Realities and Potential of HIV & STBBI Testing
My piece was inspired by the Integrated Panel: Changing the Narrative on HIV and STBBI Testing: Innovations and Community Reflections. Seeing people working to improve HIV and STBBI testing has made me feel hopeful while at the same time, the presentation also revealed areas where much work still needs to be done.
The poster was created using vector graphics combined with digital drawings made using a stylus in order to portray current and future possibilities for HIV testing. The COVID-19 pandemic has become another barrier faced by LGBTQ2I+ people trying to access HIV and STBBI testing as well as support in a safe environment. Portrayed in the poster is the at home HIV self testing kit currently sold in Canada along with an oral swab that is currently not available in Canada as of January 2021 but is used in other countries to test for HIV. Giving people the ability to administer their own tests is one way to give people access to testing in a private and socially distanced manner but just as important as testing is the ability to access to support systems that are relevant for LGBTQ2I+ people. At the moment, connecting people who administer their HIV and STBBI tests at home with counselling and treatment services is something still being worked on but has the potential to increase accessibility and encourage people to seek out support and advice.
Click here to watch the Summit 2020 session that inspired this piece.
Mel Tsai
My name is Mel Tsai (They/Them), I run social media pages dedicated to health advocacy and education with a focus on QT2IPOC perspectives. I started posting on social media around the time I started learning to create vector graphics. During that time, I realized that I could use my art as a way to express my views on QT2IPOC health. My original pieces, which can be found by searching @qtpochealth, are created using photo editing that combines vector, raster, and hand drawn images that I have created.