In fierce partnership with advocates, Councilmember Pierina Sanchez passed a bill this month that expanded HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STI) testing services with a concentration in Black, Brown, and low-income communities with limited access.
“The main message: There are horrific inequities in the city of New York and nationally along lines of race, ethnicity, gender identity and sexual identity—and those are not related to any behaviors,” said Sanchez, who sponsored the bill. These persisting sexual health inequities stem from a lack of access to education, testing, prevention, treatment, and care as opposed to the stigma that LGBTQ members practice “risky” sexual behaviors, she added.
There are currently two rapid HIV and STI testing sites, or “quickie labs,” with same-day turnaround results in the city—one in Fort Greene and the other in Chelsea. The bill, Int. 435, will require the city to double the number of sites over the next three years in at least four boroughs. The bill also includes measures to track the progress establishing the clinics and create an outreach campaign.
The impetus behind the bill has been in the works for years.
In 2015, the Caribbean Equality Project (CEP) launched Knowing Matters, an awareness campaign that has been locally promoting sexual health and wellness, public education, performing arts, and HIV/AIDS prevention in the caribbean LGBTQ+ community. “Many of the organization’s clients are asylum seekers and low-income and undocumented queer and trans Afro and Indo-Caribbean people of color,” said CEP Executive Director Mohamed Q. Amin at a press conference on July 18.
CEP Policy Advocate and Board Member Kadeem Robinson (they/them) and Amin spoke at the conference about the numerous challenges queer Caribbeans face. They often encounter barriers to culturally sensitive mental health resources, housing, and jobs; experience stigma, family rejection and abandonment; and face persecution in their home countries and death threats, all of which are rooted in deep “postcolonial” trauma.
“When we think about that, we’re brought to the question of what access looks like,” said Robinson.
Robinson, who was working in the Public Advocate Jumaane Williams office at the time, conducted an extensive outreach campaign over four years to learn what queer New Yorkers in the city wanted to advocate for. Most people surveyed spoke about being too afraid to go get tested and the lack of access to testing. The survey became the basis of their legislative push to expand testing.
“Today, we are telling all New Yorkers, including immigrants and newly arrived migrants, that their health and access to care matters,” said Amin. “Together, we are sending a powerful message that your neighborhood, immigration status, socio-economic background, race, sexual orientation, gender identity, and sex should not be barriers to health services in NYC. Knowing your STI and HIV status matters, and it starts with getting tested.”
New York City is one of the historic epicenters of the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)/Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) outbreak, beginning in the 1980s and 90s. The virus in no way has been eradicated and continues to disproportionately impact LGBTQ people of color today.
According to city data from 2022, Black or Hispanic/Latinx New Yorkers made up 84% of new HIV diagnoses among women, 83% of new HIV diagnoses among men, and the rate of syphilis cases was 2.4 times higher among Black men than white men.
“Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, racial inequities in sexually transmitted infection rates have skyrocketed, most harshly impacting New Yorkers at the intersection of Black, Latino, low-income and LGBTQ+ communities,” said Sanchez at the press conference on July 18.
In 2022, the Bronx had the highest number of HIV/AIDS deaths in the city, especially among Black Non-Hispanic residents. “The Bronx in particular suffers from the highest rate of HIV infection and deaths across New York State’s 62 counties, the highest rate of chlamydia infections, and the second-highest rates of gonorrhea in the five boroughs,” said Sanchez. “You would think that translates to services to meet this challenge.”
Rates of gonorrhea and chlamydia have gone up citywide as well, but overall “infection rates for both STIs disproportionately affected people living in high-poverty neighborhoods.” These individuals experienced case rates approximately two times higher than people living in low-poverty neighborhoods, reported the city in a press release.
Source: NYC Dept of Health
Despite concerns about infection rates, the city budget was slated earlier this year to cut about $5.3 million in funding to HIV/STI health programs and HIV/AIDS workforce development programs. Enraged, the city council’s LGBTQIA+ caucus sent a letter to Mayor Eric Adams slamming the cuts as “unnecessary” and “dangerous” to the health and well-being of New Yorkers living with HIV and AIDS and the city’s queer community as a whole.
Sanchez said that the “multi-million dollar” bill was “hard negotiated.”
“Just as we saw with COVID-19, communities that have experienced disinvestment in healthcare education and access are the same ones that are disparately impacted by STIs,” said Williams, who co-sponsored the bill, in a statement. “Increased awareness and treatment availability facilitate and enrich the wellness of our city, and this moment of progress would not have been possible without the passion of advocates, the commitment of Council Member Sanchez, or the leadership of Speaker Adams.”