Characterizing Men Who Have Sex with Transgender Women in Lima, Peru: Sexual Behavior and Partnership Profiles

HIV prevalence is high among transgender women (TW), but how HIV is transmitted to this population is not well understood. This analysis aims to characterize sexual partners of TW (PTW) to understand how their behavior contributes to HIV risk among TW. We examined baseline data from TW, PTW, and men who have sex with men (MSM) from a treatment-as-prevention study in Lima, Peru. Individual and partnership characteristics were compared across groups, and Poisson regression was used to calculate prevalence ratios for associations between sexual concurrency and potential correlates. We found that 81% of PTW had no cisgender male partners. Prevalence of alcohol dependency, concurrency, and condomless anal intercourse was high and HIV testing was low compared to the other groups. Our results suggest that PTW are a distinct population from MSM and TW, engage in behavior associated with HIV transmission, and are likely not well reached by HIV prevention interventions.