GRASSROOTS: The GMT Initiative Blog

Posted by Lucile Scott, January 22, 2016

Thailand is striving to end its AIDS epidemic by 2030, in part by employing “test and treat” strategies to ensure at least 90% of individuals living with HIV know their status and that at least 90% of those diagnosed are linked to HIV treatment and care. While the country has made significant progress towards accomplishing these ambitious goals, it will not achieve them without reaching gay men, other men who have sex with men (MSM), and transgender individuals (collectively, GMT). However, only 29% of Thai MSM get tested for HIV annually, and many have never been tested at all. Until 2015, national statistics grouped transgender individuals with MSM, so less is known regarding their infection rates and risk behaviors.

“Thailand has diagnosed around 80% of people living with HIV, but it’s reaching that last 10–20% who we have not been able to reach in the past that is going to be hard,” says Dr. Nittaya Phanuphak from the Thai Red Cross AIDS Research Centre and the principal investigator for the amfAR implementation science study. “Traditional outreach strategies will not be sufficient.”

In the above video, Dr. Phanuphak and Tarandeep Anand, director of Adam’s Love, the popular online HIV outreach initiative targeting GMT individuals, discuss their amfAR-funded implementation science study investigating the best ways of reaching that remaining 20% and linking those who test positive to care. The study, which began enrolling participants in November 2015, will test three innovative HIV outreach models. Each targets a different subset of the GMT population, and together, the team hopes, the strategies can successfully access the hardest-to-reach GMT individual not reached through previous outreach efforts.

In one arm, outreach workers from community-based organizations—including Service Workers in Group/SWING and The Rainbow Sky Association of Thailand—are reaching out to sex workers and other GMT individuals who frequent areas of Bangkok known to be community “hot spots,” and then referring those who are interested to HIV care at community-run clinics. Testing and treatment services in the second arm are provided entirely online through the Adam’s Love website, which primarily reaches younger GMT individuals. Patients can chat with a counselor online, take an at-home HIV test with online guidance from the counselor, and, for those who test positive, fill prescriptions and monitor their lab results online through Asia’s first electronic health records system, which is being developed for the study with help from IBM.

The final arm is a hybrid of online outreach and offline clinic-based care. Patients in this arm first make contact with the team online through the Adam’s Love site, but then opt to receive testing and care in person. Those interested in a more private setting will be referred to a new Adam’s Love Clinic, which aims to appeal to discreet, harder-to-reach GMT individuals by providing private, appointment-only services from knowledgeable, GMT-friendly staff.

“This study will show what is working and what is not and who is being reached through each arm, so we know where and how the available funds should be spent in Thailand,” says Anand. “It could also be scalable and replicable in other countries.”

Posted by Lucile Scott, December 4, 2015

In November, as Nobel Peace laureate and democracy advocate Aung San Suu Kyi’s political party was swept into power by the country’s first free and fair national election in half a century, an amfAR-funded implementation science study to improve HIV testing and treatment among the country’s gay men, other men who have sex with men (MSM), and transgender individuals (collectively, GMT) got underway.

In the above video, members of the team based in Yangon discuss the study and the impact it will have in Myanmar, which was not open to international HIV researchers before 2011, when its 50-year long military dictatorship was officially dissolved.

The study is a collaboration between the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland;  the International HIV/AIDS Alliance Myanmar; the Myanmar Ministry of Health; the University of Public Health of Myanmar; and two community-based organizations—the Myanmar MSM Network and the Myanmar Youth Star Network.

In Myanmar, same-sex sexual activity is illegal and many GMT individuals are hidden and hard to access through traditional HIV outreach methods. As a result, testing rates and treatment access among them remain dangerously low. The study team is seeking to access these hard-to-reach individuals through innovative HIV testing and treatment technologies, including home-based HIV self-testing, point-of-care CD4 testing, and peer navigation through healthcare systems.

To find out more about HIV in Myanmar and the implementation science study, click here.

Posted by Lucile Scott, November 6, 2015

 
A nurse at the Myanmar Ministry of Health’s AIDS/STD Prevention and Control Programme 

In March 2011, Myanmar’s 50-year old military junta was officially dissolved, nominally ending the world’s longest-running military dictatorship and opening the nation’s previously impermeable borders to international economic and political actors, from Coca Cola to the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). This Sunday, the country will hold elections widely viewed by the citizens of Myanmar—and the world—as a critical test of whether recent reforms genuinely signaled the start of a transition to democracy or just the continuation of authoritarianism under a new guise.

