Guest blogger Freddie Peppiatt talks about how he exercises his right to individuality as part of our “Right To Be Me” series of articles that are being launched in the run up to the International AIDS Conference 2010 in Vienna.

When I was younger, I was told to “Love yourself before you let others”. Looking back, this is one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever been given – let’s be honest, if you can’t love yourself as a person, how can you expect anyone else to love you?

Personally, I love difference in the world; there are so many cultures out there, so many stories to be found. I can’t imagine a world that was not this diverse after all; wouldn’t it be boring if everyone were the same?

Photo posed by models

I recently saw an article about Annie Lennox wearing a T-Shirt with “HIV Positive” on the front, not because she is HIV positive herself but to show solidarity and acceptance to those who are. I was truly inspired and feel it is acts like this that really make a difference to who she is trying to reach.

I love what she speaks for, for us who live with HIV, life can seem hard, people might avoid you and you are often treated differently. The fact that one of the most difficult things to deal with when HIV positive is the stigma attached says it all but who needs the people who can’t accept a virus? You have the right to say you are different and people should love you because of this, if they don’t? Well, they are simply not worth the hassle.

I think all too often these days, we let the things other people say affect us; we read in magazines we should be this, that or the other. This clamps down on freedom to be who we want to be and breaks down our freedom of expression. We need to be comfortable in telling people things whether you’re coming out as gay or announcing you are HIV positive or even something as simple as negotiating with your partner to wear a condom.

I can honestly say that I exercise my right to be me. By living free of worries of what other people think, by being open minded to others and by loving myself for who I am and celebrating that I am different from everyone else.