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What is the biggest life lesson that being HIV positive has taught you?

1 | June | 2011
Shawn

The biggest life lesson that HIV is has taught me is not to discriminate. I learned early in life how this feels due to my HIV status. After I tested positive at age 11 I was kicked out of school, many of my best friends' parents were no longer comfortable with me hanging out with them, and there was just so much fear and misunderstanding about how much of a "danger" I was. At the time, it was difficult, but subconsciously the groundwork was being laid to make me a better person for those trials. At my core, I just can't understand discrimination based on sex, sexuality, race, religion and all of the other things that can distinguish us on a surface level from one another. Life would suck if we were all the same, wouldn't it? I value the life lessons that HIV has taught me and I am thankful for the person I have become.

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Submitted by Bubby (not verified) on September | 19 | 2011.

Whoever wrote this, you know how to make a good article.

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Infected with HIV as a child through the contaminated blood products used to treat his hemophilia, Shawn learned early in life about discrimination. Within a month of testing positive for the virus, he was kicked out of the 6th grade. By all accounts, he wasn’t expected to live five years. During his freshman year of high school, he met his favorite band, Depeche Mode, through The Make-A-Wish Foundation, and lived to see graduation. At age 20, he opened up about his life with HIV after a decade of silence, creating one of the first "poz blogs" in 1996. After humorously describing his life, he caught the attention of Poz magazine and began writing a column entitled "Positoid", a word he created as a way to describe himself as someone living with HIV.

In 2006, his memoir, My Pet Virus: The True Story of a Rebel Without a Cure, was published by the Penguin Group. Today, Shawn is happily married to his wife partner, Gwenn Barringer, and the two speak together as a couple, educating about how they keep her HIV-free in their safe and healthy relationship. (Hint: condoms.)

In his spare time, Shawn drinks iced mochas and fronts a synthpop duo, Synthetic Division. In 2010, he released a CD to commemorate the twenty-year anniversary of his dying wish to meet Depeche Mode. He lives with Gwenn in Charlottesville, Virginia.