HIV Plus 122 January/February 2018

BECAUSE YOU’RE MORE THAN YOUR STATUS

20 MOST AMAZING HIV-POSITIVE PEOPLE OF 2018

TRANSPARENT’S

Breakout Stars ALEXANDRA BILLINGS & TRACE LYSETTE Are Bucking Hollywood’s Rules About Sex, Race, Gender, and HIV TODRICK HALL TACKLES HIV & BLACK MEN

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018 www.hivplusmag.com

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YOU MATTER AND SO DOES YOUR HEALTH That’s why starting and staying on HIV-1 treatment is so important.

WHAT IS DESCOVY®?

DESCOVY is a prescription medicine that is used together with other HIV-1 medicines to treat HIV-1 in people who weigh at least 77 lbs (35kg). DESCOVY is not for use to help reduce the risk of getting HIV-1 infection. DESCOVY combines 2 medicines into 1 pill taken once a day. Because DESCOVY by itself is not a complete treatment for HIV-1, it must be used together with other HIV-1 medicines.

DESCOVY does not cure HIV-1 infection or AIDS. To control HIV-1 infection and decrease HIV-related illnesses, you must keep taking DESCOVY. Ask your healthcare provider if you have questions about how to reduce the risk of passing HIV-1 to others. Always practice safer sex and use condoms to lower the chance of sexual contact with body fluids. Never reuse or share needles or other items that have body fluids on them.

IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION What is the most important information I should know about DESCOVY? DESCOVY may cause serious side effects: • Worsening of hepatitis B (HBV) infection. DESCOVY is not approved to treat HBV. If you have both HIV-1 and HBV and stop taking DESCOVY, your HBV may suddenly get worse. Do not stop taking DESCOVY without first talking to your healthcare provider, as they will need to monitor your health.

What are the other possible side effects of DESCOVY? Serious side effects of DESCOVY may also include: • Changes in your immune system. Your immune system may get stronger and begin to fight infections.

Tell your healthcare provider if you have any new symptoms after you start taking DESCOVY. • Kidney problems, including kidney failure. Your healthcare provider should do blood and urine tests to check your kidneys. Your healthcare provider may tell you to stop taking DESCOVY if you develop new or worse kidney problems.

• Too much lactic acid in your blood (lactic acidosis), which is a serious but rare medical emergency that

can lead to death. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get these symptoms: weakness or being more tired than usual, unusual muscle pain, being short of breath or fast breathing, stomach pain with nausea and vomiting, cold or blue hands and feet, feel dizzy or lightheaded, or a fast or abnormal heartbeat.

• Severe liver problems, which in rare cases can lead to death. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get these symptoms: skin or the white part of your eyes turns yellow, dark “tea-colored” urine, light-colored stools, loss of appetite for several days or longer, nausea, or stomach-area pain.

The most common side effect of DESCOVY is nausea.

Tell your healthcare provider if you have any side effects that bother you or don’t go away.

What should I tell my healthcare provider before taking DESCOVY? • All your health problems. Be sure to tell your healthcare provider if you have or have had any kidney or liver problems, including hepatitis virus infection.

• All the medicines you take, including prescription and over-the-counter medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements. Other medicines may affect how DESCOVY works. Keep a list of all your medicines and show it to your healthcare provider and pharmacist.

Ask your healthcare provider if it is safe to take DESCOVY with all of your other medicines.

• If you are pregnant or plan to become pregnant.

It is not known if DESCOVY can harm your unborn baby. Tell your healthcare provider if you become pregnant while taking DESCOVY. • If you are breastfeeding (nursing) or plan to breastfeed. Do not breastfeed. HIV-1 can be passed to the baby in breast milk.

You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit www.fda.gov/medwatch, or call 1-800-FDA-1088.

Please see Important Facts about DESCOVY, including important warnings, on the following page.

Ask your healthcare provider if an HIV-1 treatment that contains DESCOVY® is right for you.

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IMPORTANT FACTS This is only a brief summary of important information about DESCOVY and does not replace talking to your healthcare provider about your condition and your treatment. ®

(des-KOH-vee) MOST IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT DESCOVY

POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS OF DESCOVY

DESCOVY may cause serious side effects, including: • Worsening of hepatitis B (HBV) infection. DESCOVY is not approved to treat HBV. If you have both HIV-1 and HBV, your HBV may suddenly get worse if you stop taking DESCOVY. Do not stop taking DESCOVY without first talking to your healthcare provider, as they will need to check your health regularly for several months.

DESCOVY can cause serious side effects, including: • Those in the “Most Important Information About DESCOVY” section.

• Changes in your immune system.

• New or worse kidney problems, including kidney failure.

• Too much lactic acid in your blood (lactic acidosis), which is a serious but rare medical emergency that can lead to death. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get these symptoms: weakness or being more tired than usual, unusual muscle pain, being short of breath or fast breathing, stomach pain with nausea and vomiting, cold or blue hands and feet, feel dizzy or lightheaded, or a fast or abnormal heartbeat.

• Severe liver problems, which in rare cases can lead to death. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get these symptoms: skin or the white part of your eyes turns yellow, dark “tea-colored” urine, light-colored stools, loss of appetite for several days or longer, nausea, or stomach-area pain.

The most common side effect of DESCOVY is nausea.

These are not all the possible side effects of DESCOVY. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you have any new symptoms while taking DESCOVY. Your healthcare provider will need to do tests to monitor your health before and during treatment with DESCOVY.

ABOUT DESCOVY • DESCOVY is a prescription medicine that is used together with other HIV-1 medicines to treat HIV-1 in people who weigh at least 77 lbs (35kg). DESCOVY is not for use to help reduce the risk of getting HIV-1 infection.

• DESCOVY does not cure HIV-1 or AIDS. Ask your healthcare provider about how to prevent passing HIV-1 to others.

BEFORE TAKING DESCOVY Tell your healthcare provider if you: • Have or had any kidney or liver problems, including hepatitis infection.

• Have any other medical condition.

• Are pregnant or plan to become pregnant.

• Are breastfeeding (nursing) or plan to breastfeed.

Do not breastfeed if you have HIV-1 because of the risk of passing HIV-1 to your baby.

Tell your healthcare provider about all the medicines you take: • Keep a list that includes all prescription and over-the-counter medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements, and show it to your healthcare provider and pharmacist.

• Ask your healthcare provider or pharmacist about medicines that should not be taken with DESCOVY.

GET MORE INFORMATION • This is only a brief summary of important information about DESCOVY. Talk to your healthcare provider or pharmacist to learn more.

• Go to DESCOVY.com or call 1-800-GILEAD-5 • If you need help paying for your medicine, visit DESCOVY.com for program information.

HOW TO TAKE DESCOVY • DESCOVY is a one pill, once a day HIV-1 medicine that is taken with other HIV-1 medicines.

• Take DESCOVY with or without food.

DESCOVY, the DESCOVY Logo, LOVE WHAT’S INSIDE, GILEAD, and the GILEAD Logo are trademarks of Gilead Sciences, Inc., or its related companies. All other marks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners. Version date: September 2017 © 2017 Gilead Sciences, Inc. All rights reserved. DVYC0085 11/17

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IN THIS ISSUE J A N U A R Y/ F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8

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LUKE FONTANA (ALEXANDRA & TRACE); MARCUS INGRAM (HALL); COURTESY CEDRIC STURDEVANT(CEDRIC); COURTESY JESÚS GUILLÉN (JESÚS); LOUIE ORTIZ-FONSECA (ABDUL-ALIY): COURTESY KAMARIA LAFFREY (KAMARIA)

22 ON THE COVER

FEATURES

30 POSITIVE TRANSPARENCY Actresses Alexandra Billings and Trace Lysette—one poz and the other playing poz on TV—open up about HIV, being on Transparent, and the Hollywood men who bed trans women, but won't date them.

22 THE 20 MOST AMAZING PEOPLE These leading activists, advocates, artists, and overall amazing people are transforming the lives of people with HIV. 36 BEYOND STATUS TV star Jai Rodriguez wants us to all to be HIV equal.

38 FEARLESS IDOL Kinky Boots star and rapper Todrick Hall is positively fearless.

Cover and above left: Alexandra Billings (left) and Trace Lysette photographed

by Luke Fontana Clockwise from top right: Toddrick Hall; some of our 2018 Most Amazing HIV+ People (from top left) Cedric Sturdevant, Jesús Guillén, AbdulAliy Muhammad, and Kamaria Laffrey

42 BLACKISH PREP How Dr. Leo Moore is making PrEP campaigns culturally competent for African-Americans.

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editor in chief DIANE ANDERSON-MINSHALL • svp, group publisher JOE VALENTINO

art director RAINE BASCOS senior editor JACOB ANDERSON-MINSHALL managing editor SAVAS ABADSIDIS associate editor DAVID ARTAVIA assistant editor DESIRÉE GUERRERO contributing editors KHAFRE ABIF, TYLER CURRY, MARK S. KING, ZACHARY ZANE mental health editor GARY MCCLAIN contributing writers DR. EVAN GOLDSTEIN, COLE HAYES, DAMON JACOBS, CHARLES STEPHENS creative director, digital media DAVE JOHNSON interactive art director CHRISTOPHER HARRITY online photo and graphics producer MICHAEL LUONG front end developer MAYRA URRUTIA senior drupal developer NICHOLAS ALIPAZ, SR. traffic manager KEVIN BISSADA manager, digital media LAURA VILLELA svp, publishing, integrated partnerships GREG BROSSIA senior director, integrated partnerships STUART BROCKINGTON directors, integrated partnerships TARA DABUNI, ADAM GOLDBERG, NOREEN MURRAY, PAIGE POPDAN director, integrated marketing BRANDON GRANT senior manager, integrated marketing JAMIE TREDWELL managers, integrated marketing GRETA LIBBEY, CASEY NOBLE events manager JOHN O’MALLEY designer, integrated marketing MICHAEL LOMBARDO coordinator, integrated sales & marketing HAYLEY YATES senior director, ad operations STEWART NACHT manager, ad operations TIFFANY KESDEN director of social and branded content LEVI CHAMBERS editor, social media DANIEL REYNOLDS branded content producer LENNY GERARD branded content writer IAN MARTELLA senior fulfillment manager ARGUS GALINDO operations director KIRK PACHECO office manager HEIDI MEDINA print production director JOHN LEWIS

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IN THIS ISSUE J A N U A R Y/ F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8

BUZZWORTHY

7 HORNY MONSTERS Big Mouth's hormone monsters teach sex ed to teens.

8 1 STATE, 2 EPIDEMICS HIV is a different beast in the bayou than in New Orleans's French Quarter.

9 GOVT. MIA HIV goes missing from nation's health strategy.

10 MAKE IT RAIN HIV orgs get grants to build community leaders.

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POSITIVE SPIN Poz DJ fights stigma in the South.

13 ON TOP OF THINGS Trans women of color are testing regularly

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CHILL 15 WIZARD OF ID How I found the courage to stop being the Cowardly Lion.

TREATMENT/TASP 14 RESISTANCE IS FUTILE Drug resistance is no match for this new HIV medication.

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BLOWN AWAY Smoking kills more poz people than HIV. Why aren't we embracing the solution?

RESISTANCE 21 FLIP THE SCRIPT Switching prescriptions to a new drug could reduce kidney risks.

SHUTTERSTOCK (TOP); COURTESY NETFLIX (BIG MOUTH)

DAILY DOSE

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47 YOUR PERSONAL CRISIS HIV impacts each of us differently, but you will get through the hard times.

BACK TALK 48 THANK YOU, SIR Josh Robbins of HIV Video Minute and I'mStillJosh gives thanks for getting off the pot.

Above top: Is this the HIV pill for you? Bottom: Boys duke it out on Big Mouth

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EDITOR’S LETTER

SO SWEET! BECAUSE YOU’RE MORE THAN YOUR STATUS

DIANE ANDERSON-MINSHALL EDITOR IN CHIEF EDITOR@HIVPLUSMAG.COM 6

TRANSPARENT’S BREAKOUT STARS TACKLE HIV ONSCREEN (AND OFF) ONE-PILL TREATMENT AND NEW RESISTANCE FIGHTERS

25 MOST AMAZING HIV-POSITIVE PEOPLE OF 2018

TRANSPARENT’S ALEXANDRA BILLINGS & TRACE LYSETTE TODRICK HALL TACKLES HIV & BLACK MEN

WHY WE TODRICK HALL THE RAPPER & BROADWAY STAR GETS REAL ABOUT BLACK MEN AND HIV

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018 www.hivplusmag.com

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018 www.hivplusmag.com

We’re kicking off the new year with two of our favorite covers ever: Transparent stars Alexandra Billings and Trace Lysette (on front), and rapper, dancer, and Kinky Boots star Todrick Hall (on the back). As a mixed-race, trans woman of color living with HIV, Billings is doing more for the visibilty of women with HIV than almost any actor today. And costar Lysette’s character shows how young people with HIV can live healthy, happy, and sexually fuliflling lives. Meanwhile, Hall’s viral videos have made him a compelling social media star (check HIVPlusMag.com for some of his videos). I can’t think of anyone better to help combat HIV stigma.

Guess who our makeup and hair artist was for the cover?

None other than reality TV star Eric Leonardos (far left).

Last issue’s cover star came at a moment’s notice (and even hammed it up with Billings on set between takes).

Hanging out at NMAC’s U.S. Conference on AIDS is always like a reunion. There’s half our staff to the left (that’s managing editor Savas Abdsidis in the middle) and (above) there’s me with (from right) U=U activist Bruce Richman, who made it onto this year’s 20 Most Amazing HIV-Positive People list (pg.

22); contributing writer/health expert Damon Jacobs (see his piece on pg 18); and our senior editor Jacob AndersonMinshall. Some of our former honorees, including activists Tami Haught and Carrie Foote—and former cover stars Mel England and Karamo Brown—wrote pieces about this year’s honorees.

They were rounded out in profiles by Shani Akilah Robin, Mike Halterman, Jessica Johnson, our editors, and two honorees —Jesse Milan, Jr. and Ronald Johnson—who we asked to write about each other.

TONY DONALDSON (DIANE); LOUIS KENGI CARR (STAFF); ERIC LEONARDOS (SELFIE); SAVAS ABADSIDIS (JACOBS/RICHMAN)

I REMEMBER BEING on the set of Transparent as the first season was filming, long before it would become a hit Amazon series.

I had the sense that the show would be revolutionary, the first to really have out transgender people in front of (and behind) the camera. As we go to press, the show’s future is up in the air, after allegations of sexual misconduct were made about star Jeffrey Tambor (by one of our cover stars, Trace Lysette).