Regardless of whether this weekend’s election is viewed as free and fair, things are definitely changing in the country of 51 million, including its national response to HIV. And an amfAR-funded implementation science project to improve HIV testing and treatment access among gay men, other men who have sex with men (MSM), and transgender individuals (collectively, GMT) is on the front line of that evolving strategy.

The Alliance’s Kaung Htet Thu

“Myanmar was inaccessible to global research prior to 2011, so this study will shed light on what obstacles there are to linkages to HIV treatment and care among GMT,” says Sandra Hsu Hnin Mon, who is originally from Myanmar and is a student investigator at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, one of several institutions collaborating on the project.

In a 2000 World Health Organization (WHO) ranking of world health systems, Myanmar came in second to last, ahead of only Sierra Leone. But in 2013, the government began increasing health spending and reforming its dilapidated healthcare system. It did away with a strict quota system that greatly restricted the number of individuals who could access antiretroviral therapy (ART), changing the threshold for ART eligibility from a CD4 count of 150 (below the 200 count used to establish an AIDS diagnosis) to 350, and then, this year, to 500, in keeping with WHO guidelines.

The Myanmar Youth Star Network’s Aye Nyein Myitta

This, combined with an influx of funding from PEPFAR, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and other international donors, means that ART is now more widely available; however, only 40% of people living with HIV in Myanmar are currently on treatment—a dangerously low rate of access caused in part by extremely low HIV awareness and testing rates. According to the country’s 2015 Global AIDS Response Progress Report, only 48% of MSM have ever been tested for HIV.

“As the government changed, they increased the budget for health and HIV and allowed civil society to participate in the national response,” says Dr. Soe Naing, executive director of International HIV/AIDS Alliance Myanmar. “Now patients can get treatment, but the problem is we have to find out who the patients who need treatment are.”

Same-sex sexual activity is illegal in Myanmar, and while prosecutions under the law, known as Section 377, are rare and many GMT individuals in urban areas live openly, stigma and discrimination remain rampant, preventing many community members from accessing HIV testing and care at government clinics. In the amfAR-funded study, the Alliance and John Hopkins are working in collaboration with the Myanmar Ministry of Health, the University of Public Health of Myanmar, and two community-based organizations, the Myanmar MSM Network and the Myanmar Youth Star Network, to reach marginalized and “hidden” populations by using new and innovative HIV testing and treatment technologies.

A nurse with a patient at the AIDS/STD Prevention and Control Programme

These include home-based HIV self-testing, point-of-care CD4 testing—which can determine a patient’s treatment eligibility in minutes, without requiring them to return to the clinic for results—and having peer navigators familiar with the health system help those who test positive access GMT-friendly healthcare and adhere to treatment. The researchers plan to launch the intervention and data collection phase of the study, which will take place in Yangon, later this month.

“These innovations are very new to Myanmar,” says Kaung Htet Thu, research coordinator at the Alliance, which provides both testing and treatment. “Previously, we lost patients to follow-up while waiting to get their CD4 test results, and self-testing with OraQuick will be a great solution [to address low testing rates] because confidentiality is key to privacy and dignity.”

Dr. Myo Thant

After celebrating the nation’s first public same-sex commitment ceremony with his partner in 2014, Aye Nyein Myitta, project coordinator of Myanmar Youth Star Network, became a symbol of the burgeoning gay rights movement in the country. He is one of the members of the community contributing to the study’s design and implementation, ensuring it meets the diverse needs of affected individuals. “The strength of this project is that it will reach the many hidden GMT, who are educated and uneducated and from all socioeconomic statuses,” says Myitta. “It will also cause the larger community to recognize that we as a LGBT community are able to carry out these important projects.”

The study includes two arms: participants receiving the newer interventions and those receiving more traditional methods of testing and care at GMT-friendly clinics. This design will allow the team to generate definitive data regarding the innovative strategies’ effectiveness—data that can then be used to advocate scaling up effective interventions throughout Myanmar and in other resource-limited settings.

A street in downtown Yangon

“We will use this research to make recommendations to the government for it to implement in its future programs,” says Dr. Myo Thant, a regional officer of the Ministry of Health’s National AIDS Program, who will serve as a lead researcher on the project.

