Why I'm Disclosing My HIV Status Now

In anticipation of my forthcoming essay in the Presbyterian Outlook on Friday, February 28, for "HIV Is Not A Crime Awareness Day," titled "Breaking my silence: A pastor’s journey with HIV," I want to provide context for this profoundly personal disclosure. I will also reflect on this journey in my Sunday, March 2 sermon.

After eight years of living with HIV in silence, I am choosing to speak openly for several critical reasons. This decision stems not only from my personal journey but also from recognizing how such silence erodes the fabric of our communities and the need for continued advocacy in our current political climate. When we feel compelled to hide parts of ourselves for fear of judgment, we all lose authentic relationships, honest theological reflection, and the opportunity to be the fully inclusive Body of Christ we are called to be.

1. Silence and Isolation Kill

Living with hidden parts of ourselves takes a tremendous toll on our mental and physical health. My decision to speak openly comes from recognizing how isolation and silence deeply affect our well-being. The internal struggle of carrying secrets creates a burden that affects every aspect of life. For too many of us living with HIV, this isolation has proven fatal—not the virus itself, thanks to medical advancements, but the loneliness and despair that accompany hidden truths as many people still hold onto outdated fears and stigmas.

As Edwin Cameron, a prominent South African Constitutional Court Justice who publicly disclosed his HIV status in 1999, writes in "Witness to AIDS": "Social isolation's irrational force springs not only from the prejudiced, bigoted, fearful reactions others have to AIDS—it lies in the fears and self-loathing, the self-undermining and ultimately self-destroying inner sense of self-blame that all too many people with AIDS or HIV experience themselves."

My journey toward this disclosure has been long and arduous. When contemplating suicide in 2022, crushed by the hidden truth of my identity, I found that the path forward required embracing my whole self—including my HIV status. In this process, I discovered that in vulnerability, there is strength; in honesty, there is healing; and in speaking truth, there is liberation.

2. The Perceived Judgment of Others

For years, I attempted to forestall assumed judgment and contempt. Borrowing from Edwin Cameron in his memoir "Witness to AIDS" again, as he wrote: "My silence was designed to forestall them from condemning, despising me. Now if they wished to condemn me, it was their decision. I no longer sought to control." Like him, I am relieving myself of responsibility for others' reactions to my illness. As Cameron described it, this release from the exhausting work of anticipating judgment is "an inexpressible relief."

As a pastor, I've found this particularly challenging. I've spent my ministry creating spaces of authenticity, yet I have not fully inhabited the space myself. The irony is that in attempting to protect myself from judgment, I've denied myself and my community the opportunity for a deeper connection. An authentic community cannot be built on partial truths. When we withhold significant parts of ourselves, we create barriers to the belonging we seek to foster.

3. Shame and Stigma

The impact of stigma originates not only from external prejudice but also from within. As someone who grew up in apartheid South Africa's White supremacist culture and the Dutch Reformed Church, I internalized the message that my sexuality was sinful and immoral. When diagnosed with HIV in 2016, I felt like the moral failure I had feared I might become, having grown up in a church that viewed AIDS as God's punishment. Breaking free from this internalized shame is essential not just for my healing but for challenging the stigma that continues to hinder prevention and treatment efforts worldwide.

It is this acceptance that leads to transcendence. As Cathy O'Neil points out in "The Shame Machine: Who Profits in the New Age of Humiliation," it is essential to transcend shame by taking on the very systems that cripple us. She writes: "We'll fare far better as a society, in terms of both happiness and justice, if we succeed in redirecting shame from its current victims, who are disproportionately poor and powerless, to people who are taking advantage of the rest of us and poisoning our lives and culture. By turning downward punches into upward ones, we protect the social good. That should be shame's eternal role, its raison d'être."

My disclosure challenges theological frameworks that have weaponized scripture to treat HIV as divine punishment rather than a medical condition. By sharing my story, I am resisting oppressive theologies of sin that have labeled bodies like mine as "temples destroyed" rather than vessels of God's image still worthy of dignity. When we speak the truth about our lives, we expose how the church's silence around sexuality and HIV perpetuates shame and prevents healing. Our personal stories become powerful testimonies against systems that use moral condemnation to maintain control rather than extending grace and fostering reconciliation.

