What the law says
If you have HIV you should not pass the infection on. A person who transmits HIV to another person, or exposes another person to the risk of infection, may have broken the law. The penalty may be a fine, community service or imprisonment. You may also be sued by the person infected (or their family) for compensation.
The laws differ from state to state. In some states it is an offence to have sex with another person without telling them you have HIV. In others, transmission of HIV is not a public health offence.
For more information:
Tips for disclosing your HIV status
- You can never take back disclosure, or control how people will react. If you think the person will have a bad reaction, leave it until you feel more confident that you can handle it, or don’t tell them.
- Be careful about disclosing to people who might gossip.
- It might be helpful to rehearse what you want to tell people beforehand.
- Remind the person to keep it confidential, but accept that they will need to talk to others about it. Ask them to be careful who they tell or suggest other people who they could talk to for support.
- Positive people are often put in the position of being an educator. This can be onerous, but people who do not know much about HIV will expect you to inform them.
- It can be hard to tell the children in our lives that we have HIV. Explain things in simple ways so that it’s easy for them to understand.
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One of the first things positive people need to face after diagnosis is who to tell. Remember, it’s your decision who and when to tell. There is no hurry; take time to consider who needs to know and why, and disclose when you are ready.
Stories
Telling the kids
Tips for disclosing
Would you like to contribute your own story about disclosure, or comment on these stories?
Your stories
© AFAO 2003. Reviewed May 2006.
Bill
I was diagnosed overseas and I didn’t want to come back to Australia. I thought that if I got sick and it wasn’t too serious, I might be able to keep it from Mum and Dad, if I wasn’t in Australia. I thought I’d let them down a bit.
I never had to tell Mum and Dad; they went about four years before I really got sick. There was only my brother left and we hadn’t spoken for twenty years, couldn’t stand each other. When my parents got sick, he was so good to them and now he’s done such a turn around, it’s unbelievable.
There was a time when I had to go to hospital and I had to ring my brother and ask him to look after my dogs. We’d started just talking again. He asked what hospital I was going to. I said Fairfield. He said, “Fairfield, that’s where they send the AIDS patients”. I said, “Yes, now the dogs’ food is here and ...”. And he said, “Well we better get a case packed for you and get you there, then you can let me know later what’s going on.” You think you know someone - I couldn’t believe it. He knows the situation now as much as he needs to know. He’s so supportive.
Sara
I had HIV for about ten years before I was able to tell my mother. I had told close friends and my brother, but Mum was the most difficult one. Eventually I decided to tell her. It took about a month. She used to come and stay with us and one weekend I wanted to tell her, but I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t get any words out.
About three weeks later she came down again. I sat her down and just told her, “I’m HIV positive”. Ten minutes later we were having lunch. My biggest worry was that I had taken so long to tell her. Obviously she knew something was wrong. She said, “I know that you would never do anything to hurt me.” It was so much easier than I had thought.
Daniel
I think people really feel a need to be able to talk to somebody else about it and so you automatically lose control of who’s going to find out because the person you tell then tells somebody else about it. Before you know it, in a small town, it’s common knowledge. I found that with my employers as well; that while I asked for it to be confidential, it was really hard for them to do that. I had to come to terms with the fact that it wasn’t out of anyone’s malice or evil; people will find out. It’s just human nature that we want to share and unburden.
Marie
In the beginning I blurted it out sometimes when I was angry, or at inappropriate times. That was always a bad mistake because the person would freak out and tell lots of people. To this day I don’t really know who in the family knows and doesn’t know. I don’t really care, but I feel like I’m not in control.
I realised then that when I disclose my status to someone I need to link them in to someone who already knows so that they can talk about me. They probably have questions they don’t want to ask me, or fears they don’t want to tell me about. I felt like I became this big HIV educator amongst family and friends, taking leaflets with me everywhere.
I’ve read that most discrimination has happened in the healthcare setting, as has happened with me. When we’re talking to healthcare professionals we believe that we have to disclose our status - but the only legal obligation in NSW is to disclose to a sex partner. And that’s your choice. We need to protect our own rights as well, every health care professional is taught safety precautions and it’s not our role to educate them unless we want to.
If someone really cares about you as a person it doesn’t matter what you have, even though HIV has such a stigma about it. It’s usually people who don’t know you who bring their own fears and stigma to HIV.
Tai
I didn’t tell my parents until about nine years after I sero converted, when I became sick the first time. It was easy because I don’t live in the same country as my parents [Malaysia]. I told my brother and sisters the moment I found out, they’re western educated and I thought they could take it, which they did.
My parents are quite traditional and I only told them at the very last moment. It felt like a second coming out. I had come out as gay to them very early. I think that’s very unusual for a lot of Asian gay people. When I came out I was willing to lay everything on the line. I was willing never to see them again. In my family we just didn’t like our parents very much really; I suppose if you felt more affectionate to them it would be harder.
My parents took about ten years to get used to the idea of my being gay, but they did. It’s not impossible. I told them I was HIV positive in a letter, so that was easy. Of course I was feeling a lot of pain with that as well. I knew that they would be very hurt, but I didn’t have to face them. But then in a way it made my parents more caring towards me. They would say, ‘oh, don’t work if you’re not feeling well’.
