To dance HIV and AIDS stigma away as a drag king is another powerful way to communicate with people facing HIV stigma and discrimination. I know in many communities we have people living with HIV going through a lot and still trying to deal with this alone, so if I am able to reach an even a wider community, through my drag art, this would be a great result toward reaching a HIV stigma free world!

I am proud to be the first Dragking open about my HIV status in the Netherlands, in Burundi and the whole of Africa. I am grateful for the opportunity to be part of the drag community and that a performance such as Becoming: Drag provides me with a platfom to fight stigma and discrimination.

In the end what brings us together is connectedness through drag as art. To perform our art for you to enjoy we feel stronger together as one big family. I truly believe the beautiful art of drag is a way to express ourselves, to share our passion, and to come togeher as a community. What an incredible evening!

Peace,

Eliane