Narratives of Gay Men Living with hiv: Reflections on Masculinities, Intersectionalities, and Health

Abstract hiv/aids remains a central public health issue, spanning biomedical, social, cultural, and political dimensions. In Brazil, despite advances in access to antiretroviral therapy, structural challenges marked by stigma, inequality, and vulnerability persist. This article, the result of postdoctoral research, investigates how different masculinities are mobilized by gay men living with hiv in the production of meaning about themselves and healthcare. The analysis considers how social markers, such as generation, race, and class, influence these experiences, highlighting that the practices and representations of care are not dissociated from ways of being a man in contexts traversed by norms of gender, sexuality, and power. The research adopts ethnography as its main methodological procedure and uses the concepts of intersectionality and sociocultural determination of health as analytical tools. The results indicate that experiences with hiv are profoundly traversed by discourses on masculinities, affecting how care is conceived, lived, and claimed. By bringing the debate about masculinities to the center of the analysis, the study contributes to broadening the horizons of the field of hiv/aids studies, reinforcing the need for public policies that recognize the complexity of the experiences and subjectivities of historically marginalized men.