MEXICO CITY — Jorge Saavedra’s moment of truth came in front of 5,000 people in the middle of an impassioned speech about the paltry amount of money being spent to stop the spread of AIDS among gay men.
The Mexican federal official paused, then said publicly for the first time that he was gay.
As he held up a photo of himself with his partner, the crowd applauded wildly. Afterward, men from Africa and India congratulated him with tears in their eyes.
“They told me that I was a hero and that they wished they could do the same in their countries,” said Saavedra, who has HIV and heads AIDS prevention efforts in a country where many gay men live in denial.
Saavedra’s coming-out Tuesday at the International AIDS Conference sent a powerful message to the world: Homophobia must be stamped out if AIDS is to be controlled.
Fewer people are dying from AIDS, but new HIV infections among gay and bisexual men in many countries are rising at alarming rates. Yet less than 1 percent of the $669 million reported in global prevention spending targets men who have sex with men, according to UNAIDS figures from 2006, the latest available data.
From Mexico to India, a surprising number of men who have sex with men insist they are not gay, and many governments still refuse to admit homosexuality exists.
“It’s very difficult to provide services to men who have sex with men in countries that don’t acknowledge they exist or criminalize them,” said Craig McClure, executive director of International AIDS Society, which planned the conference.
During the conference’s inauguration, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon urged nations “to follow Mexico’s bold example and pass laws against homophobia.”
In 2003, Mexico banned discrimination based on sexual orientation, and it has opened “homophobic-free” health clinics.
