HIV Stigma, Gay Identity, and Caste 'Untouchability': Metaphors of Abjection in My Brother…Nikhil, The Boyfriend, and "Gandu Bagicha"

The Biomedical Closet? Undetectability among HIV-positive Gay Men in India

The discourse of Undetectability, referring to the effect of HIV viral suppression on forward sexual transmission, is at the heart of the current paradigm of Treatment-as-Prevention and is invested with hopes of eliminating stigma. But ethnographic examination of the way HIV-positive gay and bisexual men in four major Indian cities experience Undetectability reveals a more complicated picture. Rather than resolve the problem of HIV stigma, Undetectability enables new ways of managing it, including ethical non-disclosure in the face of social danger. This reveals three paradoxes inherent in the universalism of Treatment-as-Prevention and its reliance on biomedical solutions.