🏳️‍🌈✝️ To whom should I disclose my HIV-positive status?

May 1, 2017 • By Lambda Legal 


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This is a deeply personal decision that individuals must make for themselves. The most common situation involving a legal obligation to disclose one’s HIV-positive status is to sexual partners — not previous partners, but current and new ones. 

Some states require this. See “Disclosing your HIV Status” and “HIV Criminalization” for more information.

You also may have a legal obligation to disclose when you share injection drug equipment with someone; donate blood, organs or tissue; do a certain job (there are very few of these); or visit a physician or a dentist in the state of Arkansas (the only state with this requirement).

In general, Lambda Legal does not encourage people to disclose their HIV-positive status to employers and service providers who might discriminate  unless there is a legal obligation to provide that information or it is in the person’s best interest to disclose. Lambda Legal is working to limit or eliminate the instances in which disclosure of one’s status is legally required.

On the other hand, Lambda Legal recognizes the benefits of voluntary disclosure — both for the person living with HIV and for the people in their lives — when it is truly safe for the person to share this information. With those benefits in mind, we will continue to work toward a world where it is not only safe to do so, but where people living with HIV feel empowered to share their status, are not stigmatized or marginalized as a result and can thereby access the care and support they need from family, friends and co-workers.

Founded in 1973, Lambda Legal is the oldest and largest national legal organization whose mission is to achieve full recognition of the civil rights of LGBT people and all people living with HIV through impact litigation, education and public policy work. 

Go to LambdaLegal.org/Know-Your-Rights for more information.

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