Positive

Positive, also titled Positive: A Memoir, is a 2014 novel by writer and HIV activist Paige Rawl. Born with HIV, but a privileged beneficiary of recent advances in medical science, Rawl was able to medically negate its symptoms, and never had much reason to believe that her HIV positive status defined her. Her world changed on an ordinary day during middle school, when Rawl disclosed her status to a friend. Her friend quickly leaked her status to their classmates, and Rawl instantly became subject to bullying that would last for the rest of her time in the school system. In her memoir, Rawl recounts the social obstacles and emotional challenges she faced, including an attempt to commit suicide at the age of 15. Using her own story as an example of one who has overcome HIV stigma, Rawl argues for treating the epidemic and its misconceptions with compassion and action.

Rawl starts her memoir by recounting her life at the beginning of middle school. She is, by any normal definition, a well-adjusted and healthy young girl, excelling in classes and enjoying a large group of friends. She notes certain triumphs that are characteristic of sixth grade, such as making the cheerleading team, and getting her crush to talk to her. By all accounts, she was learning to navigate middle school with ease. Rawl’s comfort in her social niche ultimately is what makes her vulnerable to ostracization. She has a false sense of security from the social harshness of teenage life, as well as a general ignorance in her suburban world of the stigma historically attached to HIV status. She tells her best friend about her status when they are on the taboo subject of sex.

Rawl doesn’t think that her status is significant, so she is surprised when it quickly gets around. By the next day, the entire school seems to be aware of her status. They nickname her “PAIDS”, chanting it when she passes by in the hallways between class, totally ignorant of the important distinction between AIDS and HIV. The adults, too, prove incompetent when it comes to educating her classmates about HIV, choosing instead to remain silent as she endures rounds of bullying. In a short span of time, Rawl’s attitude towards middle school changes starkly. She goes from being exuberant and excited for the next step in her education to resigned and depressed. She even starts to suffer from stress-induced seizures. Multiple trips to the doctor and other health professionals fail to address that her debilitating problems can be traced to HIV stigma. School becomes so torturous that her parents feel they have no choice but to withdraw her from school.



Rawl moves from the public school to a home schooling environment, while her parents concurrently lodge a lawsuit against the school for its failure to condemn or manage its students’ constant emotional abusive behavior. One of the culminating events of the novel is a scene where Rawl feels she can no longer stand the alienation the HIV stigma has given her. In a moment of total desperation, she tries to escape her life, swallowing a bottle of sleeping pills. She is rushed to the hospital and saved.

While healing from her suicide attempt, Rawl realizes that being positive is the only way to reclaim her identity for herself and resist the emotional abuse of her peers. The latter part of the memoir is a retrospective on how her attitude drastically changed for the better, allowing her greater insight into her condition. Looking back, Rawl reveals that she no longer regrets telling her friend about her status in sixth grade. She laments the abundant misinformation about the disease, and argues that it is incumbent upon the education system in the United States to create more comprehensive sexual health programs. For example, she notes how many of her classmates believed that one can contract HIV through a toilet seat or other haptic contact, both of which are false beliefs. She argues that education is the only way that people who bear a positive HIV status can be perceived as normal.

Rawl also argues that teachers, parents, and educational administrators should make schools a place that nurtures trust, acceptance, and safety for kids who are bullied for any reason. She asserts that adults need to listen to the signals and narratives kids generate when they are suffering. Often, the victims of bullying lack the confidence to approach an adult.



To conclude her memoir, Rawl argues that students should not try to erase their identity, however marginalized it leaves them. Rather, they should seek to understand and challenge the perceptions that place them on the margins. Rawl’s memoir is thus not only a story about recovering from the stigma of a certain disease, but a vindication of all marginalized identities.