4. Speaking Out Against Spiritual Trauma

My journey shows how deeply the church must reckon with the spiritual trauma it inflicts through its failure to address issues of sex and sexuality, its oppressive theology of sin, its idolatry of traditional family values, and its sanctification of heteronormativity. At its core, the church proclaims a message of reconciliation, yet it remains blind to its complicity in criminalizing and marginalizing people living with HIV.

This spiritual trauma had devastating consequences in my life. By March 2022, the weight of living divided between my public persona and private reality became unbearable. Crushed by shame rooted in religious teachings, I contemplated suicide as an escape from the cognitive dissonance that tore at my soul. The church's messaging about sexuality and HIV had become internalized to the point where I could no longer see God's love for me or imagine a future of hope. This is the dangerous power of spiritual trauma—it doesn't just alienate us from religious communities; it can separate us from our very will to live.

Through silence, judgment, and moral condemnation, religious communities have contributed to a culture that criminalizes HIV.

5. Current Political Climate

This disclosure feels especially urgent in today's political landscape. As a South African now living in the United States, I feel compelled to speak out for my siblings in both countries. The Trump administration has frozen aid to South Africa through PEPFAR (President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), putting millions of people living with HIV at risk in my homeland. This program has saved over 26 million lives globally, and its disruption threatens to return us to a time when an HIV diagnosis was effectively a death sentence.

Having witnessed the devastation of AIDS in South Africa, I cannot remain silent as similar patterns of inhumanity emerge under different political systems. By speaking now, I hope to highlight the real human impact of decisions that treat some lives less valuable than others.

6. Authenticity, Vulnerability, and Theological Integrity

Above all, this disclosure is a matter of authenticity, vulnerability, and theological integrity. As a pastor, I cannot preach about God's inclusive love while hiding significant parts of myself. My lived experience as a gay man living with HIV is not separate from my theological understanding—it is an essential part of how I understand God's revelation.

As Patrick S. Cheng writes in "Radical Love: An Introduction to Queer Theology": "Like all other theologies, queer theology draws upon at least four sources: (1) scripture, (2) tradition, (3) reason, and (4) experience. This multiplicity of sources is important because, on the one hand, theology has never been simply about reading the Bible literally (that is, scripture) nor simply about what the church authorities have taught (that is, tradition). On the other hand, theology has never been simply a matter of drawing upon philosophy (that is, reason) nor has it simply been equated with the human experience of the divine (that is, experience)."

By acknowledging my whole identity, I honor experience as a legitimate theological source alongside scripture, tradition, and reason. To deny my experience would be to reject an essential way God revealed Themselves in my life.

My disclosure is not simply personal—it is theological work that recognizes God's presence in the fullness of human experience, including experiences marginalized and silenced within church tradition.

A Call to Sacred Action

This moment calls for more than mere words—it demands action. Our stories as people living with HIV cannot be erased or relegated to the margins. My experience reveals a God who embodies compassion rather than condemnation.

The political forces seeking to render us invisible—through PEPFAR budget cuts, discriminatory policies, and systematic erasure—only strengthen my resolve to speak the truth. This disclosure is an act of resistance against both theological frameworks that weaponize HIV status and political decisions that devalue human lives.

In sharing my story, I affirm that my experience as a pastor, a gay man, and a person living with HIV is not separate from my theology but essential to it. As a faith leader, I claim this integration of identity and faith as a reflection of God's image within me. I envision communities where our full humanity is honored as foundational to theological understanding—spaces where we don't just tolerate difference but recognize it as necessary for glimpsing the fullness of the divine.

By speaking openly, I join countless others who refuse the isolation of silence. While each person must determine their own journey of disclosure, those of us with relative privilege and safety must use our voices for those who cannot yet speak. The time for action is now.

My disclosure in Sunday's sermon and in the Presbyterian Outlook article on February 28 for "HIV Is Not A Crime Awareness Day" represents one small contribution to breaking the silence that kills and building communities of authentic belonging. I offer my story as part of the larger work of dismantling stigma, fostering healing, and reclaiming the theological truth that all bodies—including those living with HIV—bear the sacred imprint of the divine.

With determination and hope,

Andries J. Coetzee