The invisible intersectionality of female gender in Thailand’s response to the HIV epidemic

Abstract

This article uses feminist perspectives to analyse Thailand’s response to the HIV epidemic from its inception in 1984 until today. In particular, it applies the WHO Gender Responsiveness Assessment Scale to explain how and to what degree gender considerations have been integrated into successive HIV policies and programmes. Findings show that, from 1984 to 1996, HIV prevention policies were generally insensitive to gender and only started to pay limited attention to women’s needs between 1997 and 2011. Gender sensitivity increased in the 2012–2019 period, but the focus then was more on ‘men who have sex with men’ and the transgender communities than on women. In general, Thailand’s HIV responses has overlooked gender power relations and the adverse effects of the intersection between women’s gender and their other disadvantaged social statuses.

Keywords:

• Women
• gender
• intersectionality
• HIV
• policy
• Thailand

Acknowledgements

We thank Peter Aggleton, the editor-in-chief of Culture, Health & Sexuality, and anonymous reviewers for their feedback and support during the development of this article. Thanks also go to Sudarat Musikawong for language editing of the first draft of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflicts of interest were reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This study received a certificate of exemption from ethics review (CEO. No. 2019/11-455) from the Institute for Population and Social Research IRB Review Board at Mahidol University.

2 Meeting notes, March 20, 2017.

3 Meeting notes, March 20, 2017.

4 Notes from a meeting of working group members to review the success of PMTCT in 2017.

5 Meeting notes, May 15, 2019.