RuPaul’s Drag Race UK star Asttina Mandella is hosting a World AIDS Gala to support East London-based HIV support service Positive East and tackle the “silently hidden” stigma that surrounds the virus.

The World AIDS Day gala is organised by HIV The Naked Truth, a collective of people fighting to end HIV stigma through the arts. The organisation was founded by teacher and former dancer Joshua Royal during lockdown. 

This year marks ten years since Joshua was diagnosed with HIV himself and 20 years since Positive East, which provides counselling and peer support for people living with HIV, was formed through the merging of The Globe Centre and the London East AIDS Network.

In recent years, the reality of living with HIV has seeped into public consciousness, with more people than ever aware that those diagnosed with the virus can live long and healthy lives with the help of just one pill a day.

Health campaigns such as the Undetectable = Untransmittable slogan, and the increased availability of PrEP, have bettered public awareness, yet still, Joshua says, stigma and misinformation persists.

“I’ve just come out of my relationship and I think there’s so much stigma around HIV on dating apps,” he tells PinkNews. “Still people think it’s a gay man’s disease and I think people don’t realise that women can get it, trans men, trans women [can get it]. It can affect anyone, and… they’re scared to talk about it.”

While the number of people diagnosed with HIV in the UK rose between 2022 and 2023, the National AIDS Trust reports that the majority of those new diagnoses were heterosexual men and women. Still, stigma against gay men remains.

“On dating apps people block you because you’re HIV [positive] and it’s like, I’m not a bad person [because I have HIV]. It’s just because they see that I’m HIV positive and they’re like ‘block block block’. That’s stigma.”

Asttina, who is best known for appearing on Drag Race UK season two, agrees, suggesting that the stigma is “silently hidden”.

“Even though we know… the path that you can take, we know that it’s OK, you know there’s the pill, you know there’s ways to be healthy [and] safe with it, but that stigma still sticks with us,” she says.

“It’s part of our DNA as queer people, and so to change that and to release that and to not think about that, it’s quite hard to shake out of all of us.”

Many queer people who grew up in the shadow of the AIDS crisis were brought up to fear being diagnosed with HIV, with the media, politicians and concerned loved ones assuming it was a death sentence. Now, it no longer is, and Joshua and Asttina want that message to be heard.

“[People with HIV] just take a tablet, just like we take a tablet when we’ve got a headache. Let’s just celebrate that in 2025 we have medication for all of these things that we didn’t have long ago and now we do, so we’re OK. We’re actually the safest we’ve ever been,” Asttina says.

“All the stigma that’s still there from those people, it doesn’t mean anything. It’s just from uneducated ignorance,” she adds. “We have to understand and educate ourselves that it’s OK. It’s fine. It’s just HIV, babes.”

While there were almost 110,000 people living with HIV in the UK in 2023, half of those receiving treatment were over the age of 50, suggesting that improved treatments are effective in allowing people with the virus to live normal, healthy lives.

“I feared HIV once but now I’ve got it, I know there’s nothing to fear,” Joshua adds.

“I take one tablet a day and I live as healthy as anyone else. I’m probably more healthy than most people because I get tested regularly. Don’t live in fear, spread the message and just love each other, really.”

HIV The Naked Truth’s World AIDS Day Gala will feature dancers, singers and stars of the West End, as well as a charity auction, plus a nude photography exhibition in November – with 100 per cent of the profits benefiting Positive East.

Asttina, on hosting duties, is “sh*tting [her] pants”. But, she says, as a queer drag queen and Black person – people of Black African origin are disproportionally affected by HIV, according to the National AIDS Trust – it “actually means the world” to play a role in tackling HIV stigma.

“I do have friends who are HIV positive. I’ve lost friends to it. As a Black person, as a queer person, and as a drag artist, and the journey I’ve been on losing a lot of people in my life, I know a lot of people have lost their loved ones to HIV too,” she says.

“It’s quite a special place to be able to host this event, and as much as I’m trying to not cry about this event and be so vulnerable, I will be. I just really want to have a good time and really spread the love and do my best and make everyone proud.”

HIV The Naked Truth’s World AIDS Day Gala in Support of Positive East will take place on 2 December at London’s Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church.

Tickets are available now through OutSavvy with 100 per cent of the profits supporting Positive East.

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