My Day Is The Same As Yours is a new short film available on YouTube that provides insight into the everyday reality of living with HIV. Produced by the Cork-based Sexual Health Centre, it is directed by their HIV Programme Manager Ian Brennan and filmmaker Jack Deacon, and stars LGBTQ+ Support Worker Gabriel Marttin de França.
The short contains little dialogue, focusing on the daily routine of Gabriel, a man living with HIV, as he goes to work, hangs out with friends at a bar, gets a tattoo, makes food and has sex. The simplicity of the piece carries significant weight, as the Sexual Health Centre explains, “Through the experience of Gabriel, a person living with HIV, the film invites audiences to look beyond outdated assumptions and stereotypes and to recognise the shared humanity, relationships, aspirations and everyday experiences of people living with HIV”.
The Executive Director of the Sexual Health Centre, Fiona Finn, also added, “I often think that, as a society, we’ve failed to get one message out clearly enough: today, a diagnosis of HIV is not life-limiting”.
She continued, “Today treatment is so effective that a person’s viral load can become undetectable — and when it’s undetectable, this means that virus cannot be transmitted to their sexual partners. Undetectable equals Untransmittable. U=U.”
This connects My Day Is The Same As Yours to the wider Undetectable = Untransmittable (U=U) movement, started by activist Bruce Richman in 2016 to combat misinformation and prejudice.
Stigma against those with HIV has been pervasive for decades and continues to be a pressing issue. According to a 2022 study by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, 24% of respondents with HIV reported experiencing rejection from friends and 17% reported being threatened, verbally abused or physically harmed by a sexual partner.
Therefore, My Day Is The Same As Yours is a much-needed piece of HIV education that dismantles stigma through centring humanity and resilience.
The Sexual Health Centre provides counselling, STI screenings, Rapid HIV testing and home STI test kits. For more information, check out their website.
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