This National HIV Testing Day, the U.S. Positive Women’s Network asked folks to submit blogs on a variety of topics related to women and HIV testing. 
The response was tremendous! We got some very informative and introspective pieces. Below is a sampling of submissions.
Please note that the PWN does not necessarily endorse the positions and opinions in the below articles.
But if you want to know what we think, read the first piece! And if you are interested in submitting an article or blog post, please inquire at pwn(at)womenhiv.org.
What We Believe
By the U.S. Positive Women’s Network
This National HIV Testing Day, the women of the U.S. Positive Women’s Network pause to reflect and recommit to ensuring women throughout the U.S. have equitable and compassionate access to HIV testing that upholds our human rights.
We believe HIV testing should be fully accessible, informed, voluntary, and free from coercion and shame.
We believe that every sexually active person should be offered an HIV test, regardless of whether she fits a “risk behavior” profile.
We believe nobody should have to justify asking for an HIV test. Read more…
take the test, take control
Routine HIV Testing Depends on Reimbursement
(cross posted at RH Reality Check)
by Alison Yager, Esq., Project Manager at the HIV Law Project’s Center for Women & HIV Advocacy
Sunday, June 27 is National HIV Testing Day. This year, HIV Law Project and many of our allies are focused on the need to routinize HIV testing, and toward this end to ensure that health care providers are reimbursed by insurers for routine testing. Read more…
Killing Her Softly: HIV Testing Strategies That Work For Women – Moving Away From A Behavioral Risk Paradigm
By Rona Taylor, Organizer, National Women & AIDS Collective 
Over the last two years, NWAC has been surveying its member organizations – organizations led for and by women living with and affected with HIV/AIDS – to document the experiences of their clients with getting tested for HIV. Consistently, what NWAC has heard from its network is that there are continued barriers for women to obtain a test. Read more…
Es mejor saber. It is better to know.
By Adesina
A Hispanic man beams a Colgate smile from the photograph with this tattooed on his muscular arm. It is an ad campaign for HIV testing. My first thought? I didn’t look nearly that happy when I found out my positive status.
Es mejor saber. It is better to know.
My second thought: Is it? Have we made it so? Read more…
God & Greeks in Black America: Engaging Non-traditional Partners in HIV Testing and Awareness 
by Rev. Damon A. Powell, Ph.D.
Recruitment and partnership with Black-American churches and sororities can serve as an aide in increasing HIV testing and awareness within Black-American communities.
Although Black-American churches and sororities would appear to be strikingly different institutions at first glance, they actually have a lot in common historically. Both institutions have their genesis in the need to help uplift and support Black-Americans within and without their respective organizations. Both hold the values of justice, communal support, and service to those in need as central to their mission and mandate. Read more…
HIV prevention and testing strategies for women 
By Sonia Rastogi
In the U.S., there is a social norm that non-injection-drug using women and women not identified as sex workers are at low to no risk for HIV. This norm manifests itself in: 1) women being discouraged or outright denied HIV testing, 2) HIV further stigmatized as a disease for people who engage in “risky behaviors” and 3) decreased provider comfort and competency to talk about HIV and STIs when providing sexual and reproductive health services to women. These factors perpetuate women’s belief that they are at low risk for acquiring HIV. Hence, the past 10 years have seen a steep rise in the number of women infected with HIV through heterosexual sex. The likelihood of HIV acquisition is embedded under layers of racism, classism, sexism, and violence that cause women of color, particularly African-American women, to be the most affected. Read more…