If your sole existence defies patriarchal paradigms, you should live as loudly as possible — and that's exactly what I did. As a young, queer man in conservative Costa Rica, that's a radical proposition. When I found out I was HIV positive, I never questioned whether I was going to share my status publicly or not. Rather,was I going to do it? And when? I didn't come out of one closet just to go back into another one.
By the time I was 13 I had told my parents I liked boys. That was followed by my nightmarish teenage years of concealed sexual orientation and eventually by 18 I ended up in conversion therapy. After a full year of trying to be my best straight self, I came out to my parents once again. They accepted it, but asked me to keep it private:"Don't be too flashy, please" they said.
I had told my parents I was going to keep my status a secret until I was on treatment. On March 18 of this year, thanks to universal healthcare and the advances we've had regarding HIV treatment in Costa Rica, I got my first bottle of ARVs just three months after getting diagnosed. I was unsure whether I wanted to come out on Instagram, tweet it or if I was feeling vintage, maybe even a Facebook post would do. None of these options felt right; they weren't liberated enough.
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