Tambor resigned as we went to press. But, regardless of the show’s future, I love creator Jill Soloway’s amazing series for having introduced the world to trans people and for introducing tons of trans creatives (writers, actors, directors) to the industry. I’ve known how talented cover star Alexandra Billings is for decades, but the show made her household-name famous.

Think of that: an actress who is a mixed-race, transgender woman of color living with HIV is a bonafide TV star. (Take that Charlie Sheen.) Our interview (pg. 30) with Lysette, who plays an HIV-positive trans woman on the show, and co-star Billings, who is poz in real life, offers a great reminder of how far we’ve come culturally in combatting HIV stigma and transphobia—and how far we still have to go.

Our second cover (flip the magazine!) features Broadway star, rapper, dancer, and my new crush Todrick Hall (pg. 38), who is using his burgeoning fame and gorgeous gams to get folks to listen as he talks to black gay, bi, and same-gender loving men about HIV. As the epidemic continues to disproportionately impact black and Latino men who have sex with men (regardless of how they identify), it takes guys like Hall, Latino TV star Jai Rodriguez (pg. 36), and Los Angeles County Department of Health’s Dr. Leo Moore (pg. 42) to urge folks to get tested early and often, to get women to encourage their brothers, sons, fathers, and yes, boyfriends, to see their doctor, to get anyone—but especially our men of color who are so disenfranchised and afraid—to get on and stick with treatment.

Too often HIV is allowed to go undetected, which is how it does its worst damage. But once on treatment, the majority of those newly diagnosed have few side effects, have a single pill to take, and within months they can become undetectable, where they can no longer pass HIV to anyone else.

No worries, no changes. Screw stigma! There’s science on our side here, and treatment is the key. It stops the virus in its tracks and lets you live the life you planned before you found out you were poz. So at the risk of sounding like your mom, see your damn doctor and stay on top of your health.

Make a new resolution starting now to never miss a dose!

BECAUSE YOU’RE MORE THAN YOUR STATUS

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buzzworthy BIG MOUTH IS VULGAR, OFFENSIVE, HYSTERICAL— AND NECESSARY

PHOTO CREDIT COURTESY NETFLIX

Can the new animated Netflix hit fill the void that was once sex ed?

“DID SOMEONE SAY ‘vagina?’” whispers hormone monster Maurice before bursting out of teen Andrew’s desk. Big Mouth’s Maurice (Nick Kroll) gets things going from the very first scene. While Andrew (voiced by John Mulaney) is learning about the female reproductive system in health class, out pops Maurice: a horned and horny creature with brown fur and a phallic nose.

Big Mouth is a new Netflix comedy that explores how two “hormone monsters,” Maurice and Connie (Maya Rudolph), manipulate the minds and torture the bodies of pubescent junior high kids. Watching the show reminded me of the first time I saw South Park.

Cartoons often get at truths that other art forms can’t, and this show certainly pushes boundaries.

The show portrays the horror of puberty in the form of Maurice and Connie, and in a way that’s relatable.

It’s hard to pick a favorite character on a show as hilarious and perfectly pitched as Big Mouth, but gay classmate Matthew (voiced by Andrew Rannells) stands out, and the showrunners get major kudos because, besides being an incredibly well-developed character, Matthew is also the most well-adjusted— and he still gets some of the best lines.

Still, as Ben Travers writes in Indiewire, “Maurice and Connie drive the story.

But they’re incredible creations because they’re more than scary monsters; they’re also trying to help these kids, in a very weird, very funny, and very recognizable way.”

While the show’s lead characters are Andrew (Mulaney) and Jessi (Jessi Klein), the hormone monsters certainly steal the show in a big, entertaining, and surprisingly educational way. In a world where Planned Parenthood and sex education budgets are being slashed left and right, Big Mouth—by tackling topics like sex, love, dating, and STIs (including HIV)—may be just the antidote we need to the ignorance that’s prevailing in our culture.—SAVAS ABADSIDIS

Scenes from Big Mouth, an animated Netflix show about the horrors of puberty

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buzzworthy

HIV offers a different challege in rural areas of the state than in cities like New Orleans.

A new report based on data from the Louisiana Department of Health argues that combatting the state’s HIV/AIDS epidemic requires understanding the differences between rural and metropolitan communities. The report, HIV/ AIDS in Metropolitan vs. Rural Louisiana: One State, Two Epidemics, was compiled by Heroes (HeroesLA.org), a Northeast Louisiana-based organization focused on HIV in the rural Deep South. It shows that the more than 15 percent of residents living with HIV who reside in Louisiana’s rural regions face much different obstacles than those in cities like New Orleans and Baton Rouge.

Using data from the state’s Department of Health and other sources, researchers examined risk factors for HIV—including stigma, racial disparities, education, poverty, incarceration, and rates of STIs—and compared them in rural versus metropolitan areas of the state.

The report concludes that “in terms of significant at-risk signifiers for HIV/AIDS, the rural region had a lower population of people with at least a bachelor’s degree, a higher proportion of people living in poverty, a higher rate of incarceration, and higher rates of [STI] infection in African-Americans compared with metropolitan regions.”

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Additionally, rural areas were found to have fewer HIV resources. For example, the rural northeast corner of the state, a region researchers focused on, has only one Ryan White HIV/AIDS medical care provider. Possibly because of that lack of resources, the study found young people (13-24) were more likely to test positive in the rural region (33 percent) than in New Orleans (25 percent) or Baton Rouge (29 percent). Twentyseven percent of people diagnosed with HIV in the rural area also received a simultaneous AIDS diagnosis, compared to only 18 percent in New Orleans, and 22 percent in Baton Rouge. People in rural Louisiana were also more likely to develop AIDS within a year of their diagnosis, suggesting that a lack of testing and access to care in these areas is part of the problem. Those living with HIV in the rural northeast were also less likely to achieve viral suppression.

Resolving these issues, researchers argue, lies in understanding the data and finding local solutions.

“Improving understanding of epidemiologic trends in rural Louisiana is crucial to developing customized solutions to address HIV in these areas,” the report notes. “Exploring the contrasts between rural and metropolitan regions for these risk factors will help identify rural-appropriate solutions.”—DESIRÉE GUERRERO

Community advocates in Baton Rouge protest against the defunding of two local HIV clinics

TYLER KAUFMAN/AP IMAGES

LOUISIANA’S TWO EPIDEMICS

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MISSING IN ACTION

DAYOWL / SHUTTERSTOCK

HIV, LGBTs, and people of color are conspicuously absent from new government plan.

WHEN TRUMP ’S DEPARTMENT of Health and Human Services released its strategic plan for the next four years, activists couldn’t help but notice it barely mentioned HIV, STIs, LGBT people, or ethnic and racial minorities.

That’s a big change from past years, notes Matthew Rose, policy and advocacy manager at NMAC, an organization advocating for people of color living with HIV. “In the previous version, HIV was mentioned 20 times. In the current version, HIV is only mentioned once,” says Rose.

“Given the administration’s praise of HIV programs in its budget outline, it seems strange that there would only be a single mention in the plan.”

Five of the nation’s leading organizations focused on ending the HIV epidemic collectively expressed their grave concern “with the lack of focus on HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases” in the 2018-2022 strategic plan. AIDS United, NASTAD (the National Coalition of STD Directors), NMAC, and The AIDS Institute submitted formal comments to the Department of Health and Human Services, which read: “Despite the crucial importance of the intersectional issues of HIV and STDs, including hepatitis, to our nation’s public health, the report is relatively silent on these issues. The document contains no mention of other STDs, mentions HIV only twice, and hepatitis just once. This lack of specificity regarding these diseases is of paramount concern.”

In addition, the comments pointed to “the failure to reference, even once, the unique health needs of America’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender populations, who bear the greatest burden of the nation’s HIV and STD epidemics. The report barely mentions the health needs and disparities facing racial and ethnic minorities.

At the same time, the plan seems to prioritize faithbased approaches that have the potential to lead to discrimination against religious and sexual minorities.”

The 2014-2018 strategic plan, in sharp contrast, called out “health disparities among populations including racial and ethnic minorities, individuals with disabilities, refugees, [and] lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) individuals.”

Each of the previous plan’s strategic goals included similar language—and often went further to include specific subpopulations, such as older and disabled LGBT adults. The Obama plan also called for “cultural competency training for social service providers in the unique needs and experiences of LGBT youth, especially youth in foster care, youth experiencing homelessness, youth in juvenile detention, and youth in congregate living facilities related to mental health and substance abuse.”

Rose says this is why these HIV organizations are now urging the Trump administration to adjust its approach. “At a time when STD rates have increased to their highest levels ever, and four out of every 10 people living with HIV are not engaged in care, we should be refocusing our national resources on addressing these challenges, not turning our attention away from them. The HHS Strategic Plan is an opportunity to not only reinforce the national goals and priorities of the United States, but it is an opportunity for the United States to effectively plan to end the HIV epidemic and to address the worsening trends in STDs. Unfortunately, the latest version fails to accomplish either goal.”

However, Rose isn’t expecting an official HHS response to the statement, which was submitted via the noticeand-comment process. “Notice-and-comment rulemaking is a common procedure under which a proposed rule is published in the Federal Register and is open to comment by the general public,” he explains. While these comments won’t necessarily cause Health and Human Services to amend their strategic plan, Rose points to one silver lining: “The plan doesn’t have the force of law.” —S.A. HIVPLUSMAG.COM

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LEADING THE WAY

AIDS United’s Positive Organizing Project, supported financially by Gilead Sciences, has awarded grants to 10 community-based organizations to help end stigma and discrimination while building leadership among people living with HIV. “Meaningful involvement of people living with HIV is critical at national, local, and organizational levels,” AIDS United president Jesse Milan, Jr. told reporters.

Pointing to the HIV activist rallying motto, “Nothing about us without us,” Milan said his organization is proud to support the development of other poz leaders. “As a person living with HIV, I’m proud that these grantees are promoting leadership for our people to help achieve our national and community goals for HIV.” These 10 organizations are addressing HIV criminalization, empowering women, engaging storytelling as advocacy, and otherwise harnessing the HIV-positive community’s power to improve the lives of other people living with HIV. The organizations getting funding are spread across the country—from urban centers like Harlem and Los Angeles, to rural areas in states such as Idaho, Alabama, Georgia, and Hawaii. (View the complete list on HIVPlusMag.com.)

“Working at the grassroots level to build supportive communities is critical to allowing people living with HIV 10

to live well,” said Gregg H. Alton, executive vice president for corporate and medical affairs at Gilead Sciences, in a written statement. “That’s why Gilead is committed to supporting this work.”

This is the fourth round of single-year grants given through the Positive Organizing Project (POP), which has reached more than 200,000 people living with HIV since it started.

“The Positive Organizing Project has grown tremendously in the past four years,” Valerie Rochester, V.P. of program strategy, AIDS United, tells Plus. “We are very proud of the impact this initiative has had. The first year had three sites and a total of $110,000 in grant support, and currently we have 10 sites and $300,000 in grants.

In total, POP has granted $860,000 to the community, funding 39 organizations across the country to support leadership development programs led by and for people living with HIV.” “People living with HIV are the experts in our lives and we must be developed, empowered, and included as leaders for addressing HIV policies and programs wherever we live,” said Milan. “The Positive Organizing Project continues this legacy by developing leaders in every corner of the country.” —JAM

SHUTTERSTOCK

Ten HIV organizations get funding to empower poz leaders.

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years. drug classes. treatment failures. life to live.

320-01-08/17

Have you experienced multiple HIV treatment failures? It could be HIV drug resistance.

And together, we can do more about it.

Ask the right questions; start the conversation.

RethinkResistance.com

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buzzworthy

SMALL BUT POWERFUL

He may be slim but this poz Georgia DJ is having an outsized impact.

As the new millennium dawned in 2000, then 16-year-old Derek Canas, who had been sick most of his life, learned he was HIV-positive—and had been since acquiring the virus via a blood transfusion as an infant.

“It was very shocking,” the Brunswick, Ga., native recalls. “But also a slight relief. When I was diagnosed I’d gone through years of medical issues that had been blamed on my heart, bronchitis, pneumonia, etc. Now I finally knew the true reason.”

In 1984, Canas was born with a rare heart defect and wasn’t expected to survive. He had open heart surgery and received his first pacemaker at 3 months old. It was likely then that he became poz, but doctors assumed the illnesses that followed were related to his heart condition.

“People are often shocked at how I got the virus,” Canas tells Plus.

“But considering when I had the blood transfusion, there was no HIV screener test [yet].”

Canas, who’d long suffered from reoccurring lung infections, had growth issues he says are now thought to be tied to the virus. His family later filed a malpractice suit, but the 12

Supreme Court of Georgia eventually ruled he had no standing to sue because he learned he was poz long after the state’s statute of limitation had passed.

During those undiagnosed years, Canas received growth hormone shots, which, he told Positive Lite in 2015, “helped me gain 50 pounds and grow over a foot to 105 pounds and 5 feet tall.” But nothing seemed able to stop the reoccurring infections; and by the time he was diagnosed, his illness had advanced so far that he received a simultaneous AIDS diagnosis. Once again, it looked like Canas might not survive. But the scrawny Georgia teen was, and still is, a fighter. And he learned to laugh at life along the way.

Now 33, Canas is officially D-REK, a well-known DJ who spins at nightclubs and talks to partygoers about being poz after his shows. Canas still lives in Brunswick (a city with around 16,000 residents), but he’s performed at clubs in both Florida and Georgia. He says his audiences are surprisingly supportive.

“I’ve stood on some very big stages and finished gigs and people have heard my life story,” he says. “They shake my hand, hug me, tell me

stories of people they lost to the virus.

It’s very encouraging.”

Canas has continued in the fight against HIV stigma by becoming an educator who speaks frequently at Georgia schools, and also previously served as the social ambassador for Yes Get Tested Coachella Valley and BeeSafe Condoms. After one of his speaking engagements in 2014, Canas decided to do even more and launched his #EndTheStigma campaign.

Supporters, who he calls “D-REK’s Angels and Warriors,” educate others about the realities of HIV today. He says in his region of the country, many beliefs about people living with the virus are stuck in the 1990s. He hopes to change that.

“The campaign is doing good,” Canas says, even “getting noticed worldwide.” He’s connected with other activists overseas, including a group in London.

“The best part of the campaign,” Canas says, “is D-REK’s Angels and Warriors. They are like a street team for the campaign—they keep the conversation going about HIV and they have cool shirts and wristbands!”

