🛡️ The Situation

For a gay or bisexual man in Georgia, sexual healthcare does not start at a doctor's office — it starts at a community NGO. Equality Movement and Tanadgoma run the free, anonymous, gay-friendly front door: testing, PrEP, and the referral into PEP. Behind them sits the state AIDS Center (the Tengiz Tsertsvadze Center in Tbilisi), which is the clinical engine for HIV treatment and the national prevention programmes. Your family doctor and general clinics are not part of this route, and you never have to out yourself to one to get seen.

Georgia was the first country in its region to roll out free PrEP, and prevention here is genuinely good and genuinely free — accessed through anonymous codes, not your name. The harder truth is the climate around it: a 2024 law targeting LGBT life has made discretion the norm. The services still quietly operate. This guide is how you find them.

⚖️ The Golden Rules

1. Your Front Door Is an NGO, Not a Doctor

Equality Movement and Tanadgoma give you free anonymous HIV testing, free PrEP, and the fast route into emergency PEP — all in a gay-friendly setting, all without a referral or a paper trail through your GP. Start there, not at a general clinic.

2. PrEP and PEP Are Free

Prevention costs you nothing. The consult, the monitoring bloodwork, and the medication itself are all covered through the Equality Movement / AIDS Center programme. You enrol under a 15-digit anonymous code — no ID document required.

3. Free Testing Has a Blind Spot

The free community services cover the blood-borne infections — HIV, syphilis, hepatitis. What they usually skip is the throat and rectal swabs for gonorrhoea and chlamydia, the infections that sit silently in a gay or bisexual man's throat and arse. Close that gap yourself at a private lab. The testing guide below explains how.

⚖️ The Reality of the System

  • Free prevention: PrEP, PEP, and HIV testing cost you nothing — funded through the state HIV programme and international donors, regardless of your insurance status.
  • Anonymous by design: the community-NGO route runs on 15-digit codes, not your name — no ID document, and nothing on your GP record.
  • An established programme: Georgia rolled out free PrEP for gay and bi men ahead of the region, and the testing/prevention infrastructure is well worn, not experimental.
  • The swab gap: free testing covers HIV, syphilis and hepatitis but not the throat and rectal swabs for gonorrhoea and chlamydia — you pay a private lab for those.
  • A hostile climate: the 2024 anti-LGBT law and added legal pressure on NGOs mean discretion is the norm, and a service's hours or location can shift — phone ahead.
  • Tbilisi-centric: the strongest provision clusters in the capital; the regional hubs are solid but thinner, and rural coverage is patchy.

💬 Partner Notification

Georgia has no anonymous, clinic-run partner-notification service — no health adviser will discreetly text your contacts for you. Telling recent partners is patient-led: you do it yourself so they can test and treat, which is also how you stop the same infection bouncing back to you.

One thing to know that is specific to Georgia: under the 1995 Law on HIV Infection/AIDS, if someone diagnosed with HIV does not inform a known spouse or sexual partner, the treating institution is legally obliged to notify that partner. This applies to a partner whose identity is known to the service. It is a real feature of the law here, and the HIV guide below covers what it means for you in practice.

  • A short message does the job: "Got a positive syphilis result — worth getting checked." Most guys would rather know.
  • You don't have to find the words alone: counsellors at Equality Movement, Tanadgoma, and the AIDS Center can help you work out what to say.
  • Give partners an easy next step: point them at free anonymous testing (AHF Checkpoint, Equality Movement, Tanadgoma).

🗺️ Guide Map

Start Here

Testing & Clinics

Prevention

Emergencies & Support

Result Management

Language