Jim
Most of my friends and my work colleagues know I have HIV, but then I’ve got other friends I’m hesitant to tell. These are gay guys who are out on the scene and make comments that ‘We don’t know any positive people’. That always gets to me and I’ve never told them for that reason. One couple had come into contact with hepatitis, through sleeping with a third party. Their reaction was, ‘It must have been so and so, because he’s a slut’. I thought that’s very strange and we had an argument about it. It takes two to tango.
Gavin
As an Indigenous person my issues are the same as any other positive person, but there are different issues around disclosure. In my home community I’ve started to identify as a positive person now, but I didn’t disclose earlier, basically to ensure that my family in no way would be subjected to any sort of discrimination. Fortunately there are more Indigenous positive people identifying as HIV positive and it’s making it easier for us to be more honest about who we are. Education is getting out to the communities and they are changing and young people are actually quite accepting of it all. All my nieces and nephews know about my status and they’re quite cool with it.
Harry
If I am in a chatroom or anything else, I am upfront about it within the first two sentences. If they don’t respond, I know it is not okay. Once I put up two similar descriptions in a chat room. In one of them I disclosed and the other one I took the HIV bit out. The one in which I disclosed didn’t get anything; the other one was flooded. That says something to me about the way even gay men don’t feel comfortable with HIV, they don’t have the skills to deal with a positive person, or they are frightened.
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Telling the children
Marie
My daughter’s eight now and although she’s come to lots of HIV-related things with me and we talk about it, she has never asked me if I have HIV, or why I was on treatments. I’ve been wondering if I should sit her down and tell her, or wait for her to make the connections. I think I’m going to just wait for her to ask, as they do about lots of things and hope that she’s not too angry about it. I don’t want her to know before she’s ready. Children know the difference between good secrets and bad secrets and I don’t want her to feel that she has to keep it in.
Sara
My husband has been ill a lot. We’ve both worried about what would happen to our son if we were to die. He’s seven now. I don’t ever remember talking about death in front of him, but he picked up this fear that we’re sick and we’re going to die. It’s better now because we’re a lot healthier.
When he was smaller we had a dog that we lost. He was quite fond of it and whenever he saw a dog he would get upset and start crying. This happened over a series of a few months and I thought that really he was worried about us.
We’d tell him that we have a bug in our blood that makes us tired and often very sick, but that we are going to be around for a long time. We also talked to him about death and how it is a normal part of our lives: everyone is going to die. I’d tell him I’ll be around to see his children. He hasn’t been so worried for a while now. My husband’s health is better and we’re a lot more settled, so he doesn’t get that fear. He sees that we’re all right, we do okay.
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Your stories
Leigh
It was 1985, I was living in another town some 100 Ks from Auckland. NZ. Just before I moved I visited the Public Hospital, for a check up. During this time I was asked had I had a HIV test. Knowing that I had been in a Gay relationship for some time I thought it would give me peace of mind.
One day I receved a phone call from the Doctor at surgery, telling me I was HIV+ and could I find some one to talk to about it. where was I going to do this? I with my partner had moved out of Auckland and we did not know of any Doctors where we lived.
During that day I went through fear, anger and just felt my world had stoped, how could I have got this virus, was my partner positive too Oh!! God why me.
That was then, today I live with both my HIV + and my partner he is negative. I have disclosed to my parents, my children and all my family, they have been most supportive of both myself and my partner. I have found that for me to live each day is worth every moment of it, and I take the challeange of sharing my life's journy with both my church members (MCC) and at Uni. There are days that I feel down and wonder if this is the end, and the begining of AIDS, but I then get back up and keep on going.
I have been a pastor of MCC here in New Zealand for over 22 years and living with my patner for 25 years, so I guess Life is good and I can take care of my daliy livin. There has been changes in how I do things, like meals I eat - I am now a Vegan - and I take time out to stop stress from taking it's toll.
My self-awareness is a very strong part of my growth, and giving my self permission to say I love myself.
For me a holistic approach in controlling stress and tension involves me considering the total human condition of my being, to know my physical body, and the strong support of my family and my partner and my faith journey. "Self-care is the ability to honour, or apperciate, one's emotional nature, to express fear, happiness, anger, love, and joy appropriately when they felt" (Girdano, Everly, Dusek,) (1997).
At the moment I am full time at Uni doing a paper on Violence and Trauma.
This has given me a new out look on life.
I guess for me it is to reach for the stars, and aim high.
Life is good and I can only go on to support the unprotected of the world by being who I am, where I am - Now.
Peace be to you who read this, it has been a long journy with many new out comes, but never give up your faith on your journey.
Arohanui. (love)
Bruce
Diagonosed 1990 i kept it quiet till a friend passed on in 1993. I then told my parents who were responsible for informing all the family i mean in total and its a large one. My immediate close friends were responsible for telling everyone else in confidence of course. I confided in my manager at work to explain all the dr visits and blood test and there was a lot of explaining to do but in confidence he was told. that went straight to his manager and by the end of the year i was the only one who thought it was a secret. like it went through the staff of 85 in no time and then to their friends by the time i started triple combinations i doubt anyone in newcastle did not know of my suitation all done without my comsent. I now tell everyone anyhow and if they dont want to talk to me thats thier loss. hiv does kill your sex and social life when your honest about it but again thats their loss cause im sill fantastic in bed and a decent person but tainted with the aids curse none the less
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