—JACOB ANDERSON-MINSHALL

COURTESY DEREK CANAS

Derek Canas as DJ D-REK with his emulator touchscreen DJ system

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ASIA FALLING As HIV advocates see success in African nations, amfAR warns that “it is increasingly clear that the Asia-Pacific region has fallen behind Africa in its HIV/AIDS response.”

People in Asian countries have less access to both treatment and prevention interventions, particularly for poz pregnant women lacking access to antiretrovirals.

In Africa, nearly 90 percent of pregnant women have access to treatment, while in Asia-Pacific regions, it’s less than half.

“The stagnation we see in HIV program coverage in the Asia-Pacific is a reminder to governments, civil society, and donors that much more needs to be done to bring HIV/AIDS under control in the region,” noted the amfAR report.—JAM Source: amfAR, Around the World, 2017.

AMFAR (GRAPH); SHUTTERSTOCK (PHOTO)

HIV+ adults on treatment

Kids under 15 on treatment

Pregnant women on ART

The differences in African nations (in blue) versus Asia-Pacific nations (in gold) above.

TRANS WOMEN OF COLOR ARE TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS Black and Hispanic trans women are twice as likely to get tested for HIV than their white counterparts.

A study published in Transgender Health has found that black and Hispanic transgender women in New York are twice as likely to get tested for HIV as white transgender women. The research—which sought to identify HIV testing patterns among trans people in urban settings—also found that trans women were three times more likely to get tested than trans men.

Researchers from the University of Buffalo in New York believe that access to testing and self-perceived risk were among the key reasons for the higher testing rates among trans women of color. In particular, they found that trans women who had sex primarily or solely with men and those engaged in sex work were more aware of their risks and thus more likely to get tested when it was available. Black and Hispanic trans women who had a history of incarceration were also more likely to get regular HIV tests. The higher rates may in part be attributed to the availability of HIV testing within the New York state prison system.

The study size was small, with only 27 participants. Of that number, four were trans men, 40 percent were white, 30 percent black, and 19 percent Hispanic. Additionally, over half (55.6 percent) had a history of sex work, and that same number had also been incarcerated.

Nearly all (96 percent) of the respondents reported a history of substance abuse, and only six participants (22 percent) had health insurance.—DESIRÉE GUERRERO HIVPLUSMAG.COM

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treatment

NEW DRUG MAY KICK HIV RESISTANCE

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IS FOSTEMSAVIR WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED?

Thanks to the advances made in antiretroviral therapy, many people with HIV are living long healthy lives. But there are still many who carry a drug-resistant form of the virus, which makes modern therapy ineffective. Thankfully, researchers and scientists continue to work tirelessly to find more ways to attack drug-resistant HIV. At the 16th European AIDS Conference in Milan, Italy, a report on the BRIGHTE Phase 3 study found that the drug fostemsavir successfully controlled the viral loads of 54 percent of participants who, ViiV Healthcare reports, were “heavily treatment-experienced” and fighting “highly drugresistant HIV.” Acquired from Bristol-Myers Squibb (along with several other experimental antiretroviral drugs) in 2016, fostemsavir is being developed by ViiV as an agent for use with HIV-positive people who’ve been on treatment and have resistance to several classes of antiretroviral drugs. Clinical trials of fostemsavir have tested the drug in people living with drug-resistant HIV. These individuals, generally long-term survivors, only have a few classes of antiretroviral drugs available to them, since they are resistant to all others.

“The results of the BRIGHTE study are very promising,” noted John C. Pottage, Jr., ViiV’s chief scientific and medical officer.

“Patients who participated in this study were failing their current antiretroviral regimens and had very limited treatment options left upon entry into the study, and the addition of fostemsavir to their failing regimen resulted in meaningful reductions in viral load.”

A significant number of people living with HIV who began treatment in the mid-1990s have been forced to remain on “suboptimal regimens” because they have developed resistance to non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, and most protease inhibitors.

“Fostemsavir is a first-in-class attachment inhibitor, specifically developed for heavily treatment-experienced patients,” Pottage explained. Before the discovery of fostemsavir, the only other similar inhibitors of HIV entry— enfuvirtide and maraviroc—had very limited roles in treating HIV and had not proven very successful in achieving long-lasting viral suppression.

Another pharma company, Theratechnologies Inc., previously found success by adding fostemsavir as a booster for ibalizumab, a long-acting biologic injectable that was also designed to treat multidrug resistant HIV. On its own, fostemsavir has been designated a “breakthrough therapy” by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, because it fulfills an unmet clinical need. Because of that, fostemsavir will receive a rapid review when submitted for licensing in 2018.—DESIRÉE GURRERO

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CHILL

B Y D AV I D A R TAV I A

THIS YEAR, BE BRAVE

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MY PARENTS MAY NOT HAVE TAUGHT ME ABOUT COURAGE, BUT I FOUND IT ANYWAY.

COURAGE IS A virtue that is seldom taught in schools, yet when put to practice it has the power to change not only the world around us, but our own self-perception. If the fall of 2017—the litany of women and men coming forward about sexual misconduct (or worse)—taught us anything, it’s that there is power in numbers. And it all begins with a single act of courage. (Even if it takes years for someone to listen. Sorry Rose McGowan.)

Growing up, my parents weren’t the greatest examples of this. It’s not entirely their fault—after all, I understand the conditioning.

I remember crying on my grandmother’s shoulder when I was getting bullied in junior high, and her saying, “Next time you see those bullies in the hallway, I want you to turn the other way.”

As it turns out, I did turn the other way, and continued to do so well into adulthood. Sooner or later, “turning the other way” became my only response whenever I felt threatened.

Unsurprisingly, most of my friends deal with issues the same way and many have said their parents gave them similar advice growing up: “Tell them to pick on someone their own size,” “Never let them see you sweat,” or my favorite, “Just ignore them and they’ll go away.”

Parents never want their children to go out looking for trouble, so they advise them to let it go. Our parents knew that every trial passes with time, no matter how big it might be in the moment. But the truth is if we remain passive all our lives, we miss out on opportunities to flex

our emotional and mental muscles.

By the time we’re adults, we’ve forgotten what it’s like to stand up for ourselves. And once we’ve forgotten that, how are we able to stand up for others?

It’s time to not only find our courage, but to demand it.

Finding the strength to say no, having the wherewithal to tell our partners where our sexual limits lie, and embracing our own truth (and giving zero effs about who’s watching) starts with the prospect of honing our courage and never letting it go. I speak from experience.

I struggled for years to find courage in standing strong with my values and opinions. Naturally, without a strong foundation I wavered and tiptoed around the grey area between what I thought was true and what I knew was true about myself. I realized that in order to have courage to stand up to others, I needed to find courage to stand up to myself. I had to look in the mirror and be completely honest— for a change—and admit I have been running away from facing my true reflection.

But how can we build the strength to find courage?

The first steps of courage come from facing our fears, whether it’s standing up to junior high bullies, overpowering the negative voices in our head, or facing down Hollywood titans like Harvey Weinstein. By refusing to access this power, we unconsciously prevent ourselves from moving forward in life authentically. How are we able to live our lives truthfully if we

continuously allow ourselves to be victimized by fear?

When we stand against fear, we’re actually standing as our true selves.

And we realize this courage has been inside us all along. That’s why its whispers seem familiar. When we tap into that power, the warrior we always knew laid buried beneath our fear is unleashed. Ask anyone who’s faced their fear and they’ll tell you that the second they come face-toface with fear, it runs away. That’s because courage always wins.

It’s time to stop running away. We have a voice. We have a body that is ours. We have a choice in life to either face our bullies or “let it go.”

Personally, I’ve done both and I can tell you that the power of showing courage creates a ripple effect.

Whether you realize it or not, you inspire others to do the same.

And for the record, I don’t blame my parents for not instilling me with courage as a child. I realize now there was no other way for me to gain my courage than by searching for it. I also realized that no matter what choice we make in a moment, time will always move us forward exactly as we are.

No one should be terrified to speak their minds, to give, and to help—or worse, to not speak their minds, not give, and not help. Our natural instinct should never be to remain silent and hope time will make our troubles dissolve. The future will one day be the present.

And the person we allow ourselves to be now will have a drastic effect on the world tomorrow, so let’s find the courage. Now. HIVPLUSMAG.COM

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treatment

UP IN SMOKE

More poz people now die from lung cancer than HIV. Vaping would change that. So why aren’t health providers embracing it?

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likely to die from lung cancer than HIV. Indeed, researchers found, “those who continued to smoke were six to 13 times more likely to die from lung cancer than from traditional AIDS-related causes.”

According to the JAMA report, over 40 percent of people living with HIV in the U.S. smoke cigarettes, so a significant number of poz lives could be saved if we reduced the prevalence of smoking. We have the resources, wisdom, talent, and experience to make the numbers of smoking-related deaths decline just as we have with HIV and AIDS-related deaths. But we will not get there by embracing one approach alone. The only way we will see healthy outcomes and lives saved from smoking reduction is to understand there are several equally viable ways to prevent tobacco illnesses and mortalities.

P R E V E N T I O N : The goal of this

strategy is to prevent people from ever smoking in the first place. Reducing tobacco advertising, putting age restrictions on sales, and raising costs on cigarette packs are all tools of a prevention framework. In the United States, this is the primary strategy implemented, and the focus of much legislation currently being proposed and debated. In California, for example, the

cost of cigarettes went up an additional $2 per pack and $20 per carton following the passage of Proposition 56 in 2016. According to Time magazine, Chicago has the highest cigarette costs: state and local taxes add an additional $6.16 per pack, and in New York a pack costs at least $13. Unfortunately, studies—including a 2011 report in ScienceDaily—show higher costs don’t necessarily make smokers stop smoking.

C E S S A T I O N : The goal of this

strategy is to help people who have already started smoking, and developed an addiction to nicotine, take steps toward quitting. This may include prescribed medications, gums, patches, inhalers, or any intervention one uses with the intention of quitting permanently. This is the primary intervention that smokers are used to receiving from healthcare providers when the issue is discussed.

Unfortunately, a 2011 report by the CDC found that only about six percent of smokers succeed in trying to quit.

(However, 68 percent of those in the study tried to quit “without using evidence-based cessation counseling or medications.”) In a 2012 study by Harvard School of Public Health and

SHUTTERSTOCK

hen the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced in 2017 that new HIV diagnoses had dropped 18 percent in 2014, it was a call for celebration. After all, many of us had spent the better part of the last two decades trying to get people to use condoms consistently in order to bring those numbers down.

Thanks to strategies like PrEP and treatment as prevention (TasP), we finally saw what the beginning of “Ending the Epidemic” could look like once people were offered respectful, culturally appropriate, and sexually satisfying safer choices.

Yet, despite all of our well-earned kudos and congratulations, there is still shockingly little attention being paid to the fact that more than 30,000 LGBT adults die each year from smokingrelated deaths, according to the CDC. Furthermore, according to a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine, people living with HIV who smoke are far more vulnerable to side effects than people not living with HIV, and are now more JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2018

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30,000 LGBT-IDENTIFIED ADULTS DIE EACH YEAR FROM SMOKING-RELATED DEATHS.

University of Massachusetts, researchers found just as many of those who quit using patches relapsed as those who did not.

H A R M - R E D U C T I O N : The goal of this strategy is to provide smokers with a plethora of options and decisions they can use to reduce harm if they can’t or won’t stop using nicotine. The goal here may not be cessation or abstinence, but instead helping the individual satisfy cravings, stay comfortable, maintain a locus of control, and yet improve the quality of their health and the length of their life. Electronic nicotine delivery systems—a.k.a. electronic cigarettes and vape pens—offer an immediate harm reduction option, and can satisfy the consumer’s need for both the nicotine and the smoking ritual. A 2015 U.K. review of evidence found that e-cigarettes are 95 percent safer to the throat, lungs, and heart than that of smoked tobacco—and they can help smokers ultimately quit altogether.

Unfortunately, there continues to be a pervasive anti-nicotine ideology in the U.S. that often prohibits harm-reduction dialogues from occurring. The dogmatic approach treats tobacco-free nicotine delivery systems as if they are as dangerous as the products they replace. San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, for example, has sought to prohibit sales of vaping products by including

e-cigarettes in a ban on flavored tobacco products, despite the fact that e-cigarettes have no tobacco. The prohibition would not include the sale of regular tobacco cigarettes, only flavored tobacco products (like menthol) and vaping products. While banning menthol makes sense—considering a 2014 study showed menthol smokers have a 29 percent higher risk of severe lung disease—tobaccofree vape products actually save lives. This confusing hypocrisy continues to fuel public debate and voter referendums.

That means that people living with HIV (and their loved ones) are rarely offered harm-reduction information and tools from healthcare providers or service agencies.

Prevention by itself hasn’t stopped new people from picking up smoking. Cessation by itself hasn’t helped long-term smokers quit. But if providers and legislators considered integrating harm reduction into their toolkit of interventions it would allow the consumer a variety of ways to satisfy desire while reducing harm. We would also see improved trust of health organizations, more consistent adherence to treatment, better health outcomes, and— most importantly—reduced death rates.

We learned from the HIV epidemic the value of prioritizing science over stigma, data over dogma, innovation over ideology.

Isn’t it time we apply these tools to smoking?

Damon Jacobs is a licensed marriage and family therapist and HIV prevention specialist, best known for championing the use of PrEP through his work with MSNBC, NPR, Vice TV, Here TV, The New York Times, USA Today, and Out magazine.

Author of Rational Relating and Absolutely Shouldless, he’s been honored as one of 35 Leading HIV Activists by The Advocate and one of 2016’s Top HIV/ AIDS Influential Voices by Healthline. He was given the New York State Department of Health 2016 World AIDS Day Commissioner’s Special Recognition Award. @DamonLJacobs

—DAMON JACOBS

HIVPLUSMAG.COM

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C H I L L . U S • # C H I L L • @ C H I L LT H E M A G

R E S I S TA N C E

Yes, Straight Women Get HIV

86%

of newly diagnosed women got HIV through heterosexual sex

24%

of all HIV diagnoses are traced to heterosexual contact

SHUTTERSTOCK

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, based on 2015 data.

IS THIS THE PILL FOR YOU? The first single pill darunavir-based regimen retains viral suppression with fewer pills and less resistance.

J A N S S E N ’ S N E W S I N G L E -TA B L E T

regimen, Symtuza, has been approved by the European Commission and has moved one step closer to approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. To date, it is the only once-daily combination regimen that uses the protease inhibitor darunavir (Prezista) as the primary ingredient.

