Appropriate language guide
Use: HIV infection, HIV-positive, HIV/AIDS
Avoid: AIDS if referring specifically to HIV
AIDS is a syndrome encompassing various conditions that occur when HIV has severely damaged the immune system. A person with HIV has antibodies to the virus but may not have developed any of the illnesses that define AIDS.
Avoid: AIDS virus or HIV virus
There is no such thing as the AIDS virus. There is only HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus), which can cause AIDS. The term ‘HIV virus’ is redundant.
Use: Person living with HIV, HIV-positive person
Avoid: AIDS victim, HIV sufferer, AIDS sufferer
The terms ‘victim’ and ‘sufferer’ are disempowering. Many people living with HIV find these terms patronising and implying powerlessness. Using ‘sufferer’ or ‘victim’ suggests that individuals are at the mercy of the condition, which is not necessarily true. People do not necessarily suffer because they have HIV. Instead, use ‘HIV-positive person’ or ‘person living with HIV.’
Avoid: AIDS patient
Most of the time, a person living with HIV or AIDS is not in the role of a patient. Use ‘patient’ (and not ‘AIDS patient’) only when describing someone in a medical setting within the story’s context.
Avoid: AIDS carrier, AIDS-infected
These terms are highly stigmatising and offensive to many people living with HIV. It is also incorrect, as the infective agent is HIV. A person cannot catch ‘AIDS’. AIDS is a syndrome of opportunistic infections and diseases that can develop as immunosuppression worsens.
Avoid: AIDS Test
There is no test for AIDS, only for HIV. Use an HIV test or HIV antibody test.
Use: antiretroviral treatment or HIV medication
Avoid: AIDS drugs
The term ‘AIDS drugs’ is inaccurate. It can perpetuate stigma by reinforcing the association between HIV and AIDS, which carries historical and societal negative connotations. HIV medication encompasses a broader range of treatments used at different stages of HIV infection.
Avoid: body fluids
Confusion about the body fluids that transmit HIV causes fear, misunderstanding, and discrimination against people living with HIV and affected communities. Only certain body fluids contain HIV in sufficient concentrations to transmit the virus: blood, semen, pre-ejaculate, vaginal fluids, and breast milk. HIV cannot be transmitted through saliva, sweat, tears, or urine.
Use: sex worker
Avoid: prostitute
‘Prostitute’ is a loaded and disparaging term. It does not reflect that sex work is a form of employment, not a way of life.
Use: street-based sex worker
Avoid: street walker
The term ‘street walker’ does not represent the employment aspect of sex work and is therefore derogatory and misleading.
Use: a person who injects drugs, a person who uses drugs
Avoid: junkie, drug addict
Not all people who use injecting drugs are dependent, and drug dependency is a medical condition, not a crime. Illicit drug use is only one aspect of an injecting drug user’s life. Terms like ‘junkie’ rely on stereotypes and often misrepresent the varied lives of drug users.
Use: a person with AIDS, a person with HIV
Avoid: full-blown AIDS
This term is overly dramatic and also implies that there is such a thing as a partial case of AIDS. A person has AIDS or they do not.
Use: affected communities, high-risk behaviour
Avoid: high-risk group
Using the term HIV ‘risk group’ implies that membership in a particular group rather than behaviour is a significant factor in HIV transmission. This term may mislead people who don’t identify with a specific group into a false sense of security. It is high-risk behaviours such as unprotected sex or unsafe injecting practices that can spread HIV, not ‘belonging’ to a high-risk group.
Use: risk of HIV infection
Avoid: risk of AIDS
HIV is the virus, not AIDS. Use ‘risk of HIV infection’ or ‘risk of exposure to HIV’.
Use: people with medically-acquired HIV, children with HIV
Avoid: innocent victims
‘Innocent victims’ is frequently used to describe children with HIV or people with medically acquired HIV infection. The term implies that people who have acquired HIV in other ways are guilty of some wrong-doing and deserve to be infected with HIV. Attributing blame in this way contributes to stigma and discrimination.
Use: Australian population, HIV-negative people, all Australians
Avoid: general population
Don’t use ‘general population’ unless HIV-positive people are included in it. Otherwise, the term implies that people in populations targeted for HIV prevention, education and care are not part of the general population.