CDC Report Black and Hispanic Transgender Woman Have Highest Rate of New HIV Infection

Source August 12, 2011 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention HIV among Transgender People

"Approximately 90% of MtF and FtM people newly diagnosed with HIV infection were black or Hispanic. Newly diagnosed transgender people were more likely to have been in their teens or twenties than their non-transgender counterparts. Also, among newly diagnosed people, 50% of transgender women had documentation in their medical records of substance use, commercial sex work, homelessness, incarceration, and/or sexual abuse as compared with 31% of other people who were not transgender."

"Findings from a meta-analysis of 29 published studies showed that 27.7% of transgender women tested positive for HIV infection (4 studies), but when testing was not part of the study, only 11.8% of transgender women self-reported having HIV (18 studies). In one study, 73% of the transgender women who tested HIV-positive were unaware of their status. Studies also indicate that black transgender women are more likely to become newly infected with HIV."


Not surprisingly, low self esteem and a need of validation are among the main factors for the high rate of HIV infection in the transgender community. It's important to talk about and not something for the "religious" right to use as a weapon to validate there contention we would just disappear should infected transgender people be ignored and untreated. That's part of the final solution they are fervently trying to legislate in Uganda's reanimated "Kill Gay" bill.


The CDC has also released a study of New Resources on HIV amoung Woman and Transgender people

You are Transgender Cathey Brennan. Live with it and stop the Hate!

Who we are today is a sum of what we were and whom we have envisioned ourselves to be yesterday. Be proud of that addition/subtraction. You are art in progress.

Sadly, that philosophy is not appreciated by the Westboro Baptist Church, any number of right wing hate groups or a person named Cathey Brennan. Recently Brennan blindsided the transgender community with a letter to the UN seeking to dis empower and disfranchise transgender people purportedly to protect the fringe group Womyn-born womyn from everyone else under the transgender umbrella.

So what are Womyn-born womyn? Essentially its a group of people who have formed a exclusionary club and will stop at nothing to point out exactly how different they are from us, even from people that they share a common past with.

Wait a minute, what? Brennan is transgender or why would she identify as Womyn-born womyn? Cathy Brennan is transgender but transphobia knows no bounds.

It has occurred to me I have never seen the AFA's Bryan Fischer and Cathey Brennan in the same room at the same time. Their hateful memes use the exact same tactics.

Deconstruction of the transgender identity, establish that transgender woman are men and vilify the new identity as a perverted criminal who only desire is finding a way to rape your daughter in the bathroom. Time after time we face that same lie. Brennan is just one more hater to use it.

I have had personal knowledge of Brennan's transphobia. During a Facebook discussion about a Maryland 'equality' bill that would have legalized our exclusion from the proper restroom Brennan became so disruptive I warned her she would be baned if she didn't stop. Her answer was to call me a weirdo. At the time her antagonism was explained away by some in our community but no more.

Brennan seriously needs therapy for her transphobia before she hurts herself and other transgender people.

As have marched towards equality it has become more and more apparent to cisgender woman just how much we have in common. They are some of our most adamant supporters as it become undeniably apparent we are all woman fighting for the same thing, equality and respect and in that sense we are all transgender.

And Brennan, I don't want to exclude anyone from the opening paragraph. Take it to heart. Give up the anger. Grow past your hate and into the sunshine.