In addition to darunavir, Symtuza contains emtricitabine and tenofovir alafenamide (both reverse transcriptase inhibitors) as well as the booster cobicistat. This combination capitalizes on the high genetic barrier to resistance that darunavir offers while avoiding the negative kidney and bone density impacts of tenofovir disoproxil fumarate.

“A darunavir-based [regimen] represents a significant evolution in treatment options for HIV patients,” Jean-Michel Molina, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Paris Diderot, France, and head of the infectious diseases department at the Saint-Louis Hospital in Paris, told reporters.

“This is a true advancement in helping patients achieve an undetectable viral load and improving quality of life.”

The EU commission’s decision was based on positive Phase 3 findings showing that those who switched to Symtuza remained virally suppressed. Those findings were reiterated at the 16th European AIDS Conference in Milan, Italy, where Chloe Orkin of the Royal London Hospital confirmed that research showed Symtuza is just as

effective as another multi-pill combination in previously untreated people with HIV. The study recruited 725 participants in Europe and North America, predominantly male (88 percent) and white (83 percent).

After 48 weeks of treatment, 91.4 percent of those receiving Symtuza had viral loads below 50 copies/ml, compared to 88.4 percent of the control group. Virologic failure occurred in 4.4 percent of the Symtuza group compared to 3.3 percent of the control group.

No participant experiencing virological rebound developed resistance to darunavir or tenofovir; but one developed resistance to emtricitabine.

Discontinuations due to adverse reactions occurred less frequently in the Symtuza group (only 1.9 percent versus 4.4 percent in the control group) although the incidence of serious adverse events was similar in both groups. The most common adverse events were diarrhea, rash, and nausea.

With darunavir now available in a single pill combinatiom, more people will be able to reduce what Molina called “the pill burden,” giving HIV-positive people “greater freedom and flexibility, and through this we may also improve treatment adherence.”

Adherence is particularly important in reaching and maintaining undetectable viral loads as well as keeping drug resistance at bay. As of press time, an application for U.S. approval of Symtuza is currently with the FDA. — D E S I R É E G U R R E R O A N D JACO B A N D E R S O N - M I N S H A L L HIVPLUSMAG.COM

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20

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8

or the last few years, we’ve been honoring some amazing people who just happen to be living with HIV: to give them props, share their messages, and make sure the rest of the world sees these folks for who they are, not merely their HIV status. We hope this list, as with all of our amazing people of the past, helps to break down the stigma about being HIVpositive, elevate and empower those who aren’t yet able to come out, and remind all of us that you can live a long, healthy, happy, and extraordinary life with HIV.

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COURTESY BRUCE RICHMAN (RICHMAN); COURTESY KAMARIA LAFFREY (LAFFREY)

[2] KAMARIA LAFFREY [1] BRUCE RICHMAN Imagine a billboard-size Bruce Richman, executive photograph of your face director of the Prevention plastered to a semi-truck Access Campaign, has that’s driving around fought relentlessly to share your state—outing you the groundbreaking, stigmaeverywhere for a “Faces of shattering evidence proving HIV” mobile art exhibit. that people living with HIV That’s what Kamaria who have reduced their viral Laffrey agreed to as part of loads to an undetectable the Florida Department level cannot transmit of Health’s HIV awareness HIV sexually. campaign in 2015.

“We will not let people “Being from a small town, lie about us,” Richman it was a little surreal to have people see my face or look up the video and says. “U equals U, undetectable equals untransmittable... is dismantling know so much about me,” Laffrey admits, but it was worth it. “I know it has HIV stigma. It’s incentivizing treatment uptake and adherence. And [it] had a positive impact on people.” Although the campaign has ended, Laffrey underscores the demand for universal treatment and prevention access. U continues to be public about her status and says, “As a woman of color in the equals U changes everything!” southern region of our nation, I feel it is vital that I keep speaking to the issues Richman was diagnosed with HIV in 2003 but admits that constant of HIV and stigma. The mobile art exhibit awarded me a platform that I get reminders of his “infectiousness” kept him from starting treatment until to utilize and have open conversations about treatment adherence, issues with his health declined in 2010. Later, after an incident where he feared he had disclosure, and embracing the realities of managing a life with HIV.” accidentally put a partner at risk, Richman discovered the critical, but barely Although she’s been HIV-positive since 2003, this mom has only recently known, science. “I learned from my doctor that because I was undetectable, became involved in this type of HIV activism. But she has I couldn’t transmit HIV. I couldn’t pass it on. I was elated!”

“AS A CHRISTIAN thrown herself into fighting HIV criminalization statutes, His excitement soon turned to outrage when he realized WOMAN OF and is currently leading the Sero Project’s efforts to modernize “every HIV treatment site, media outlet, HIV/AIDS service HIV-specific laws in Florida. For the 2016 HIV is Not a Crime organization, federal and state health department—just about COLOR LIVING National Training Academy II, in Huntsville, Ala., Laffrey everywhere—was saying that I was still a risk. And millions of WITH HIV IN THE submitted her first abstract, Be the Change You Seek, which led people with HIV were still a risk.” The breakthrough science SOUTH, RAISING to a workshop, that has now been presented in other venues. was not getting through to providers, policy makers, the A TEENAGER, As Sero Project’s Florida community organizer, Laffrey says general public, and most importantly, people living with HIV. MARRIED TO she’s learned “to use my weaknesses as strengths and to embrace “To clear up the confusion,” Richman said, “a group of us SOMEONE WITH my strengths as tools that elevate my voice in my advocacy. I living with HIV collaborated with researchers on a [U=U] A CRIMINAL have learned that policy work is not a game. You have to commit consensus statement and advocacy campaign.”

The catchy, simple, and profoundly game-changing U=U RECORD, AND AS and be patient. I have learned that there is no blueprint and we are all here for one another. I have learned I am more capable to campaign launched in July 2016. Within record time, the THE DAUGHTER handle this work than I give myself credit for.” campaign has become a global movement lead by people OF A DISABLED Thrilled to be honored as an amazing HIV-positive person, living with HIV. Today, 500 organizations from 65 countries ARMY VETERAN, I Laffrey says, “To be recognized by my peers, the community, have signed the U=U Consensus Statement, which has been translated into 15 different languages and is endorsed by the CONSTANTLY FEEL and other influencers means everything to me.”

In the future, Laffrey hopes “to achieve modernizing the principal investigators of the leading studies that proved the ON EDGE TO FIGHT FOR THE FREEDOM law in Florida,” and wants to see more community-based statement true.

The biggest payoff so far came September 2017, when the TO REMAIN FREE.” organizations “established in my county.” Perhaps one will be her own—emPOWERed Legacies—which she soon hopes to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed -KAMARIA LAFFREY establish as an official 501c3 nonprofit. Laffrey says she wants that U=U was “backed by science.” Richman has since formed what started out as a ministry in her church to end up serving “as a support a strategic partnership with International Treatment Preparedness Coalition hub for people living with HIV and more. I asked myself what would I to equip activists across the globe in integrating the undetectable equals do with my life if there was a cure tomorrow? The answer was there are untransmittable message into their advocacy in order to improve access still people that need to embrace healing from past mistakes, trauma, [and] to HIV treatment and viral load testing. One of the world’s top medical experiences, and I want to give them inspiration on how to do that.” journals, the Lancet, declared U equals U “the most important message of Appalled at how things are “twisted to fit the agendas of leaders [who] do 2017 in the fight against HIV.” not have heart for people, but only for power,” Laffrey says, “As a Christian Richman has acheived all of this on a shoestring budget. He remains woman of color living with HIV in the South, raising a teenager, married modest and insists, “It’s the U=U community who should be recognized as to someone with a criminal record, and [being the] daughter of a disabled the most amazing group of people and not me!” This community includes Army veteran, I constantly feel on edge to fight for the freedom to remain policy makers, providers, and researchers, but most of all, other people living free.” But she adds, “For every mind-bending thing we see on the news of with HIV. Looking forward, Richman says, “HIV stigma is a public health how principles are being ignored and leaders are not being held accountable, crisis, and yet many people in positions of power are still sitting on their we the people have access to so many opportunities in our communities hands, overstating risk and not sharing this life changing information! We and online to fight... [those] that try to tell us we are not worthy to live need people to move away from controlling people with HIV and toward in this democracy.”—Tami Haught, Sero Project’s organizing and training trusting people with HIV.”—Carrie E. Foote, a professor of sociology at Indiana coordinator behind the HIV is Not a Crime Training Academy, and Jacob University–Purdue University, chairs the HIV Modernization Movement in Anderson-Minshall, senior editor of Plus.

Indianapolis and works with Positive Women’s Network and the Sero Project.

HIVPLUSMAG.COM

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[3] KEN WILLIAMS Ken Williams’s HIV activism sort of fell into his lap, much like his diagnosis did.

He wasn’t aspiring to be an HIV activist— just like HIV wasn’t part of his “five-year plan,” when he was diagnosed in 2010. But after he woke up in a tailspin one morning, “a black queer body living with HIV, feeling suffocated, and needing to create a space enough to breathe,” Williams says, “I challenged myself to speak out.”

Since then, Williams (@kenlikebarbie) has become an eloquent speaker, a compelling storyteller, a diligent HIV activist, a constant media presence, and the creative force behind the award-winning video blog, Ken Like Barbie. He has shared his story on YouTube and collaborated on projects with the Black AIDS Institute, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Greater Than AIDS, and HIV.gov (where he’s a regular blogger for the Black Voices project).

Williams’s plenary speech at the 2016 U.S. Conference on AIDS was one of the year’s best.

Through his personal journey with HIV, Williams seeks to convey the nuances of his experience, he explains, “so when the historians do their research, they will know that black gay men do exist, and that doesn’t make us vectors or predators or disposable—but vibrant, impassioned individuals thriving in a fear-based society with very little support.”

Instead, Williams says, “Our narrative is that— despite this virus that is physically, socially, and politically trying to kill us every day—we are still here. There is something affirming and resilient about being a black gay man in America, living and loving out loud with HIV.”

Williams recently became part of amfAR’s Epic Voices campaign, sharing the inspirational and personal stories of people with HIV. He thinks what makes the Epic Voices campaign so important, “are the number of HIVpositive men and women who are exhausted with having to defend their right to intimacy, or access to healthcare, or other personal freedoms. I usually tell people that I am the epidemic—young, black, gay, male, diagnosed at the age of 26. Statistically speaking—my race, my gender, my HIV status—I wasn’t supposed to survive any of this.”

Many others with his same demographics simply don’t make it, and Williams knows that first-hand. “In my early 20s I had a friend, same age as me, die from AIDS-related complications,” he recalls. That death “hit so close to home” for Williams that “HIV felt like a 10-foot monster with claws and fangs chasing me. And then I remember how distant HIV got, like it no longer affected me—how removed I felt, like I had out-chased the monster until, years later, I was side-swiped by my own diagnosis.”

Yet it was his diagnosis that has driven him to make a difference in the world. Without it, he might not be where he is today. “Resisting against oppression is how I’ve been able to affect change,” Williams says. “Being visible has been the single most important thing I’ve done. I became an activist simply because I was aspiring to live.”

—Savas Abadsidis, managing editor of Plus.

[4] GREGORIO MILLETT For a man who has served at the highest national level of policy and research around HIV, you wouldn’t necessarily think Gregorio “Greg” Millett started out as “this young kid who never thought that I could be an accomplished scientist.”

But today, Millett is perhaps our country’s foremost expert on HIV among gay and bi men of color. While working as a parttime contractor at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the late 1990s, Millett was selected to head a research project focusing on a sudden spike in HIV transmission rates among gay and bisexual men of color.

“At the time there were no black gay men who were scientists in the [CDC’s] division of HIV/AIDS prevention. And

there I was as a contractor… people kind of pointed at me like, ‘Hey, here’s this black, Latino guy who’s gay,’” Millett recalls with a laugh. “I happen to fit the demographic and I knew the population—I was the population—so they gave me a chance.”

Five years later, the epidemiologist would learn he was more a part of this research demographic than even he realized. That’s when he discovered he was HIV-positive.

“There’s this twinge of shame because you’re a scientist doing this type of work, and how could this happen to you,” admits Millett. “But [you] realize that you’re human just like everybody else, and involved in very human situations.” Millett explains that—when it comes to matters of sex and love—we’re all vulnerable to making mistakes in terms of protecting our sexual health, “because [when] you are in love with a person, you let your guard down.”

As a scientist, Millett has published over 40 peer-reviewed research papers, something he is most proud of, particularly because he led the change in the last decade to “how researchers and scientists approach this issue, so that they are no longer essentially victim-blaming these men.”

The scientist explains that previously, when researchers saw these types of disparities around HIV, they would often focus on what that community or demographic was doing wrong.

However, the new research showed that men of color who have sex with men were doing many things right in terms of protecting themselves from HIV, so the numbers weren’t making sense.

This is what led us to the understanding that—because black communities are disproportionately impacted by HIV—black bisexual and gay men are at greater risk of contracting HIV than their white counterparts. In large part due to the efforts of Millett and his colleagues over the past 20 years, the focus has shifted to the causes of those racial disparities.

Since 2014, Millett has been with amfAR, where he’s vice president and director of public policy. Previously he served in the Obama administration’s Office of National AIDS Policy, as a senior policy advisor—a role in which he was one of three principal writers of President Obama’s National HIV/AIDS Strategy. Millett also helped eliminate the ban prohibiting HIV-positive people from traveling to or seeking residency in the United States.

Another high point in Millett’s career came during his time at the White House, in 2012, when he orchestrated an event at which 10 people living with HIV who were doing incredible work in the field were invited to meet President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden.

“That was a dream come true for me,” say Millett. “It was something I always wanted to do, and we made it happen.”

— Desirée Guerrero, assistant editor of Plus.

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KEN WILLIAMS (WILLIAMS); COURTESY BLACK AIDS INSTITUTE (MILLETT)

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COURTESY JENNIFER VAUGHAN (VAUGHAN); ALEX GOSHANI (HERTZOG)

[5] JENNIFER VAUGHAN Jennifer Vaughan is a skater, surfer, theft survivor, and single mom who went from an AIDS diagnosis to undetectable.

Since her diagnosis nearly two years ago, Jennifer has become an outspoken and active advocate for other HIVpositive women.

Despite getting sicker and sicker over the years, her diagnosis was slow in coming—perhaps because as a straight, white, middle-aged, non-drug using mom she didn’t fit the “typical” profile.

