HIV vulnerability and the erasure of sexual and gender diversity in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire

ABSTRACT

In the fight against concentrated HIV epidemics, men who have sex with men (MSM) are often framed as a homogeneous population, with little attention paid to sexual and gender diversity and its impact on HIV vulnerability. This article draws on ethnographic research conducted in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire among les branchés – a local term encompassing several categories of same-sex desire and practice. In the context of increased HIV prevention programming targeting Ivoirian sexual and gender minorities, such diversity is effectively erased. This obfuscation of difference has particularly negative impacts for travestis, who may be at higher risk for HIV infection, though research and prevention efforts in which they are grouped with ‘MSM’ render them underrepresented and make their vulnerability difficult to quantify. Branchés whose class and/or ethnic backgrounds compound their stigmatised status as sexual and gender minorities also bear the burden of this exclusion. Furthermore, some branchés deploy ‘MSM’ as a form of self-identification, further complicating who such categories represent. By highlighting the ways in which constructions of gender and sexuality within HIV/AIDS programming obscure complex social realities, I aim to reorient thinking around the development of purposeful HIV programming that engages the complexity of sexual and gender minority experience.

KEYWORDS:

• Medical anthropology
• HIV/AIDS
• men who have sex with men
• Cote d'Ivoire
• sexuality and gender

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. A similar system of in-group identification has been documented in Senegal (Dramé et al., 2012) and Mali (Broqua, 2013).

Additional information

Funding

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute of Allergy & Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of Health [grant number T32AI114398]. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.