It is now established that people living with HIV who have an undetectable viral load and adhere to antiretroviral treatment cannot transmit HIV to their sexual partners. Previous research has shown that ‘being undetectable’ changes how HIV‐positive gay men experience their sex lives. But how does it affect gay men’s reproductive behaviours? And what influence does it have on views about parenthood at a time when gay fatherhood has become more socially accepted and publicly visible? Drawing on qualitative interviews with patients and clinicians at four HIV clinics in London, we identify differences in how interviewees talked about the possibility of having children for HIV‐positive men. Both groups, unprompted, frequently referred to sperm washing as a method enabling safe conception. However, whereas clinicians talked about sperm washing as an historical technique, which is no longer necessary, patients spoke of it as a current tool. The men rarely mentioned being undetectable as relevant to parenthood and, when prompted, some said that they did not fully understand the mechanics of HIV transmission. Our findings offer new insights into how biomedical knowledge is incorporated into people’s understandings of living with HIV, raising important questions about how the meanings of being undetectable are communicated.

中文翻译：

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HIV阳性的男同性恋者可以成为父母吗？艾滋病毒携带者和艾滋病毒临床医生如何谈论生育孩子的可能性

现在已经确定，病毒载量检测不到并坚持抗逆转录病毒治疗的 HIV 感染者不能将 HIV 传播给他们的性伴侣。以前的研究表明，“无法检测到”会改变 HIV 阳性男同性恋者体验性生活的方式。但它如何影响男同性恋者的生殖行为？在同性恋父亲身份越来越被社会接受和公开可见的时候，它对父母身份的看法有什么影响？通过对伦敦四家 HIV 诊所的患者和临床医生的定性访谈，我们发现受访者在谈论 HIV 阳性男性生育孩子可能性的方式上存在差异。两组都自发地经常提到精子清洗是一种能够安全受孕的方法。然而，临床医生认为精子清洗是一项历史性的技术，不再需要，而患者则将其称为当前的工具。这些人很少提到无法检测到与为人父母有关，当被提示时，一些人说他们并不完全了解艾滋病毒传播的机制。我们的研究结果为生物医学知识如何融入人们对艾滋病毒感染者的理解提供了新的见解，提出了关于如何传达无法检测到的意义的重要问题。