By the time she was finally diagnosed, she recalls, “My T cell count was at 85, my viral load was 507,000 and I had PCP pneumonia. I have never felt so close to death. This was the sickest I had been in my life. Several nights I went to sleep wondering if I would die in my sleep. I looked and felt like an AIDS patient, and I was.”

Jennifer shared the news of her diagnosis on social media, just as she had shared her seemingly random illnesses and frightening visits to the emergency room over the weeks before getting the news.

“People [were] obviously shocked at first,” she says, but ultimately support poured in. “I don’t know if I’ve ever felt that level of love from everyone.”

Friends she had drifted away from messaged her with words of support. People asked to share her post. Strangers praised her bravery and strength. “I felt like I made the right choice [by coming out as poz],” she says.

Six months after her diagnosis, Jennifer had regained much of her strength due to a daily dose of Triumeq; three drugs in one, delivered in the form of a single lavender pill. She was back at work and back to surfing and skating.

The overwhelmingly positive response she received after sharing her diagnosis left her with the feeling she could help others. She decided to post a video about her story on YouTube. Due in part to her matter of fact attitude and honest, no-nonsense style, it went viral.

The first video she posted now has over 335,000 views and her YouTube channel has over 4,400 subscribers. She posts regularly, answering questions from how her ex-husband reacted to the news of her diagnosis to educational queries like, “What is viral load and CD4?”

Her willingness to be so open about her status and her life post-diagnosis has helped many other HIV-positive people around the world and has led Jennifer to a life she never imagined.

“I feel so passionate about the people who first find out, who have that feeling of ‘Where do I go next?’ Because I felt all of that,” she says.

In addition to her YouTube channel, Jennifer shares her daily pill-taking with her followers on Instagram, started a private Facebook group for other HIV-positive women to share their stories and get support, and recently launched JenniferVaughan.org to share her story and connect all of her efforts in one spot. As if that wasn’t enough to keep this advocate, student, skater, surfer, and single mom of three busy—she just partnered with a fellow HIV-positive single mom in Kenya on a new project.

“Anne is incredible, and we bonded over being single, positive moms. She does amazing work with HIV-positive kids in Kenya—kids who were born with HIV,” shares Vaughan.

Together the women are raising funds to purchase sanitary products for the girls in Anne’s teen support group, so they don’t have to miss school when they are on their period because they don’t have tampons or pads.

“Anne and I are just two women—single moms with HIV on different continents— who want to do something that feels big to us, for how small we are,” she says. “We just want to help these teens feel better about a situation they have no control over. If we can make a difference in these kids’s lives, it would mean a lot to us.” —Jessica Johnson, a freelance writer, blogger, and poet who writes for and about passionate people following their dreams.

[6] KEVIN HERTZOG Kevin Hertzog began to challenge the status quo in third grade, when, encouraged by his teacher Ms. Riskin, he organized protests on everything from what was being served in the cafeteria to standardized testing. By his 20s, Hertzog was attending early ACT UP meetings in New York City, but wasn’t quite ready for the fight.

“The ACT UP guys were all serious and I’d show up in my make-up and a skirt,” he quips. “They were angry and I was in the ‘80s ‘me’ generation—I was mostly trying to have fun.”

Diagnosed HIV-positive, Hertzog spiraled into dark days after losing a friend to AIDS complications. He found himself at the Black Party, and realized he needed to change his life. He ended up making what he calls a “grow up” list. Item number one: HIV. With the help of his sister, Hertzog sought treatment and found sobriety. Two decades later, when the massacre at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando happened, the activist part of Hertzog was re-born, and he co-founded Gays Against Guns.

Gays Against Guns organized a protest for the New York City Pride parade the following week: 49 people dressed in white with veils and calling themselves “Human Beings.” The activist performance protest—conceived by performance artist James (Tigger!) Ferguson—was effective and powerful, and immediately received national media attention.

“Just using the Human Beings is a powerful tool,” says Hertzog. “As gays, we’re nothing if not crafty and theatrical.” Since the New York Pride parade, GAG has marched on Washington, protested outside gun shows, and continued to meet monthly.

“Gays know how to grab attention,” Hertzog says. “From the time we’re born, we monitor the way people perceive us and why. We’re masters of how to get or deflect attention.”

As far as what other activists can learn from GAG, Hertzog reflects on “the lesson Larry Kramer taught us: in a crisis the regular rules don’t apply. If the status quo is causing carnage, you have the responsibility to challenge it. LGBTQ people challenge the status quo—just by existing.”—Mel England, an actor and LGBT activist, who appeared on the cover of Plus magazine in 2015, and has written for Out magazine. He serves on the board of LGBT history project, The Lavender Effect.

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[7] ABDUL-ALIY MUHAMMAD Abdul-Aliy Muhammad, who uses they/them pronouns, is an activist who cofounded the Black and Brown Workers Collective, a direct action social justice group aimed at fighting racial and gender injustices in LGBT and HIV nonprofit organizations and the broader Philadelphia community.

Muhammad is a black magical queer, non-binary Philly jawn* who was made well and raised well in Philadelphia, Pa. They enter the work of anti-oppression from a place of black liberation and specifically decentering whiteness. They’ve worked in the field of HIV prevention for six and a half years, and currently works as an organizer with the Black and Brown Workers Collective. They also do anti-oppression trainings with the BlaQollective.

Muhammad also is a contributing writer with TheBody.com and is a cohost of the weekly podcast For Colored Boyz. They have been living with HIV since 2008.

Recently, they went on a #MedStrike to protest against policies and practices at the largest LGBT nonprofit in Philadelphia. Outside of their work, they are passionate about poetry and will publish a book of poetry in 2018. —Shani Akilah Robin, an anti-oppression organizer, activist, and author who formerly worked with the HIV organization, Philadelphia FIGHT, and cofounded the Black and Brown Workers Collective. *Merriam-Webster defines jawn, (prounced \jän\), as “the Philadelphia allpurpose noun,” which can refer to one thing, a collection of things, or a person.

[8] CEDRIC STURDEVANT Cedric Sturdevant is like a rising flame. He continuously sparks a fire in young people living in Jackson, Miss., and encourages them to use their talents and voices to accomplish a greater good in the world. In return, many people in Jackson simply call him “dad.” As a community leader, Sturdevant has worked as a mentor and educator with My Brother’s Keeper, the city’s HIV organization.

At Black AIDS Institute, he’s coordinated Project TRUST (Through Response Uplifting & Supportive Talk), which fosters healthy relationships among black gay and bisexual men.

In 2017, the activist worked with Linda Villarosa on a story she wrote for The New York Times, “America’s Hidden HIV Epidemic,” highlighting the growing number of HIV cases in the South, particularly in Jackson. He also costarred in an interactive theater experience, As Much as I Can. Part of ViiV Healthcare’s ACCELERATE! Initiative, the show centered on real stories about living with HIV in the black community.

Sturdevant knows first-hand the effects of the fear and shame HIV stigma can instill in one’s life. He and his ex-partner were first diagnosed around the same time in 2005, but he shares, “We didn’t want anyone to know. Because of stigma and fear, we didn’t seek treatment.” Now, the 52-year-old grandfather of three is inspiring others to bury their shame and seek treatment or prevention tools.

In the next few years, the activist says, “I hope to encourage more individuals living with HIV to become leaders... become more involved with policy and advocacy work, and take their seat at the table.” He says, “I also hope to establish a place for homeless LBGT individuals regardless of their status.” —David Artavia, associate editor of Plus.

[9] RONALD JOHNSON Ronald Johnson is a lifetime advocate for the HIV community. His career spans over three decades of leadership in policy and advocacy to improve our response to the HIV epidemic, keep people living with HIV healthy, and prevent new infections.

Ronald is an advocate, mentor, and compass to so many of us in the work.

Looking back on his extensive career, Ronald is most proud of being one of the first people openly living with HIV to serve in public office. In 1992, when he was 44, Ronald was named by Mayor David Dinkins to serve as New York City’s first coordinator for AIDS policy, where he helped strengthen HIV care and treatment across the city.

While he has touched the lives of so many of us, Ronald is shy of the spotlight. When I asked him what this honor means to him, he replied, “I am grateful for having been given the opportunity to combine my personal status as a person living with HIV, with my desire to be involved in responding to HIV. To be recognized for my work is incredibly humbling.”

As Ronald moves on to the next phase of his life, retirement—something that so many of us living with HIV never thought possible—it’s fitting that his lifetime of service to people living with and affected by HIV is recognized through this honor. We wish him all the best and thank him for his years of leadership, friendship, and compassion.—Jesse Milan, Jr., the president and CEO of AIDS United.

[10] BETO SOBERANIS Beto Soberanis was very good at keeping secrets. Hiding parts of himself was something Soberanis thought he had to do. “It took 13 years to say that I’m HIVpositive,” Soberanis tells Plus. “I 26

was afraid that I was going to be rejected, seen as a classic statistic, and that my family would be disappointed.”

Soberanis explains that fear not only held him back from opening up about his condition, but about other major parts of his identity—including his status as a person living in the U.S. without documentation. Through his work as a case manager for HIV-positive youth, the 33-year-old athlete and advocate from Chicago finally found the strength to overcome his own fears.

“Utilizing my power to speak up was not only helping our clients, but was also helping me come out of the shadows,” he says now. “Almost no one knew I was

living in this county without a legal status.”

When he began working at the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, Soberanis wrote an article publicly sharing his migration story for the first time. “I’m really proud I spoke up and let folks know they weren’t alone. However, what I am really most proud of is to be able to speak up about all of my identities: HIV-positive, immigrant, DREAMer, Latino, and gay.”

Another life-changing realization happened in 2015, when Soberanis signed up for his first marathon with Team to End AIDS. “Since that experience, I learned so much about myself and what I’m capable of.”

Soberanis says he “fell in love with endurance sports” and is currently training for his first Ironman competition in July of 2018.

Now project manager for AFC’s Salud y Orgullo Mexicano program, which links newly immigrated Mexican-American men living with HIV to medical care, this activist-turned-athlete says he hopes sharing his story will inspire others to be out and proud about who they are.

“I’m not a minority, because there is nothing minor about me,” quips Soberanis. “I am proud of who I am.”—D.G.

LOUIE ORTIZ-FONSECA (ABDUL-ALIY); COURTESY CEDRIC STURDEVANT (CEDRIC); COURTESY AIDS UNITED (RONALD); COURTESY AIDS FOUNDATION CHICAGO (BETO)

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COURTESY DANIEL DRIFFIN (DANIEL); COURTESY CORNELIUS MABIN (CORNELIUS); COURTESY DONTÁ MORRISON (DONTÁ)

[11] DANIEL DRIFFIN Last year was an adventure for 31-year-old Daniel Driffin.

Not only did he go back to school full time, he also cofounded the organization Thrive SS with Larry Scott-Walker and Dwain Bridges. An online support system that builds networks for those living with HIV, it connected over 150 black gay, bisexual, and same-gender loving men with HIV living in Atlanta; and now boasts 700 members nationwide who are changing what it means to live with HIV. Thrive SS (ThriveSS.org) is making sure poz people are adhering to their medication, and teaching them how to speak with doctors efficiently. It’s also starting to build in more advocacy ties through its Policy and Social Action Network (PaSAN). For Driffin, it’s a network he wished he had when he was first diagnosed.

“I still have tears when I think about how alone I felt when I was diagnosed with HIV in 2008,” he shares. “You could not pay me to believe that I would make it past those darkest days.

Recognized by the National Black Justice Coalition as one of 100 Black LGBTQ/SGL Emerging Leaders to Watch, Driffen founded Undetectables Atlanta and chaired both the Young Black Gay Men’s Leadership Initiative and the Task Force to End AIDS in Fulton County, Ga. In 2016, Driffen gained national attention when he was chosen to speak at the Democratic National Convention, the first out HIV-positive speaker at the DNC in 16 years.

Driffin says he will never stop fighting against stigma. “Until we create better laws and policy of doing away with criminalization bills, my work will continue.”

Over the next year, Thrive SS will continue with online peer support groups for poz people, specifically targeting black men who have sex with men, but there are plenty of women in the network as well.

“We firmly believe the model is adaptable for women, youth, more seasoned individuals, and even persons with trans experience,” Driffin explains. “It’s truly creating additional communities of collective power to advocate for the lives of people living with HIV and achieve increased health outcomes like higher [T cells] and higher viral suppression rates.”

Despite hardships, Driffin says, “HIV has truly changed my life for the better. I have created additional family members not only for myself but other people living with HIV and that is powerful.

I think we have to change the loneliness associated with HIV before we truly begin to end the current epidemics.”—D.A.

[12] CORNELIUS MABIN Cornelius Mabin’s legacy in the state of Arkansas stretches across four decades. One of the first accolades he received came in 1983, when he served as the first African-American president of Arkansas Gay Rights, the state’s first LGBT rights organization.

Mabin later spoke to the Arkansas State Legislature about the importance of HIV resources in the state. His efforts around HIV/ AIDS led to a co-chair position on the board of the Arkansas HIV Planning Group—the accomplishment Mabin says he’s most proud of: “With my election, I was both the first person of color and an individual living with HIV to serve.”

Mabin has served on the boards of Black and White Men Together and Arkansas AIDS Foundation, and is the founder and editor of CorneliusOnpoint, which served as one of the state’s leading LGBT news outlets for a decade. Looking back on his accomplishments, Mabin says, “All my work has challenged me to assess my viewpoints, check my privilege, make me acutely aware of the racism that I’ve endured and witnessed, and cause me to seek deep-dive conversations about the impact of living and loving with HIV as a black man in America. Through all of this, I’ve gained strength, stamina, growth, and have become fearless about living my life out loud with no regrets.”

Among the hats Mabin, 56, currently wears on a regular basis, one is reserved for Arkansas RAPPS, a community based program of The Strilite Foundation that facilitates connections to health care, education programming, and other support for people living with and impacted by HIV. While Mabin acknowledges there’s still work to be done in Arkansas, the strides made have been impressive.

“When I began my advocacy,” he recalls, “oftentimes our system of care was referred to as a ‘patchwork’ system. We’ve moved past that observation with the creation of more Ryan White service access centers; a statewide empowerment group system; scaling up our Community Connectors program to provide peer-to-peer, localized HIV education, testing, and linkage to care navigation; and the impending launch of a PrEP clinic founded and staffed by... LinQ for Life, Incorporated.”

On his part, Mabin says, “I want to leave [Arkansas] not as I found it, but at least [as a] work in progress that the next set of leaders can continue to build upon and make the entire LGBTQ community a better place to live, grow and love!”—Mike Halterman is the editor of Hotspots Central.

