"In D.C., almost one out of five men who have sex with men are diagnosed and living with HIV/AIDS."- D.C. Department of Health

HIV in the nation's capital

Jose Ramirez remembers vividly the moment he started regular testing for HIV.

When he was 17, Ramirez's boyfriend suddenly disappeared. A mutual friend shocked Ramirez with unwanted news.

"He's really sick," the friend said, letting him know his boyfriend had AIDS.The last Ramirez knew, his boyfriend was only taking medication for Diabetes.

He's among a large population of gay men of color in the Washington, DC area infected with HIV/AIDS. However, Ramirez, now 28, refuses to play the victim and dedicates his time to improving the lives of people who have contracted the virus. These workers constantly face barriers to success including old stigmas and changing attitudes about treatment, but, as survivors themselves, they know people can live happy lives with HIV.

Reaching out

Today, Ramirez works with La Clinica Del Pueblo, a clinic that offers comprehensive health services for the Latino community in Washington, DC. He coordinates MPoderate, or MPowerment, a program which educates queer Latino youth about HIV/AIDS and helps them build leadership skills and engage in the community.

"I want to educate my community, especially other young latinos who are going through the same issues I went through," Ramirez says. "So letting them know, I've been there. I know what it means to work the streets. I know what it means to be on drugs….I don't judge."

Ramirez attributes success he's had with young Latinos to his ability to personally connect with the kids and to understand the problems they are facing, something Calvin Gerald, another HIV infected gay man, also tries to do at the DC Center, an LGBT community center.

Gerald, who discovered he was HIV positive in 2008, works to find affordable housing for people infected with HIV/AIDS. He also volunteers with the HIV Working Group at the DC Center trying to engage both the HIV positive and negative communities in a discussion about prevention.

"You have people in the HIV positive community and most of them are like 'Oh, it's your responsibility to protect yourself,'" Gerald says. "Then you have people in the negative community and they're like 'Oh, it's your responsibility to protect me.' But it's a shared responsibility , so we need to start having that dialogue of how to practice safe sex."

A Hard Pill to Swallow

Newer treatments for HIV have had a bittersweet result for the gay community. HIV infected men now only have to take one pill a day. They still face side effects like depression, mood swings, and weight gain, but they are ultimately living longer.

"People don't look at HIV and AIDS the way they used to look at it as being a death sentence," Gerald says. "They look at it as a chronic illness like heart disease or something like that, where I can just take a pill and be fine and then I can just go on and do what I do."

But, both Gerald and Ramirez see scary effects from the belief that the pill is a quick-fix.

"Men are so accepting that they're putting themselves at risk…and are still not using condoms," Ramirez says.

Facing the Statistics

And both men face a tough time combating HIV, particularly among gay men of color. A recent DC Department of Health report about HIV/AIDS rates among men who have sex with men shows that more than 20 percent of men of color who participated in the study were infected with HIV. And more than 25 percent of black men who participated had the virus.

Gerald, an African American man, is disheartened that more members of the black community are not seeking out education. He says that people don't want to be associated with the disease and consequently don't come to meetings and ignore the facts.

"I'm looking at the statistics, but then I'm also looking out in the room," Gerald says. "I don't see anybody from my community sitting there with me, you know trying to change the mindset…and the way that we're thinking about the disease."

Ramirez faces a similar struggle with cultural barriers. He says that Latino cultures don't openly talk about having safe sex or using condoms, in part because of religion. He adds that few HIV positive Latinos are willing to speak openly and therefore the community has unrealistic impressions of what being HIV positive means, based on television and movies. And he's worried that the actual rates of infection may be much higher than reported because Latinos are simply not getting tested.

The good news from the report - men of color actually use protection more often during sex then white men. But, because the black and Latino communities have much higher HIV rates, men of color still have a better chance of being infected.