Despite the progress, many challenges to improving the national response to HIV remain, including the persistence of Section 377, doubts that the healthcare infrastructure can effectively absorb the influx of international HIV funding, and speculation that the government may be deliberately underreporting HIV statistics. But in Yangon, on the eve of the election, the talk is of hope and change. “Compared with the old days, things are really improving,” says Dr. Naing. “And we are still in the process of fighting.”

Posted by Lucile Scott, September 21, 2015

Thissadee Sawangying (left) poses with an American transgender advocate during the conference in Philadelphia. In June, the GMT Initiative (with support from the Arcus Foundation) sponsored two advocates from Thailand in attending the 14th annual Philadelphia Trans Health Conference, a three-day event focused on the health and well-being of transgender people and communities that draws nearly 4,000 advocates from around the globe. This marks the first year that the GMT Initiative has sent grantee partners to the conference, and the hope was that they would not only learn new and effective strategies that could aid them in their work in Thailand, but also tap into the growing and increasingly visible international transgender rights movement.

“2015 has seen a groundswell of attention paid to transgender health issues,” says Kent Klindera, director of the GMT Initiative. “The data shows rates of HIV and gender-based violence among transgender populations that are staggeringly high, and throughout the world, trans activists are claiming a space at the table to fight for their rights.”

Thissadee Sawangying, project manager at Health & Opportunity Network (HON), a GMT Initiative grantee partner organization focusing on the health needs of transgender sex workers in Pattaya, Thailand, was one of the GMT Initiative-sponsored attendees. “I learned many exciting things, and hope to carry the knowledge and experience into our network to outline a new strategy for improving trans health and rights in Pattaya,” she says. “Because while we have come a long way in certain areas in Thailand, like with the availability of gender reassignment surgery, there is still a lot of violence and discrimination, and we have a lot to do.”

Conference participants watch a film. 

Despite the high rates of HIV among them, transgender women have been largely overlooked in national and international HIV responses. And in Thailand, as in most countries, they are often grouped with men who have sex with men (MSM), instead of being defined as a distinct key population with their own HIV prevention, treatment, and outreach needs. But now, thanks to the increasingly vocal transgender advocacy movement, this is slowing starting to change in Thailand and around the world.

In July, the World Health Organization (WHO) released Transgender People and HIV, its first policy brief focusing specifically on transgender individuals. It also co-hosted a consultation in Bangkok—along with USAID, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), and the International Reference Group on Trans* and Gender Variant and HIV/AIDS Issues (IRGT)—for transgender community members and global experts to discuss another document currently under development, the Trans Implementation Tool (TRANSIT). Another new document,the Asia-Pacific Trans Health Blueprint (AP Blueprint)—being developed through a collaboration between the Asia Pacific Transgender Network, UNDP, and USAID—will profile areas in the Asia-Pacific where transgender health services are most needed.

“I think it is very important for local governments in Thailand to learn about how they can work to support trans health needs,” says Sawangying. “And once we have these documents and guidelines, we can send them to local non-governmental organizations, so they can have action plans to advocate the local officials.”

Officials in Thailand have started to take action. The Thai Health Ministry has recently started sponsoring HIV implementations designed specifically to meet the needs of transgender women, and a national advocacy movement to gain legal gender recognition for transgender individuals is building momentum. “This year feels like a turning point for trans health and legal rights,” says Sawangying. “And I think in five more years we will have seen a lot of change.”
 

Posted by Kent Klindera, August 3, 2015

 
amfAR’s Kent Klindera (front right) attends the Thai Transgender Alliance’s consultation meeting.  

While Thailand is known for its relative tolerance of transgender individuals and as a major destination for people from across the globe seeking quality, low-cost gender reassignment surgery, Thai transgender individuals currently have no means to legally change their gender. This lack of legal recognition decreases their access to health services and stable employment and has a major impact on their ability to lead healthy, happy lives.

Last week, I attended a half-day consultation meeting sponsored by the Thai Transgender Alliance (TGA) as part of a project funded by amfAR, with support from the Arcus Foundation, to increase positive health outcomes among transgender people by securing legal gender recognition. TGA organized the consultation to raise national awareness about trans issues, share data collected through their project, and work with experts to formulate a strategy to move forward with their advocacy campaign.