[13] DONTÁ MORRISON Dontá Morrison is a 45-yearold HIV-positive radio host of the The Dontá Show on BlogTalkRadio. Reality TV star Karamo Brown—with whom Morrison founded the organization 6in10 to fight HIV among black gay men—explains why he’s amazing: Dontá Morrison is an example of strength, love, and thoughtful intention personified. As an HIV activist, minister, and educator, Dontá ensures that he uses all of his identities to start conversations around HIV in spaces that traditionally shy away from

being part of the solution. Dontá once expressed, “I didn’t have a ‘me’ growing up—someone black, gay and open about their status who could give me guidance. If I would have had a ‘me’ I probably wouldn’t have contracted HIV. That’s why I go into these spaces— so people can see themselves and know that they can make healthier choices for their own life.”

Dontá has been HIV-positive for 18 years and publicly open about his status for 16. He knows that being open about his story can and has shaped the way others approach their own mental and physical health. Dontá shared with me, “being a mentor to young people, and showing them that living with HIV does not stop your life, has been continually my greatest accomplishment. When I see these young people get it… I am overwhelmed with joy and hope.”

I’ve never met someone who didn’t immediately feel comforted when meeting Dontá. You can feel the love and compassion radiating off of him. He lives his life in service of others—not for notoriety. He loves people unconditionally and knows he must do the work so that others can find that unconditional love in themselves. Dontá once shared with a congregation, “Sexuality isn’t black and white, it’s colorful and diverse—and it’s up to each of us to have more honest conversations about sexuality so that the people in our lives will feel more liberated to be honest about who they are, which in turn will lead them to be more responsible.”

I am personally inspired by how Dontá navigates his life with courage and honor to help find a solution to end the HIV epidemic.

The work we do together with the organization we cofounded, 6in10.org, is just one more example of the work Dontá does for the community he loves.—Karamo Brown is an actor and producer, known for being the first out gay black man on reality TV (MTV’s The Real World: Philadelphia) as well as starring on Dr. Drew on Call, and hosting Are You the One: Second Chances.

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[16] EDDIE GONZALEZ Eddie Gonzalez says it may seem strange to say you’re “proud to be HIV-positive,” but he knows for a fact that a status holds no shame. “Being proud of living with the virus does not implicate I want everyone else to be infected…

I simply am a proud person living with HIV because I like to use myself as an example to help others. I want people to reject the stigma… and keep a positive mind. That’s why I always use my own slogan, ‘If you’re positive… you can’t be negative!’”

The 38-year-old HIVpositive writer, actor, and advocate from Houston, Texas has been fighting to end stigma and discrimination

so “those of us living with HIV have a reason to fight to keep on living—but we need to start from the core of the advocacy community. I’ve seen the need in diversity and equality, and I can vividly see the need to fight for advocate unity in order to gain the respect we all seek.”

After testing positive, Gonzalez—who has written several theatrical plays, short stories, movie scripts, and an episodic web-series—collaborated with FLAS Inc. (an HIV agency in Houston) to produce theatrical plays touching on topics such as HIV, domestic violence, and substance abuse. There’s a short play that Gonzalez wrote that he is particularly proud of called Estigma Seropositivo, (Seropositive Stigma) which he presented on World AIDS Day, and is based on actual events from his life.

“I share my testimony at the end,” he says. “I have had people come up to thank me for changing their thoughts on the matter, and the message given convinces people to get tested at the end of the event.”

Gonzalez has also been producing a web-series called FlasNOVELAS, a novela-style anthology aimed at educating his community in Houston on social subjects such as HIV, sex work, and PrEP. “I’ve had the honor to write every single episode based on real testimonies. The series has been gratefully accepted internationally, and we have presented it in various conferences, including at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.”

Gonzalez is also part of the Greater Than AIDS campaign, We Are Family, which helped him spread the word on the importance of family, since support can make life easier and healthier for someone living with HIV. “Everything that I have done, and will continue doing, is to simply give a message of hope, to never quit, and to always stay positive.”— S.A.

COURTESY THE OPEN DOOR INC (YVETTE); COURTESY AIDS UNITED (JESSE); COURTESY EDDIE GONZALEZ (EDDIE)

[14] YVETTE WILLIAMS Yvette Williams doesn’t necessarily consider herself a hero—although the hundreds, if not thousands, of people living with HIV whom she has helped over the past decades certainly do.

After learning she was HIV-positive, Williams has devoted her life to helping others. “Working with people who are HIV-positive has been a passion of mine since I was first diagnosed in 1998,” says Williams, who works with at-risk and marginalized people living with HIV in the Pittsburgh, Pa., area.

“I have always advocated for this population because I feel as though it is my responsibility to give back what has been given to me.”

Williams has served as senior patient advocate at Allegheny Health Network’s Positive Health Clinic in Pittsburgh (for 14 years), and as program manager at The Open Door, Inc. (OpenDoorHousing.org)— an organization which provides housing and related services to the oft-forgotten population of chronically homeless people living with HIV—since 2006.

Christina Farmartino, executive director at The Open Door, says Williams “works tirelessly every day to improve the quality of life for women and men in our community,”—and often goes above and beyond her job duties to meet clients at all hours to find them shelter, or accompany them to court hearings or doctor’s appointments.

“There are uncountable stories of individuals, chronically homeless on the streets, that Yvette has moved into an apartment the same day she has met them,” says Farmartino. “She has helped innumerable individuals stay medically and medication adherent.

She has supported hundreds in getting into treatment and recovery from substances. Yvette has aided many in leaving domestic violence situations, transitioning into school or work, and receiving therapy and treatment for severe, untreated mental illness.”

Williams says if she could change one thing through her advocacy work, she “would increase the housing programs available for people who are HIVpositive.”

Williams has been happily married now for nine years “to my wonderful husband, Nathaniel.”

Together, the couple has five adult daughters and six grandchildren (and another on the way).

Farmartino says clients are often shocked—but ultimately deeply inspired—by the fact the happy, healthy, and vibrant 57-year-old has survived many of the same difficulties and hardships that they are currently dealing with.

“When new residents find that Yvette has shared their experiences of homelessness, addictions, and struggles with medication adherence, they understand that their own challenges can be overcome.”—D.G.

[15] JESSE MILAN, JR. Jesse Milan, Jr. is not only a tireless community advocate and nationally recognized expert on HIV and AIDS policies and programs, he is also a dear friend and personal inspiration.

When I sat down with Jesse and asked him about his most proud accomplishment, he smiled as he reflected on his experiences traveling with the U.S. State Department as an expert on HIV. He was sent on three different speaking tours to seven African nations, two of which lasted a month each. The tours were exhausting and challenging, he shared, but he relished the opportunity to speak about HIV with thousands of people from villages, schools and churches, board rooms and conference centers. Everywhere he went he was showered with appreciation.

When I asked him what he still hopes to achieve, especially in his role as president and CEO of AIDS United, he explained that his biggest hope is that he can be an asset and ally to advocates in states across the American South—as they fight to achieve legislative changes that eliminate HIV criminalization, expand Medicaid, and promote LGBT rights. He added that he still hopes to help individuals overcome stigma and feel empowered to disclose.

In response to my question about the biggest challenge facing him and the organization, he responded finding new funders and individual donors to join the fight against HIV. Too many believe the epidemic is over and think their help and their funds are no longer needed.

“I’m humbled and surprised,” he replied when I asked him how he felt being honored by Plus.

“I chose for this chapter of my life to stay in this work because it has a deep and personal meaning to me. This honor helps me know I made the right choice.”

As I prepare to retire, and move on from the organization that I’ve dedicated 10 years of my life to, I can think of no better person to entrust the leadership of AIDS United (AIDSUnited.org) and its critical mission, than my friend Jesse.—Ronald Johnson has been fighting HIV since he first volunteered at Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) in 1984. The former New York City AIDS czar and current vice president of policy and advocacy at AIDS United is retiring after a storied career.

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COURTESY JESÚS GUILLÉN (JESÚS); COURTESY NATHAN TOWNSEND (NATHAN); LOUIS KENGI CARR (STEVEN)

[17] JESÚS GUILLÉN San Francisco’s Jesús Guillén, 58, is a talented vocalist, a brilliant photographer, a spiritual healer, and a long-term survivor. Born in San Luis Potosi, in central Mexico, Guillén says, “I’m literally a jungle boy.” He grew up in a stone house in the small rural town of about 200 people—and no cars.

Guillén knew he was gay as a child but felt unable to come out until he came to America in the mid-1980s. Hoping to obtain citizenship through President Ronald Reagan’s amnesty program, Guillén learned a blood test was required and being HIV-positive would get him deported. He had only just learned of his diagnosis and had told no one—until he asked a friend to take the blood test for him. He says he feels no guilt over having done so because he felt that his life depended upon it.

“Going back to my country being positive, I would die. Why would I come out [poz] when they would tell me to leave?”

After living with HIV for over 30 years, he is disabled from neuropathy (a form of nerve damage), a side effect from a HIV drug regimen. Guillén also went through a brutal battle with lymphoma and suffers from PTSD. Mental health issues are why Guillén founded his Facebook group, HIV Long-Term Survivors, a couple years ago (it’s now over 4,500 members strong). “I like to think that we are helping with the main problems [for long term survivors] of isolation and loneliness,” he says. Guillén appeared in Last Men Standing, the 2016 award-winning documentary film about long-term survivors. He works as a consultant on aging and HIV through numerous HIV/AIDS organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area—and continues to pursue his creative passions.— D.G.

[18] MARK ANTHONY HUGHES One of my personal heroes in Indiana is Mark Anthony Hughes—a 55-year-old, black, samegender-loving, long-term thriver with HIV— who works as a prevention program coordinator at Brothers United (BrothersUnitedInc.org) and runs Many Men, Many Voices (3MV), a group for men who have sex with men. Mark has served our community in various service and advocacy capacities (community advisory boards, volunteerism, etc.) since he tested positive over 20 years ago. Affectionately known as “Uncle Mark,” he is there to help those most vulnerable, especially cisgender and transgender black men and women.

Mark says “I am proud we [Brothers United] are able to provide a safe space for poz individuals to discuss issues we face day-to-day. This is extremely important to me, because support groups are difficult to find.”

Mark’s motto is “never give up on people.” He frequently says, “You gotta meet people where they are at, and keep inviting them to the table.” He has an uncanny ability of doing just that. I cannot begin to tell you how many people are alive and living quality lives because Mark cared and... would not give up.

Mark led Brothers United’s Positive Organizing Project (funded by AIDS United), in which he developed a state-wide advocacy network of poz people of color. He helped organize the first ever Indiana HIV Advocacy Day at the State House, joined the HIV Modernization Movement, and mentors people around advocacy when it comes to HIV criminal law reform.

“I do this work because it saves lives,” Mark reiterates. “Much like those who put in the work to save me.” But, he adds, “It’s amazing to know that others pay attention and appreciate the work you do. It often goes without a thank you.”—C.F.

[19] NATHAN TOWNSEND Nathan Townsend has given HIV-positive folks a healthier perspective of what it means to be poz, through his wellness workshop series, “Living a Life of PoZabilities.” After a near fatal car accident sparked PTSD, and his own issues with addiction, Townsend says, “While on [a] journey of recovery, I started looking at the unaddressed needs of the HIV community from an emotional wellness perspective.”

In 2004, Townsend survived neutropenia (an abnormally low level of a certain white blood cells) and an almost total collapse of his immune system. He was hospitalized for 40 days and required a series of blood transfusions. “HIV has made me appreciate this gift called life, and living with AIDS has helped me to realize my mortality,” he shares. “For years all of my efforts were self-serving and personally unfulfilling until I started this path of selfless ministry… I’ve [also] stopped drinking and smoking and being led by my desires.”

For eight years, Townsend served as the housing coordinator, HIV tester, counselor, and prevention educator at an HIV group home. He recently moved to Atlanta, arriving on World AIDS Day, exactly a dozen years after he first spoke publicly about being poz (at Bucks County Community College, outside Philadelphia). Since that day, he’s become a consultant with Merck and a presenter for the Health Resources and Services Administration [HRSA] on limited health literacy in the black MSM community. Today, Townsend quips, “Most of my conversations are about what happens beneath the sheets!”—D.A.

[20] STEVEN RAUL CAMPA Waking each day is an accomplishment, says Steven Raul Campa, a poz 23-year-old HIV tester and counselor for APLA.

Campa also attends California State University, Long Beach, working toward a degree in public health, and he’s currently training for the 2018 AIDS/Lifecycle.

Campa says he’s proud to be “a young HIV-positive Latino man who is unafraid to speak out against the HIV-related stigmas and stereotypes that still circulate throughout the community. Within my peer network, there are few who are comfortable enough to be transparent.

I do so because they need a voice. They need representation. They need people to know that it is not okay to shame individuals based upon a diagnosis.”

Campa, who learned he was poz in

2014, never set out to be a “spokesperson for HIV,” but he’s realized that just being out and proud as a poz Latino man combats HIV stigma.

“Being an HIV activist is not something I merely do from 9 to 5. It is who I am and a huge part of my life’s purpose. That being said, a challenge for me is finding time to escape and breathe. I feel like I’m always working [to educate] friends, family, and those within the community. I love what I do, but I also understand the importance of self-care and do what I can to incorporate that into my life.”

Being recognized for that work, “is humbling,” says Campa. “To be selected is definitely affirming and I do not take it lightly. I am beyond appreciative.”

The youngest activist on this year’s list, Campa hopes “to achieve a place at tables and within planning bodies that will further my voice. I believe that my presence is necessary for not only my peer group, but the communities I represent.” And once he gets there? “I will not exit until a visible change has occurred. One that has shifted the tide on how HIV prevention and education is disseminated to marginalized communities.”—J.A.M. HIVPLUSMAG.COM

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Sisters

Are Doing It Amazon’s hit series, Transparent, is breaking Hollywood’s stigmatizing rules, not just by allowing the world to see actual trans people onscreen, but by including women of color and those living with HIV. Two of its trans stars—Alexandra Billings and Trace Lysette—one poz onscreen, one poz off—are changing America’s perspective on women living with HIV. Let the revolution begin!

BY DAVID ARTAVIA / PHOTOGRAPHY BY LUKE FONTANA STYLIST: AISHA RA / ASSISTANT STYLIST: ANGEL CROSS HAIR AND MAKEUP: ERIC LEONARDOS

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was waiting anxiously outside a hotel conference room to talk with Transparent stars Alexandra Billings and Trace Lysette, who had already sat for hours of interviews with other outlets answering the typical questions stars of a hit TV show are asked. The feeling that this day was special, was palpable. As I walked in to find the two women taking photos and laughing like old girlfriends, I knew they felt it too. After all, as Billings tells me, “20 years ago we wouldn’t have been let in this room.”

