“CFL Has Its Patient Zero”: a Critical Examination of HIV Nondisclosure
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“CFL has its patient zero”: A Critical Examination of HIV Nondisclosure in the Trevis Smith Case Katarina Bogosavljevic Thesis submitted to the University of Ottawa, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts. Department of Criminology Faculty of Social Sciences University of Ottawa Ó Katarina Bogosavljevic, Ottawa, Canada, 2018 Dedication To everyone who lives with HIV/AIDS ii Acknowledgements First and foremost, I would like to thank Dr. Jennifer M. Kilty for being an amazing mentor and supervisor! Without your guidance, reassurance and super-fast edits/comments on my thesis, I wouldn’t have been able to finish. Thank you for listening to my rants, encouraging me to never compare myself to others, always making time for me, giving me opportunities I wouldn’t have had anywhere else, opening my eyes to different theories, and perspectives, for challenging me… (the list can go on forever!). I am so excited to work with you for my Ph.D. and for all of the things we will accomplish together in those 4 years. Thank you to my evaluators Dr. Christine Bruckert and Dr. Michael Orsini for reviewing my thesis and for your very thoughtful comments! I also want to give a special shout out to Dr. Sheri Fabian at Simon Fraser University for introducing me to the wonderful world of qualitative research, inspiring me to pursue graduate studies and introducing me to Dr. Kilty. Next, I want to thank my family who had to listen to me almost every day as I tried to wrap my head around HIV nondisclosure, intersectionality and masculinities. Dad, thank you for showing me that working hard and sacrificing things in life isn’t always bad; mom, thank you for always listening to me and being available for facetime when I needed you; Aleks, thanks for challenging me. Eva and Brittany, even though you guys are all the way in Vancouver you continued to support me and never gave up on our friendship! Your weekly calls kept my homesickness at bay. Renee and Audrey, thank you for being my side kicks on the CGSA! Without you two I don’t think our events would have been as successful! Samantha, my fellow Vancouverite! Thank you for making me go on long walks, and getting me out of the house once in a while. Jarrod, thank you for the late-night talks and moral dilemma at The Loft. Dr. Maritza Felices-Luna, thank you for a great first year in your research seminar class and for forcing me to start early on the thesis; Dr. Michael Kempa, thank you for teaching me how to be a public scholar and guidance on how to write newspaper columns and features; Dr. David Joubert, thank you for a fun and eye-opening class on intervention. iii Abstract Canada is currently the world leader in the number of per capita prosecutions of HIV nondisclosure (Hastings, 2017). Many of these cases garner the attention of media and receive sensational and dramatic coverage. This thesis provides a feminist critical discourse analysis of the juridical and mediated content on Trevis Smith who was a former Canadian Football League linebacker convicted of aggravated sexual assault for not disclosing to his sexual partners that he was living with HIV. Mobilizing an intersectional (Crenshaw, 1989, 1991) and masculinities (Connell, 2005/1995; Messerschmidt, 2012; 2016) theoretical framework, I specifically explored the ways in which the media and juridical content constituted Smith by considering how the different discourses were shaped by race, gender, class, criminality, sexual orientation, and seropositivity. The analysis revealed three main discourses: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The “Sodom and Ghomorrah of Shared Sexual Partners” and Playing a Dangerous Game. These discourses demonstrate that Smith was initially shown sympathy by way of his construction as a philanthropist, and sports hero. However, as the case progressed his masculinity was discursively linked to racialized tropes of hypersexuality, dangerousness, and criminality due to his failure to disclose that he was HIV positive. I conclude that these discursive connections are part of a broader historical narrative that subjugates and controls Black men while also working to symbolically and literally segregate the Canadian HIV- negative social body from the hypersexual Black ‘AIDS fiend’. Keywords: HIV Nondisclosure; intersectionality; masculinities; critical discourse analysis; media and crime iv Table of Contents Dedication ...................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ........................................................................................................ iii Abstract ......................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents ............................................................................................................ v Chapter 1. Introduction ............................................................................................. 1 Chapter 2. A Review of the Literature ...................................................................... 7 2.1. The Legal Landscape of HIV Nondisclosure in Canada .......................................... 7 2.1.1. Feminist Critiques ................................................................................... 15 2.2. Public Health Law or Criminal Law ..................................................................... 19 2.3. Consequences of Criminalizing HIV Nondisclosure ............................................. 25 2.4. HIV Nondisclosure in the Media .......................................................................... 29 Chapter 3. Theoretical Framework ........................................................................ 43 3.1. Intersectionality .................................................................................................... 43 3.1.1. Critique of Intersectionality ..................................................................... 49 3.2. Masculinities Theory ............................................................................................ 51 3.2.1. Critique of Masculinities Theory ............................................................. 60 3.2.2. Black Masculinities and Sport ................................................................. 69 3.3. Conclusion ........................................................................................................... 71 Chapter 4. Methodology .......................................................................................... 73 4.1. The Case Study Method and Data Collection ........................................................ 74 4.2. The Analytical Approach: Critical Discourse Analysis ......................................... 76 4.2.1. Juridical and Mediated Discourses........................................................... 82 4.2.2. Doing CDA with Juridical and Mediated Text ......................................... 86 4.3. Evaluation of Qualitative Research ....................................................................... 90 4.3.1. Epistemological Considerations and Positionality .................................... 95 4.4. Limitations ........................................................................................................... 97 Chapter 5. Analysis .................................................................................................. 99 5.1. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ....................................................................................... 99 5.1.1. Dr. Jekyll: “Admired football star” .........................................................101 5.1.2. Mr. Hyde: “Public enemy No. 48 (His Jersey Number)” .........................107 5.2. The “Sodom and Gomorrah of sexual partners” ...................................................117 5.2.1. “Athletes are like kids walking into a candy store” .................................118 5.2.2. “Playboy ways” ......................................................................................122 5.3. Playing a dangerous game ...................................................................................130 5.3.1. Deadly sexual desire ...............................................................................131 5.3.2. American Import is a Public Health Hazard ............................................138 Chapter 6. Conclusion ............................................................................................141 6.1. Canadian Racism and HIV/AIDS Stigma ............................................................141 6.2. Future Research...................................................................................................146 References ...............................................................................................................148 v Chapter 1. Introduction1 Using the law as an intervention for public health matters is not a new phenomenon. Some of the most contentious examples include the ‘war on drugs,’ the regulation of the right to die in medically assisted dying, and abortion. More recently, the use of criminal law to try to govern HIV disclosure practices – a phenomenon that has been at the heart of public health prevention campaigns since the dawn of the epidemic in 1981 – has become a key concern of HIV activists who argue that using the criminal law undermines public health efforts (O'Byrne, 2012; Simoni & Pantalone, 2004). As a result of Supreme Court decisions that declared HIV nondisclosure