Health professionals in the two centres of excellence for HIV/AIDS prevention, care and treatment where our studies were carried out, were not considered by most of the participants in the studies, men or women, to be supportive or even ‘‘impartial’’ in their judgements on the issue of those with HIV having children. This is a highly paradoxical situation in view of support for other rights of people living with HIV, particularly the right to high quality HIV/AIDS clinical treatment, and even though these centres of excellence are still an exception in the Brazilian public health service. Equally paradoxically, it seems to be less difficult nowadays to show respect for diverse expressions of sexuality, at least among those working in HIV/ AIDS. Yet it remains next to impossible to acknowledge and accept the desire for father- hood and the diversity of family life among HIV-positive men and women.