As part of their amfAR-funded project, TGA members surveyed more than 275 transgender individuals throughout Thailand about their experiences with health services and human rights. During the meeting, they shared data from this year-long study that showed that more than 80% of the participants identified the lack of legal recognition as their greatest concern. Securing this right would also provide transgender individuals with legal recourse to combat the other challenges most cited in the survey—stigma and discrimination in healthcare settings, denial of educational opportunities, and workplace discrimination.

The consultation meeting, held at Bangkok’s Thammasat University, attracted over 120 participants, including academics, representatives from various government agencies—such as the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Justice, and Ministry of Defense, religious leaders, regional and national NGO representatives, and many transgender activists and individuals. Four media outlets were also represented, which created a buzz in the Thai media, and Ms.  Jetsada "Note" Taesombat, the Thai TGA director, and Dr. Ronnapoom Samakkeekarom, the lead researcher, have since participated in numerous interviews and talk shows. Most of the media coverage was positive, but reflected a general lack of awareness about trans issues in Thailand—a situation the attention garnered by the TGA campaign is already starting to improve.

During the consultation, participants offered recommendations about what a gender recognition law should look like in Thailand, and all agreed that a law similar to one adopted in Argentina in 2012 would be most appropriate. The Argentine law gave people the right to specify how their gender is legally listed at the civil registry when their physical characteristics don't match how they see themselves. Importantly, it also reduced a legal provision found in many areas of the world requiring that people undergo extreme mental health diagnostic processes before they are allowed to legally change their gender. In addition, unlike in some countries, the law does not require gender reassignment surgery before a legal change can be secured. This provision is vital to ensure that transgender individuals with little means to pay for the expensive surgery have the legal right to change their gender.

Following the meeting, a few prominent legal scholars offered recommendations to help TGA improve their advocacy during a special working session. Despite the fact that the current political climate in Thailand makes advocacy work a bit challenging, as there is a military installed government, Thai TGA has made the historic decision to move forward in their pursuit of the law. And using the advice and feedback they received during the consultation, they have mapped out a yearlong strategy for achieving their goal.

Twenty-five years ago, I lived in Thailand for four years. Back then, transgender individuals, while tolerated, were seen as a joke and often treated like children. It was therefore amazing for me to see transgender activists truly championing their own rights and standing proud of who they are and who they will become. amfAR’s investment has been well spent, and I have no doubt that the Thai government will overturn this denial of a basic human right in the next few years.

Posted by Ben Clapham, July 13, 2015

 
The chances of condom breakage during anal sex increase significantly without the use of silicone- or water-based lubricant.

For the past five years, I have worked with amfAR’s GMT Initiative grantee partners in Latin America, and throughout my travels in the region, I have seen firsthand that condom-compatible lubricants are either completely unavailable, cost prohibitive, or that the act of purchasing them carries stigma because it implies one is LGBT. Improving this access is critical to the fight against AIDS in the region, as the chances of condom breakage during anal sex increase significantly without the use of silicone- or water-based lubricant.

A number of analyses in various settings indicate that due to the high cost or unavailability of condom-compatible lube, many people use oil-based products—despite the fact that oil-based lube signi­ficantly reduces condom effectiveness. Others resort to non-condom-compatible home products like body lotion, soap, and cooking oil, which not only cause breakage, but can also damage a person’s health.

This summer, amfAR is making four new awards in the amount of $5,000 each to help four young and inspiring organizations in Latin America promote and increase access to lubricant for gay men, other men who have sex with men, and transgender individuals (collectively, GMT)  as part of the Global Lube Access Mobilization (GLAM) project. amfAR began GLAM three years ago in conjunction with Global Advocacy for HIV Prevention (AVAC) and International Rectal Microbicide Advocates (IRMA) to increase advocacy for lubricant availability. Awards in past years were made in Africa, so we are pleased to expand to Latin America this year.

