My former Teacher hasn't learnt #SammyWilsonMP #WorldAIDSDay

Once upon a time Sammy Wilson and I shared a classroom. One of our Economics teachers started a new job and for the last weeks of our first A'Level year Sammy Wilson stepped in.

Just over 15 months later I was at Kingston Polytechnic (as it then was) studying for my degree in Economics. In those early months I met a young man who was the first person I knew who was living with HIV. This was that dark old days of the 80s and ignorance was still rife about how HIV was transmitted with rumours about shaking hands, or sharing cups or toilet seats.

A couple of years later that young man moved into the house that I was living in. I shared many a chat into the small hours of the morning, listening to his concerns about the stigma he was facing, the life that he would be missing out on and the opportunities he felt he would never be able to fully realise. Those were tough, heart wrenching conversations. With hugs, cups of tea and the rest showing that the stigma was only from those who were ignorant.

Sammy Wilson has said he refuses to support World AIDS Day because "HIV is a result of lifestyle choices". The friend that I learnt my first lessons about HIV and AIDS about would snort at Sammy Wilson for saying that. His lifestyle choice that lead to him contracting HIV wasn't really a choice, he took drugs. Without the drugs he would have died. He was a haemophiliac and he had to take those drugs, it wasn't a choice. Like half of all haemophiliacs at that time he actually acquired HIV not through a lifestyle choice but though a desire to live and not bleed to death.

Of course Sammy Wilson has shown his ignorance of LGBT+ people in the past. He really thinks that the young man who sat in his A'Level class that year was happy with the realisation of his sexual orientation. The fact is that he had contemplated taking his life before Sammy stood before him in a classroom. The reason being that he couldn't chose to ignore the feeling he was having and it didn't fit with his Northern Irish, Presbyterian upbringing. That young man couldn't chose to be other than gay or bisexual. His orientation was there despite his upbringing and culture he grew up in. It was unhappy, full of bullying and a lonely place to be. It was something that back then he didn't speak to others about but he bottled it in.

Of course that young man back then is me. The message then was don't die of ignorance. The message is still the same today, sadly it is the ignorance of some of our politicians here in Northern Ireland that is the greatest risk.

Please Sammy don't let others gay, straight, children or adults die because of your ignorance about HIV.