Yves, age 31

“The gay association has helped me to build my self-confidence. The people here don’t judge me, even though I’m HIV positive.”

When I was 8, I knew that I was different. I felt that I was a girl, but I hid the fact from other people, and even from myself, because I did not really know what I was. My mother used to beat me and forbade me from playing with girls. “You’re a boy, so you play with boys!”

I was expelled from college in 2002 in my first year of hotel and tourism studies – I wanted to work in a travel agency. My teachers graded me down on my exams to ensure that I would fail and they ended up succeeding. When my mother found out, she said “I told you. You have to hide it. You have to be like the others”. My brother said, “I’m ashamed of you.”

After that I had to stay at home because I didn’t have the money to leave, which meant that I had to put up with all the insults. That situation lasted about a year. All my friends were forbidden from coming to see me.

I was locked up in my own home. I was a prisoner.

Gradually, my mother began to understand that this was how I was and that I couldn’t do anything about it and said: “You are still my child.”

One day, in 2003, I met some boys in the street who said: “If you refuse to have sex with us, we’re going to tell your mother what you get up to with men.” I had to go with them in order to save my honor in the eyes of my mother.

Shortly afterwards, I went to have an AIDS test and was told that I was seropositive. It was October 31, 2003, at exactly 12:00.

Now I have to take medication every day. I often have skin problems, rashes which are itchy and painful. The doctors told me that I ought to go elsewhere in order to receive more modern treatment, but I do not have the funds. Sometimes I cannot leave my house because I am in too much pain, am covered with spots and am running a temperature.

I have a boyfriend who lives in the interior of the country. He is seropositive as well. It was love at first sight. For him, too. He said to me: “Before we really get involved, I have to tell you one thing: I’m seropositive.”

I told him that I was too and we have been in a relationship for the past year and a half. He will finish his studies this year and I will be waiting for him.

The gay association has helped me to build my self-confidence. Before, I didn’t have many friends, but the people here don’t judge me, although I’m seropositive. There is a spirit of solidarity here and we can discuss our problems, for example, the fact that it’s difficult for us to find work. Everybody turns me down because they see me and understand immediately what I am. Now, it’s even more difficult with this new law.

This law disgusts me. People will no longer go for tests for fear of being judged and this will lead to a major health problem. Even people who have been raped will not be brave enough to speak out. AIDS will spread among the population.