In June, we launched a call for GLAM proposals from current and past amfAR grantees in Latin America. I then assembled a small panel of peer reviewers living and working in the region to choose the recipients of the 2015 GLAM grants, and they selected Red Nacional de Mujeres Travestis, Transexuales y Transgeneros de Bolivia (RED TREBOL) in Cochabamba, Bolivia;Collaborative Network of Persons Living with HIV (CNET+) in Belize City, Belize; ALFIL Association, HGLBT, Identities in Dialogue in Quito, Ecuador; and Grupo Génesis Panamá + (GGP+) in Panama City, Panama.

amfAR’s Ben Clapham with C-NET+’s Erika CastellanosI have had the pleasure of working with all four of the organizations, and they are each fantastic. Rayza Torriani, the director of RED TREBOL, is a tenacious trans woman who has run for local office in Cochabamba and is known throughout the region as a formidable activist for trans rights. The director of C-NET+, Erika Castellanos, a trans women living with HIV, won a slot as one of four 2015 amfAR HIV Scholars (LINK). Rashell Erazo, the director of ALFIL has already successfully advocated for the Ministry of Health to send a government-paid doctor to their health clinic catering to trans individuals twice a week. And GGP+ director Miguel Sanchez and his entire team have been fearless leaders in improving GMT individuals’ access to health and HIV prevention, care, and treatment.

In all four of these countries, lube provision is not included in the National HIV Plan or in the national budget, so each group plans to use their GLAM grant to conduct a study to assess lube availability—or the lack thereof—in their country and to then use that data as part of an advocacy program to convince their government to institute a lube provision program. I feel confident that these awards will help counter the myriad issues GMT individuals face daily concerning lube access in Latin America.

For more information on strategies for improving lube access, download our GLAM Toolkit, available in both English and Spanish.

Posted by Lucile Scott, June 2, 2015

Leyla (second from right) during a visit to the Fenway Institute in Boston.  

Last December, as part of the GMT Initiative’s new Implementation Science program,  amfAR awarded a three-year grant to a Peruvian study researching how integrating “gender-affirmative” medical services, including cross-sex hormone therapy, with HIV care will impact access to HIV testing and support services among all transgender women and adherence to  antiretroviral therapy  among those living with HIV. The project is a collaboration between two non-governmental organizations based in Lima, IMPACTA and EPICENTRO, and the Boston (U.S.A.)-based Fenway Institute. 

Around the world, transgender women often face violence and discrimination that deter them from seeking HIV and other health services, and the researchers hope the study will provide a model for improving the population’s access to appropriate, discrimination-free care worldwide. To find out how the study’s going so far, the GMT Initiative checked in with IMPACTA’s Leyla Castillo, a longtime transgender advocate and the study coordinator.

amfAR: How do you hope this study will impact transgender women in Peru?

Leyla: Currently, most trans women in Peru and throughout Latin American do not have access to quality health or gender-affirming services, and because of that there is a lot of death going on and a lot of disfigurement caused by women self-injecting hormones and oils that can be very dangerous if they are not used correctly.

Leyla (far right) and other Peruvian trans advocates pose in front of an IMPACTA poster. In the past, HIV work in Peru has focused on men who have sex with men (MSM), not trans women, and we are just grouped in with them. This leads people to believe that we do not face different issues than MSM. It also means there is very little data about trans women. There has never been a national study about our HIV rate, but one study done with a very small sample size showed that the rate is 30%. Most trans women in Peru do not ask themselves the question, ‘will I get HIV,’ but ‘when.’

The legal framework doesn’t even acknowledge our existence, and this increases the discrimination we experience in healthcare settings. For example, we are often called by our legal name in a crowded doctor’s office. This attitude ridicules you and makes you feel worthless because people look at you and snicker, causing you not to want to go back.

We need this study so we can really prove that the lack of sensitivity among healthcare workers is fueling our lack of access to HIV testing and care. We also need the health center for trans women that we are opening for the study where we can access care created for just us.

amfAR: How is the study going so far?

Leyla: Great. I am a member of a study working group of eight trans women who are all leaders in the community, and we have been, and will continue to be, involved and consulted during every step of the study. Past studies among trans women in Peru have not worked out like we hoped because we were not involved, and we know best what is going on with trans women. In the end, the researchers left with their data, but health services didn’t change and stigma and discrimination were still being experienced in health centers.

This involvement will also increase the number of trans women who will be able to do this work in the future. I have been in this field for many years, and in the past, I have only worked with two other trans women who have the professional capacity to do this work.

Currently, the working group is holding focus groups with trans women to better understand barriers that prevent them from accessing care and their health priorities, and to increase awareness about the study among the community. We plan to start providing trans-specific services this summer. The women are all very excited about the study and having a center just for trans women, and we’ve learned many interesting things.

amfAR: What motivates you to do this work?

