ABSTRACT
To many people the answer to this question is easy: very little. The general assumption seems to be that lesbians as a group are not at risk. Lesbians don't get AIDS, so what's it got to do with them? Set against this view has been the stereotyping of AIDS as a 'gay disease', which in the past has led to lesbians being labelled as 'high-risk'. In some countries, for example, lesbians have been refused as blood donors on the grounds of their 'homosexuality'. Thus, lesbians are both implicated in popular conceptions of AIDS which link homosexuality and disease and neglected in the health care system's response to AIDS. They are simultaneously included and excluded in the AIDS discourse, upon which research, AIDS education and health care have been based.
