ABOUT

The sperm donor industry typically rejects HIV-positive sperm donors. This is largely due to the fact that there is a lack of awareness that HIV cannot be passed on when treated. By launching an HIV-positive sperm bank, people living with HIV were given the opportunity to do something they never thought they would be able to do - create life, and be apart of a campaign that educates the world about the reality of their condition. Since 1981, HIV has been a death sentence. Medical advancements have changed that – and now, with treatment, HIV becomes undetectable in the body and cannot be passed on, even through unprotected sex, bodily fluid, or childbirth. But because most people don't know this, the stigma of HIV has never changed. For World AIDS Day 2019, the New Zealand AIDS Foundation needed an idea that would fight the stigma of HIV by showing that the virus cannot be passed on in a way the world has never seen before. We needed the campaign to have a big impact on a very small budget and create a new conversation about the truth of HIV. So, we did the unthinkable – we created the world’s first sperm bank for HIV-positive sperm donors. To show the world that HIV cannot be passed on, we created Sperm Positive: The World’s First HIV-Positive Sperm Bank. The online sperm bank gave men living with HIV the opportunity to join and become sperm donors, it gave women the opportunity to register as recipients and allowed us to create a PR-led conversation that would show the world that HIV cannot be passed on in the most undeniable way possible – childbirth.