Susan Forrest, a member of the AIDS social services community, writes about a new social marketing campaign that may fail to reach at-risk communities:
There is a LOT of hand-wringing in L.A. HIV circles about men who have sex with men who don’t identify as gay - and how to get them HIV tested and how to target prevention to them. [Many of those men are purported to be men who are not white.] This campaign will not speak to them...
It is generally acknowledged that those guys do not identify as "gay" and are not seen as members of 'The Gay Community' (of course, there are many communities in LA, but 'The Gay Community' in LA – the West Hollywood, entrenched crowd who self-identify as 'The Gay Community' generally are white.) So if these posters are going up in West Hollywood or in areas where people who identify as part of the gay community are, they will miss the very population they are saying they want to reach.
From the newswire: HIV is a Gay Disease (!?!) by Susan Forrest.
New AIDS Campaign Accused of Being Culturally Exclusive