Leyla: Instead of giving my community something just for today, I am helping to capacitate them for the long term. I am very certain this study will create tools for trans women in Peru and offer trans-specific healthcare that responds to the issues we are seeing with retaining them in HIV care for the first time. Also, there is not much data about this anywhere, and I hope that the study will establish a model for trans programming that can be used in other parts of the world.

Posted by Ben Clapham, May 18, 2015

The entrance to the clinic

Recently, I visited Johnny Tohme, a 2013 amfAR HIV Scholar, in Beirut, Lebanon, to find out how his GMT Initiative-supported research on HIV among GMT refugee populations from Syria, Iraq, and Palestine is going. While learning about Johnny’s interesting and groundbreaking project, I also had the opportunity to meet with Cynthia Al Khoury, who works for MARSA, a sexual health clinic serving many populations, but specifically targeting MSM and trans individuals. It is the only clinic in Lebanon doing this work, and it has so many clients that the healthcare workers could not meet with us until after hours.

Cynthia Al Khoury crosses the clinic lobby. The clinic’s trans health program is in its second year and grew out of Cynthia’s thesis for her Master’s degree in Public Health. I found it exciting that Cynthia was able to take her thesis from paper to reality—and so did she. “I never expected my thesis to grow into anything substantial, much less a formal health program for such a stigmatized population,” she said.

While being gay is criminalized in Lebanon, and there are strict social codes that forbid same-sex sexual behavior, it is considered to be one of the most LGBT-friendly Middle Eastern nations. There are LGBT bars and clubs—though they remain inconspicuous—and the younger generation seems more open to accepting LGBT people. In Lebanon, trans individuals are able to legally change their gender on their national identity documents, which is unusual in a country where homosexuality is illegal, and there are no laws against being transgender. However, societal stigma and discrimination against trans individuals is strong, causing barriers to education and employment. This leads many trans individuals in Lebanon to practice sex work to make a living, which puts them at high risk of HIV infection.

Johnny Tohme waits in the clinic lobby. I asked Cynthia if there were any epidemiologic data about HIV among trans individuals, and she smiled, confirming what I already knew. There is no data available, and the government does not have any HIV programs targeting GMT individuals. But she reported that the HIV prevalence she has seen among the population seems to corroborate global data showing they have a higher prevalence than men who have sex with men (MSM) and a much higher rate than the general population. I asked her if she thought the Lebanese government would ever consider providing PrEP for trans individuals, and she said she hoped one day that conversation could be had, though it has not yet been a possibility. “I have tried to have that conversation, and it was shut down before the conversation was even begun,” she said sadly.

MARSA currently has 19 trans clients actively enrolled in medical care, and Cynthia happily reported that they are welcoming more trans clients each month. The MARSA trans health program has trained community leaders in the trans community to educate and mobilize trans individuals and to let them know that MARSA offers free HIV preventive and treatment services and free mental healthcare. And while MARSA cannot afford to offer hormone treatment (prescription hormone therapy and sexual reassignment surgery are legal but scarce and prohibitively expensive), they do provide risk-reduction counseling for those who self-administer hormones that can be purchased on the street, which are potentially dangerous.

Overall, I was encouraged to see that MARSA had a functioning program for GMT individuals in the Middle East that is gaining the trust of its clients despite the tough legal and social situation that many face. The clinic is beautifully maintained, with staff who are friendly and welcoming, and it is definitely a place I would go for health services.

Posted by Kent Klindera, May 1, 2015

 
A community gathering for Blue Diamond Society members

Many of us have been saddened by the magnitude of loss caused by last week’s earthquake in Nepal. But daily I am heartened to hear about the tremendous relief efforts that are happening and workers’ success in finding individuals still alive after so many days. Earthquakes can be challenging for humanity, especially when they happen in low-income countries, but the rush to offer assistance is truly what makes us human.

To make a donation, visit FIAR or Rainbow Fund

However, I cannot help but think back to the discrimination experienced by LGBTI in Haiti in the wake of the terrible destruction caused by their 2010 earthquake. The relief community’s response was swift, but it lacked assistance targeted to LGBTI individuals and people living with HIV, who, due to extreme stigma and discrimination, often lack access to stable housing and familial support, making them especially vulnerable to the ravages of earthquakes and other natural disasters. 