No one needs to remind these ladies that they’re standing on the shoulders of giants. In many ways, Billings herself is one of those giants. Before Caitlyn Jenner and Laverne Cox were household names, Billings was already a trailblazer, having been one of the first out trans actresses to play a trans role on television, in the 2005 TV prequel Romy and Michele: In The Beginning.

(The first out trans actress in such a role was Jessica Crockett, who played a trans lesbian in a 2001 Dark Angel episode). In her decades in Hollywood, Billings has appeared in numerous films and TV shows (including How to Get Away With Murder and Grey’s Anatomy), but few roles were as groundbreaking and captivating as Billings’s scene-stealing role of Davina on the hit Amazon series, Transparent.

As a mixed-race trans woman like the actress who plays her, Davina’s friendship with Maura— the affluent, Jewish lead character—is a way for the series to talk about its own privilege, to underscore the ways in which women of color are far more vulnerable to violence, and to truly

address intersectionality in a real-life way that doesn’t require a textbook to understand.

Now in its fourth season, Transparent hit another milestone when Billings became the first out trans actress to have a full-frontal nude scene on a TV show (she’s likely the first out HIV-positive person to do so as well).

Billings’s costar Trace Lysette is also blazing trails as Shea, a young transgender, HIV-positive yoga instructor who teaches the lead character Maura (Jeffrey Tambor) how to say phrases like “Yas queen!” while having a brief fling with Maura’s son Josh—becoming one of only a handful of trans actresses to be portrayed having intimate relations with a cisgender man on screen (following Candis Cayne’s groundbreaking role in Dirty Sexy Money).

Although she’s HIVnegative in real life, Lysette takes the responsibility of playing a character who is both trans and poz very seriously: “The responsibility is always on my mind, and I don’t take any of it for granted.”

Billings, who is HIVpositive in real life but not in the show, knows the power of art and how it shapes culture. A staunch advocate for HIV health initiatives, she’s been in the trenches since the early days of ACT UP. And like the legendary playwright and AIDS activist Larry Kramer who founded that organization, Billings acknowledges she’s dealt with a lot of anger.

“I have a lot of rage,” she recalls telling Kramer when she starred (alongside Greg Louganis) in a Chicago production of Kramer’s play Just Say No. “But I’d like it to be directed, because when it’s not, it gets way out of control… and nothing gets served.”

Trace and I don’t have to join the revolution.

We are the fucking revolution!

On Alexandra: Blue dress by Ralph Lauren; shoes by Cape Robbin On Trace: Gold silver wrap dress by Baruni, black bow heels by Christian Louboutin; earrings by Dori Csengeri

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Show stopper Billings in a dress by Rachel Roy and gold ring by Stella & Bow

Kramer, Billings says, replied, “‘I disagree completely. I think any anger is righteous anger.’”

The activist’s response explains a lot about Kramer’s confrontational style—and how it differs from Billings’s own efforts to make the world a better place.

Being of service is a mantra for Billings, who admits to not believing in “good and evil” but rather a conscious choice to be “in service” to the world. Growing up with a musical director father, Billings has been around artists since the age of 7. One might say she was born in service to the art that’s shaped her life.

Billings, whose life was documented in the 2009 Emmy Award-nominated PBS doc Schoolboy to Showgirl: The Alexandra Billings Story, told her story there and in the famed touring off-Broadway autobiographical show, Before I Disappear.

“I was raised around queers,” she says. “My whole life has been just gay, it couldn’t be gayer.

For the longest time, it was hard for me to be around [hetero-normative people]. I didn’t really understand them. The bullying that I endured when I was young was very confusing to me because I would visit my father every summer and be around the LGBT clan and I was like, ‘I don’t understand. This [queer] world is much kinder and these are supposed to be the ostracized? This doesn’t make any sense.’”

Lysette also found her home in the queer community: first in the drag bars of Dayton, Ohio, and later in the ball scene of New York City. “I was a performer [in Dayton] as a teen and had a fake ID,” she remembers. “My chosen family kind of validated me throughout the years and let me know that I was special, and particularly in the New York-hosted ballroom subculture, the voguing subculture. I found a chosen family there where I was being celebrated for being feminine, and everything I had always been put down for… that validation really carried me through.”

Competitions were once a major part of Billings’s life as well. In fact, her character’s arc in the latest season of Transparent is plucked directly from her own experiences competing in the Miss Continental beauty pageant at Los Angeles’s legendary drag club, The Queen Mary.

Clips from Billings’s personal home videos grace the screen during this season’s title sequence.

Years before, however, when Billings was first transitioning, her life wasn’t as glitzy or glamorous. Back then, being a trans woman while also maintaining her relationship with a woman (she’s been with her wife for 43 years) was hardly commonplace. And while she’s the first to tell you their relationship seems like a fairy tale now, it wasn’t always a bowl of cherries.

“I caught flak from most every community, with the exception of the trans community,” she says of that time. “It was 1980… We were just 10 years out of Stonewall. We were still figuring things out.”

Billings recalls there hardly being a discussion about her trans identity with her wife. “She knew, because my wife knows everything,” she says. “She knew and she was not happy. We’re not going to pretend that it went well. It did not go well. We didn’t speak to each other for about two years. We didn’t speak and we talked to each other every single day, and have for over 40 years, and for those two years, nothing, because it was just... Who handles that transition well? I didn’t handle it well.”

Three decades later, the world has changed insurmountably. According to GLAAD, 2016 featured the highest percentage of LGBT series regulars the organization has ever found on TV, with 4.8 percent of all characters being gay, lesbian, bisexual, trans, or queer-identified. With 43 LGBT characters out of 895 that number is still low, but dramatically better than in the past.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for HIV-positive characters. The few poz characters we see on mainstream television aren’t a huge leap from Michael Pierson, the character played

by Aidan Qunn in 1985’s An Early Frost, the first made-for-television movie addressing AIDS; or Tom Hanks’s Andrew Beckett from 1993’s Philadelphia, one of the first mainstream Hollywood films to acknowledge not only HIV, but also homosexuality and homophobia. On screen, Beckett’s HIV progresses to the point of purple lesions (Kaposi’s Sarcoma) appearing on his face and his wasting away—the widespread image of HIV in the years before antiretroviral cocktails turned the disease into a manageable chronic condition.

Fortunately, Lysette’s character in Transparent experiences none of these things. On the contrary, she’s healthy, vibrant, and sexually active—a huge leap from days of old, and a springboard towards eradicating HIV stigma.

A long-term survivor of HIV, Billings recalls one of the most traumatic moments in her life: wrapping her best friend, who had died of AIDScomplications, in a sheet and leaving her body on the steps of a hospital because Billings hadn’t been able to find a cemetery willing to let her bury her friend due to fear the disease might “contaminate the soil.”

Even though we’ve come a long way from those dark days of ignorance and death, Billings knows we still face challenges in increasing the visibility of healthy poz people while maintaining prevention awareness. The U.S. saw 39,513 people newly diagnosed with HIV in 2015, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“I want to take them by the hand and say, ‘You need to be mindful now,’” she says of those newly diagnosed. “‘Now your job is to turn your behavior around.’”

Getting on and staying on antiretroviral medications can be a part of that behavioral change. Not only will doing so improve the health HIVPLUSMAG.COM

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Lysette’s gold top by Lotuz; black studded pants by Frankie; pearl earrings

by Aqua; gold ring by Stella & Bow

of those who are HIV-positive, it can also prevent transmission of the virus once the treatment lowers a person’s viral load to undetectable levels.

Billings, who was diagnosed positive in 1994, adds: “I have had it with irresponsible queers.

I’m done placating. I’m not done being kind, but I’m done being nice. Nice is a state. Kindness takes action. If you got this [virus], if you got infected in the year 2017, you now need to take responsibility. And that means you’ve got to be of service. You do not get to go back to… your old behavior. You’ve got to figure out something new to do. Be a mentor. Don’t look for mentors. Be a mentor. That’s your job now, and I think that’s true of the trans community, too.”

The truth of the matter is Hollywood producers aren’t eager to tell the stories of HIVpositive people, or trans people­­—much less HIVpositive trans people.

“Trace and I don’t have to join the revolution.

We are the fucking revolution,” Billings proclaims. “So our job isn’t to say, ‘Hey you guys, look at what great human beings we are.’ Our job is to say, ‘What are you going to do? We’re loud.

We’re big. We took up enormous space. What are you going to do? We will help you do that. Now you help us do that.’ The people we go to meet in Hollywood… they’re half my age. I just had a meeting in a room full of people that were in their 30s for fuck’s sake. I’m almost 60. You help me.”

Following the recent fallout over sexual harassment and assaults, Hollywood producers are being pressured to create more diversity behind the scenes, as well as hold perpetrators accountable.

According to Lysette, Hollywood has its share of powerful men who take advantage of trans women, as well. Billings and Lysette admit these kinds of predators are more than willing to have sex with trans women, but wouldn’t admit to dating—or god forbid falling in love with—them. “There are so many powerful [people] who have an affinity or are open to trans women and have indulged with us between the sheets, who won’t come out and talk about it,” Lysette explains. “Hollywood is riddled with them. If I gave you the list, heads would roll, and headlines would be made. But I feel it is their job to step up and speak out.”

Lysette did speak out recently, alleging sexual misconduct on the part of Tambor, after another trans woman anonymously complained about the actor. The move pushed the show into legal limbo; as of press time Amazon is investigating the allegations.

Still, that stigma that persists in Hollywood and elsewhere, around dating trans women is ultimately the same unspeakable truth underscoring many trans homicides. According to the Human Rights Campaign, nearly 24 trans people had been fatally shot or killed by other violent means in 2017 as of November—the majority of them were trans women of color.

“I don’t think the world was paying attention to trans homicides prior to a few years ago,”

Lysette says. “I transitioned in Brooklyn, and took the subway every day… avoiding 3:45 p.m. at all costs, because that’s when school let out, and high school kids are the first ones to try it. I think that’s the world... You know, it was engraved in me that you have to protect yourself and you have to be really, really careful. A lot of us who were murdered prior to four years ago, even, were misreported and misgendered when they found the bodies. I think that the world is finally starting to pay attention.”

Billings takes the issue a step further: “We need to have the right conversation… about how we’re raising our little boys, because we need to remember, who’s doing the killing? These are men, all of them. There is no such thing—not one case—where a female has murdered a female transgender human being. Not one. We need to look at the fact that most of these humans that are murdered are trans females of color.”

Billings adds that people, “still believe that being transgender is a choice, a fetish, or a custom. We still believe that’s true. No matter how much medical science there is to prove otherwise, we still believe that’s true.”

She thinks that the way Americans gender children is part of the problem.

“We teach our little boys: blue is for boys, violence is for boys, aggression is for boys, power is for boys. Softness is for girls, ease is for girls, and smaller spaces are for girls… Say this, sound like this, behave like that—and thus we treat other human beings that way.”

Billings argues that the inevitable extension is discounting those who are differently gendered as though “this human being isn’t a human being anyway. All we know is that we like to have sex with this human and that makes you a homo. Kill it. And that’s what happens. It doesn’t happen in the reverse. Women don’t learn that. That’s what men learn. What are we teaching our little boys and how are we parenting?”

Together, Billings and Lysette continue to rise hand-in-hand as soul sisters and trailblazers for a future generation—one that doesn’t promote such binary thinking. At least that’s the goal.

“Life is not black and white. Neither is gender.

Neither is drag. Neither is a lot of things,” Lysette says. “I think that sometimes labels are not all-encompassing. And so sometimes you have to use a sentence or two to explain who and what you are or what you believe in. And I think that we need to stay away from the boxes... It’s good to be able to identify with the movement, to identify with something. But 20 years from now, do I want to be labeled a transgender actress? I’m an actress. I’m a woman. I happen to be trans.”

Looking at where she’s come from, Billings can’t help but smile and surrender to her own story. “I am the contributing writer to my own story and my only job is to listen and just keep writing. That’s all I know. Everything else is up for grabs.”

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WISDOM OF THE CROWD

I

f you only know Emmy-winning actor, singer, and media personality Jai Rodriguez from his time on the pioneering pop-culture television phenomenon, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, you must not own a TV anymore—because the multi-talented star of stage and screen seems to be everywhere these days.

Aside from numerous hosting gigs over the years on television (including on Latin networks like NuvoTV), Rodriguez has had more notable acting projects than we’re able to list (including memorable roles on Malibu Country, Bones, Nip/ Tuck, Grace & Frankie, and a lead in the criticallyacclaimed feature film, Oy Vey My Son is Gay!!).

Though Rodriguez was the youngest of the “Fab Five” on Queer Eye (he was only 26 when he signed on), the talented vocalist had already been enjoying a successful Broadway career—having performed the role of the HIV-positive character, Angel, in RENT—for over half a decade. Many who know him from television may not realize that Rodriguez is also a successful recording artist who has performed onstage with legends like Gladys Knight, Patti Labelle, and Brian McKnight (and was even featured in Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” video with Beyoncé).

Still, somehow the in-demand performer manages to find time to help raise money and awareness for HIV causes, including AIDS Walk, APLA, Richmond/Ermet Aid Foundation, and Life Group LA. His latest project—teaming up with Janssen’s Positively Fearless campaign (which promotes HIV awareness and education within black and Latino communities)—hits close to home. After years of advocacy work around HIV and AIDS, Rodriguez says, “I thought I really knew my stuff.”—that is, until he had a friend point out that if current HIV transmission rates continue, one in every four gay or bi Latino men will become positive in their lifetime.

“That shook me to my core,” admits Rodriguez, “but then I really thought about our community… everything from the perception of the machismo Latinx and the way we’re supposed to behave, to the fact that we still, within the Latinx community, have severe stigma against homosexuality, whether it’s religious based or otherwise.”

He strongly feels these backwards taboos prevent many Latino gay and bi men from coming out, from getting tested for HIV, and from seeking care or adhering to treatment once diagnosed.

So when Rodriguez heard about the Positively Fearless campaign, he says he knew he wanted to be a part of it.

But this wasn’t the first time Rodriguez’s life was affected by HIV: 36

ONCE FAMOUS FOR PLAYING POZ ON BROADWAY, ACTOR JAI RODRIGUEZ’S CAREER IS ON FIRE. AND ALL HE WANTS TO TALK ABOUT IS HIV & LATINX.

