Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. 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. In the context of increased HIV prevention programming targeting Ivoirian sexual and gender minorities, such diversity is effectively erased. In fact, this language effectively erases certain populations from the category of MSM, thus excluding them from HIV care and prevention.
These seemingly local identifications are complicated by and run parallel to the term MSM, which is claimed and deployed by some sexual minority men in Abidjan, particularly those with ties to local non-governmental organizations NGOs. For all of the label's shortcomings, this article will not outline a plan for eschewing the MSM category in favor of one or a few other emic categories. Furthermore, these identifications overlap with other social realities, including class and ethnicity, in meaningful ways.
Thus, this article tackles the following questions: How are the specific cultural categories used in HIV prevention programming locally interpreted and embodied? How should public health practioners and researchers understand travestis, who may or may not identify as transgender and whose risk factors overlap with but are distinct from most gender normative men? What new forms of sociality are produced by evidenced-based interventions and global health research targeting gender and sexual minorities?
Other than Claver, who, as the Executive Director of Alternative, is a highly visible public figure and who insisted that I use his real name, I have assigned research participants pseudonyms to ensure their anonymity. At the request of leadership at Alternative and Arc-en-Ciel, which have been highly publicized in both the local and foreign press Corey-Boulet , , ; Fioriti ; Kouassi ; , I have retained the real names of both organizations.
The findings presented in this article are not representative of all sexual and gender minorities in Abidjan. Interviews were conducted in French and touched on a variety of themes about the experiences of gender and sexual minorities in Abidjan. I also asked research participants to discuss their experiences with violence, broadly defined, and the divisions that exist within the community and within NGO spaces in particular.