When they sought help at general relief sites, many LGBTI experienced overt stigma and discrimination. This included horrendous sexual violence perpetrated against trans men and women and effeminate gay men in temporary housing and the exclusion of trans women and men from all gender-specific services. Despite this, aid agencies did not—and still do not—establish services targeting LGBTI as part of their disaster relief.

Unfortunately, amfAR is beginning to hear similar reports coming from Nepal of discrimination against LGBTI and people living with HIV. Since the earthquake, we have been in touch with colleagues at the Blue Diamond Society (BDS), a long-term partner and grantee of amfAR’s and the leading HIV advocacy and LGBTI rights organization in Nepal. They report that a few key staff members were killed or injured during the earthquake and that the building housing their main office and community center sustained structural damage.

Despite these losses, they have started taking action  to provide discrimination-free services for the Nepalese LGBTI community and advocate for aid agencies to recognize the unique challenges faced by marginalized people in society—namely LGBTI individuals and those living with HIV. Hopefully the larger aid and relief agencies will hear their call.

However, one way to help ensure that the response caters to the needs of all affected people in Nepal is to fund BDS directly. They have set up mechanisms for colleagues in other countries to support them through FIAR, the Foundation for Integrative AIDS Research, and the Rainbow Fund. (Be sure and write “Nepal–Blue Diamond Society” in the notes section on the Rainbow Fund site.)

And here is the call from Blue Diamond Society itself: Members of the Blue Diamond Society, the Health and Opportunity Network (HON), the Thai Transgender Alliance (ThaiTGA), Transgender and Intersex Africa (TIA), and the GMT Initiative during an advocacy exchange meeting in Nepal organized by amfAR

Dear All,

It’s as clear as the daylight that LGBTIs in Nepal are equally affected if not more. When disrepair hits, marginalized, excluded, and vulnerable communities suffer the most. The needs are enormous in Nepal and different aid agencies and government have their own priorities, but these priorities should be based on facts, needs, and urgency rather than based up on cultural/social biases or your own agency’s traditional approaches that have usually overlooked LGBTIs. For example, we have seen that some of the toilets constructed around relief camps are only based on binary gender mechanisms, excluding third gender propitiation. Queues for "Rashan" and other aid kits are the same, based on binary genders. 

We call on Nepal’s government, USAID, DFID, NORAD, UNDP, GIZ, Oxfam, and the other aid agencies to actively and purposefully include LGBTI in their response and rehab programmes. We also call our follow LGBTI rights organizations around the world to join forces to encourage USAID, DFID, Norad, UNDP, GIZ, Oxfam, and the other aid agencies to actively and purposefully include LGBTI in their response and rehab programmes. This might mean a joint communique or a statement.

Thank you very much for your kind thoughts, generosity, and solidarity.

Pinky Gurung, President
Manisha Dhakal, Executive Director
Sunil Babu Pant, Founding Director

Posted by Lucile Scott, April 29, 2015

For the third consecutive year, the GMT Initiative has teamed up with the Center for LGBT Health Research at the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public Health to offer scholarships to four researchers from low- or middle-income countries as part of the amfAR HIV Scholars program. The program aims to strengthen responses to HIV by offering leading GMT community-based researchers five months of graduate-level study on LGBT health research, study design, and grant writing.

“The strategies that work best for addressing HIV are those developed by community-based scholars and activists, and they have to have solid research skills and data or their brilliant strategies won’t get funding,” says Dr. Ron Stall, chair of the Department of Behavioral and Community Health Sciences at Pitt Public Health, who oversees the program. “The scholars are local heroes often doing this work at great risk to themselves, and we invest in them to help them get their programs off the ground.”

By the end of their stay, the scholars will have not only sharpened their research skills, but also drafted a proposal to investigate culturally appropriate strategies for improving HIV services for GMT individuals in their countries. Earlier this month, they travelled to New York City to present their proposals to amfAR’s staff for possible funding. Watch them discuss their work and the HIV Scholars program in the video above.

The 2015 amfAR HIV Scholars (left to right): Sheryar Kazi associated with the Naz Male Health Alliance, Pakistan; Liesl Theron, a consultant supported by Gender DynamiX, South Africa; Erika Castellanos from the Collaborative Network of Persons Living with HIV (C-NET+), Belize; and Weibin Cheng from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention and GZTZ.org.