BY DESIRÉE GUERRERO

“When I was 16, my aunt came out at Thanksgiving dinner as having AIDS,” he recalls. “Now, I’m saying AIDS specifically because that’s what it was at that time.” His aunt’s virus had already developed to Stage 3 HIV (also known as AIDS). Rodriguez says his aunt had contracted HIV from her husband, who they had been told passed away from cancer seven years earlier.

“I come from a Puerto Rican-Italian family where you don’t talk about sex… so, it was just that, ‘Rico was sick.’”

This was back in the early 1990s and Rodriguez still gets emotional when remembering some of the discrimination his aunt faced. This is why he says fighting stigma is just as important as ever.

“To this day, if I do a fundraiser related to HIV/ AIDS issues, [many family members] won’t post it to their social media. They won’t because people still are so triggered by the words ‘HIV’ or ‘AIDS’ that they almost don’t want to be associated—even though it has so incredibly impacted our family. I feel fear is the thing that paralyzes us and is often times based on a lack of knowledge.”

Rodriguez is currently starring in the CBS crime drama, Wisdom of the Crowd, and onstage at Caesars’s Paris Las Vegas Hotel (alongside Kendra Wilkinson) in the comedy, Sex Tips for Straight Women from a Gay Man. Despite his stardom, what Rodriguez really wants is to break down walls between people, something with many meanings in our post-Trump world.

We are all simply people in various states of health, he says, in essence, making us “HIV equal.” Though he is not poz, Rodriguez says we must “not let statuses define who we are.” Part of this campaign’s aims is to educate and help empower black and Latino gay and bisexual men to be “positively fearless” in taking charge of their health. For those who are poz, that includes finding a doctor, getting on treatment, and sticking with it. For those who aren’t, it’s about creating an environment where people can talk openly about their status and their health, and encourage others to use prevention tools to stay healthy.

But Rodriguez says, we still have a long way to go in supporting our friends, neighbors, and family members living with HIV. “In RENT, there’s a whole support group scene… They sing, ‘Will I lose my dignity?

Will someone care?’—and to think that that refrain, written in 1995, is still valid and still going through the minds of those who are newly diagnosed is—it’s mind-boggling,” Rodriguez says. “Positively Fearless is about celebrating people who are really moving forward and taking the right steps to take care of themselves, and in turn, really take care of others, and help end the stigma around HIV and raise up awareness about what is happening within the community.”

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COURTESY POSITIVELY FEARLESS

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THESE BOOTS ARE MADE FOR TALKING YOUTUBE SENSATION AND BROADWAY STAR OF KINKY BOOTS TODRICK HALL LOOKED FOR INFO ON DATING A PERSON WITH HIV BUT FOUND IT LACKING. HIS NEW POSITIVELY FEARLESS CAMPAIGN CHANGES ALL THAT. NOW HE’S HELPING OTHERS ERADICATE HIV STIGMA IN THE BLACK COMMUNITY.

BY DAV I D A RTAV I A

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M A K I N G A D I F F E R E N C E requires more than viral YouTube videos and Broadway stage credits. It requires action, education, and above all, passion. Innovator and activist Todrick Hall has all these qualities in spades, and he’s using them to spark dialogues within the black community about HIV treatment and prevention. He’s teaming up with Janssen Therapeutics for their Positively Fearless campaign, which celebrates the bravery that inspires people living with HIV to seek treatment and fight stigma.

Since rising to prominence on the ninth season of American Idol, Hall has become a fan favorite with his ultraviral YouTube videos—including my favorite, Beauty And The Beat (It’s hysterical!)—as well as being a guest judge on RuPaul’s Drag Race and starring in Broadway’s Kinky Boots.

In fact, he’s gotten so popular among young people that his fans call themselves themselves “Toddlerz.” His new, acclaimed documentary Behind The Curtain: Todrick Hall (released by Wolfe Video) is now available to stream on digital platforms.

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STREAMING WELL

Hall knows the influence he’s starting to build, especially among young gay and bi men of color, which is why hearing the latest statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention inspired him to not only insert dialogue about HIV prevention into his work, but to do so in his every day life as well.

According to the CDC, if current HIV rates continue, one in two African-American men who have sex with men (and one in four Latino MSM) will be diagnosed with HIV in their lifetime. Additionally, only 54 percent of African-Americans living with HIV are on treatment, and fewer (49 percent) are virally suppressed.

“When I hear those statistics, they’re just mind-boggling to me,” Hall says. “And that’s a 2017 statistic? That sounds like something that should have been over and done with

years ago. And I just don’t want to rest and get off of this topic until those numbers have dramatically decreased.”

That may be easier said than done but Hall is not afraid to say that he, too, has been victim to shame and fear when it comes to testing. Yet with education, discussion, and trust, there is no reason for either to exist. Hall learned that the old fashioned way.

“There’s a thing that [still] makes me nervous to go to the doctor,” he shares. “But after I go there, I feel great about it, and I feel awesome just knowing what my status is and knowing that I can go out and be honest with the people who I’m meeting and forming relationships with.”

It’s no surprise that Hall is eager to share the resources PositivelyFearless.com offers visitors: a slew of information, catered

Todrick Hall wowed the crowds performing at Atlanta Black Pride

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specifically to gay and bisexual African-American and Latino men, including fact sheets, tips, and resources about PrEP and other frequently asked questions pertaining to HIV. For Hall, it’s a resource he wished he had growing up.

“I have dated a few people that were poz and I was so afraid,” he reflects.

“It was like a huge issue in my relationships and I had to go out and try to seek out all these pamphlets and stuff. But I felt like I was getting little scraps of information that I could kind of piece together and paper-mache some type of solution to my problem. But when I went to PositivelyFearless.com it [had] all of the information that I needed to know… I felt like all of the statistics spoke to me, and helped me have information that I wasn’t able to easily find whenever I was looking for myself.”

For many couples in serodiscordent relationships (when one person is poz and the other isn’t), there is often a fear of judgment when openly addressing the subject. Hall was no exception. In large part, the apprehension is due to recognition of the enduring cultural mindset that HIV is a death sentence.

When in fact, HIV is a manageable condition that’s impossible to transmit to a sexual partner while one is on treatment with an undetectable viral load.

Furthermore, those who practice PrEP (medication that when used regularly prevents HIV from entering the body)—or are interested in doing so—are also experiencing judgement and shaming. These are the kind of stigmas that Hall is hoping to erase.

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ALEX HARPER

Dancer, actor, and singer Todrick Hall opens up about dating people living with HIV

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STREAMING WELL (BOTH)

“I was a little bit nervous in the beginning to openly say that I had dated people who were positive, for my own sake and my own reputation, but also for other people who I’ve dated,” Hall says. “When I realized that so many people were like, ‘Thank you for saying that, because I’m positive and I felt like no one would want to date me,’ I felt like it [became] this huge thing that the more we talk about it and the more people are open to dating other people, I think it helps crush the stigma. It makes people feel like it’s okay to go out and know your status. And whatever it’s going to be, you’re going to be better off for knowing it. You’re going to be healthier. And you’re just going to be a much happier person in the end.”

Hall continues, “Love is difficult no matter what situations you’re faced with. I think that everybody has their own problems about falling in love. I definitely understand where they’re coming from with that fear. I think it is a valid feeling to cross your mind. But I think that the more people are educated… the more they play their part in helping people that they fall in love with understand. It would have been very nice for me, when I was dating someone [poz], for them to give me information that they had found themselves, and to open my eyes to it…. It might not always work out, but I think the person that’s worthwhile—and worth you being with—will stick with you through thick and thin.”

Access to care, especially in black communities, have been a large barrier in eradicating HIV rates. Despite the U.S. seeing a 14 percent drop in HIV diagnoses among African-Americans between 2010 and 2014 (fueled by a steep decline among AfricanAmerican women), according to HIV.gov, African-Americans are still the ethnic group most affected by HIV. That’s one reason it’s more important than ever to increase access to care in rural communities—especially in the South, where HIV rates are the highest in the country.

But access to treatment isn’t everything. It doesn’t fight stigma. It can’t make someone get tested, adhere to treatment, or use preventative tools like PrEP. “I think a great lifelong strategy is to be honest and be open and having people who have the ability to reach millions of people use their voice to educate people,” Hall says.

“That’s always going to be a smart strategy, which is why I’m really happy that I teamed up with Positively Fearless, because I have so many people in this community that follow me. They come to my show. And I want to just encourage them to take care of their health.

And to jump onboard. To go get tested. To go get medication. Stay on that medication!”

Above: Todrick Hall (left) and Deondre Moore, another advocate with the Positively Fearless campaign, tool around Atlanta Black Pride

Follow Hall on YouTube or Twitter: @Todrick.

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THIS DOC WANTS TO CHANGE HOW BLACK MEN VIEW PREP DR. LEO MOORE IS TRYING NEW PREVENTION EFFORTS—AND IT’S WORKING.

BY SAVAS ABADSIDIS

F

or Dr. Leo Moore, education is the best way to reduce HIV rates in the black community, and he’s the man to do it.

“I’m in a unique position to help this community, because I understand this community, because I grew up in this community, because I even became a black gay man in this community,” he told NBC Out in 2017.

Moore, 31, oversees a program for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health that educates medical providers about PrEP, a prevention strategy that when taken as prescribed makes it nearly impossible for an HIV-negative person to contract the virus.

Moore, the son of a nurse (who he credits for getting him interested in medicine), is at the forefront of an effort to reduce HIV transmissions in Los Angeles by educating residents and health care providers alike. Under Moore’s leadership, the program reached more than 700 clinics in its first six weeks. We asked Dr. Moore to elaborate.

Why do you think prior messaging about prevention, and particularly PrEP, has not reached black men who have sex with men?

Often, at conferences and other meetings, I’ve heard researchers say that black MSM [men who have sex with men] are “hard to reach,” which is an idea that I strongly disagree with. Black MSM are not hard to reach. We as organizations and agencies that serve them have to ensure that we bring them to the table to help us craft the best messages that will resonate, and the best venues to place these messages. When developing these messages, we must also recognize that being a black man who has sex with men is not a monolithic experience. Some black MSM may suffer from internalized

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homophobia due to multiple factors such as a religious upbringing or hearing homophobic comments expressed by family and friends, which can hinder them from receiving HIV prevention messages aimed at gay men, while others may have grown up in an affirming environment and be more open to receive these messages.

Also, many black MSM don’t identify as gay and therefore may not be in environments such as gay bars or clubs where HIV prevention messaging is traditionally placed. Many of the initial PrEP campaigns focused heavily on men who identify as gay, which limited the reach into the black community. Pretty soon thereafter, we began to see PrEP ads on dating and hookup apps which I think are great platforms for HIV and STD prevention messages as they focus more on sexual behavior and less on sexual orientation. Another reason that messaging may not have reached some black MSM is the lack of focus on the black family in which mothers, sisters, cousins, and other family members who learn about PrEP could then inform black men and each other about PrEP. Given that black women are also disproportionately affected

by HIV, this strategy of raising collective knowledge within the black community could benefit both black MSM and black women.

an emphasis on community engagement and are constantly identifying new ways to insert ourselves into mainstream conversations that appeal to black MSM with messages that blend HIV prevention messages and humor and wit.

Simply put, [identifying as] “same-gender loving” is more effective for some black “gay” men because it was created by a black man to specifically affirm the black man’s romantic attraction towards other men. It’s a term that provides an alternative to the Eurocentric terms of same-sex attraction, which don’t take into account Afrocentric experiences and through which many black men still experience prejudice and racism within the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, and asexual community. I think the most important thing to recognize is that prejudice and acts of racism within LGBTQQIA spaces can contribute to the failure of messages meant to appeal to the broader gay community among black gay men.

COURTESY GETPREPLA.COM (SUPER HEROES); COURTESY LEO MOORE (MOORE)

Being a black man who has sex with men is not a monolithic experience.

What is it about your messaging that works?

Our team works closely with focus groups and community advisory boards that include black MSM to ensure we are creating messages that will resonate with them. Prior to the launch of our Get PrEP LA campaign, we met with focus groups multiple times to determine the best approach. During these focus groups, participants mentioned that they were tired of seeing intimate photos of men or women in romantic poses. They also felt that images of two men might deter some non-gay identified MSM from interacting with our campaign. Lastly, they wanted to choose a campaign theme that emphasized a person’s “power” to protect themselves and the message that PrEP presented another “choice” of how to do so.

They thought superheroes could have widespread appeal because most people grew up with a favorite superhero, or were at least exposed to them.

After creating the campaign, we began promoting it through multiple physical and digital outlets, from bus tails and billboards to social media platforms and hookup apps. We also have a “PrEP Squad” that regularly attends events in areas where communities of color are known to reside. Throughout our campaign, we’ve placed

What excites you about your work?

I’m excited by a few things. First, I’m excited we currently have the tools to end the HIV epidemic. With PrEP and Treatment as Prevention [TasP], we can end it. We just have to ensure that communities, specifically black and Latino MSM, heterosexual women, injection drug users, and transgender persons have access to PrEP, HIV treatment, and support services to get them in care and keep them in care.

Second, I’m excited by the opportunity my work provides to create new access points for PrEP and HIV treatment for communities of color and vulnerable populations where they can access care at low to no cost. We can’t talk about ending the HIV epidemic without ensuring low-barrier access to essential services and treatment in order to narrow the gap in HIV incidence between these groups and Caucasians. Lastly, that my work allows me to see patients in our county health center and hear their stories firsthand. Regardless of my career trajectory, I always want to remain connected to patients who are accessing services. They keep me informed about the gaps that need to be filled in order to help them reach and maintain optimal health.

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WHAT IS GENVOYA®?

GENVOYA is a 1-pill, once-a-day prescription medicine used to treat HIV-1 in people 12 years and older who weigh at least 77 pounds. It can either be used in people who are starting HIV-1 treatment and have never taken HIV-1 medicines before, or people who are replacing their current HIV-1 medicines and whose healthcare provider determines they meet certain requirements. These include having an undetectable viral load (less than 50 copies/mL) for 6 months or more on their current HIV-1 treatment.

GENVOYA combines 4 medicines into 1 pill taken once a day with food. GENVOYA is a complete HIV-1 treatment and should not be used with other HIV-1 medicines.

GENVOYA does not cure HIV-1 infection or AIDS. To control HIV-1 infection and decrease HIV-related illnesses, you must keep taking GENVOYA. Ask your healthcare provider if you have questions about how to reduce the risk of passing HIV-1 to others. Always practice safer sex and use condoms to lower the chance of sexual contact with body fluids. Never reuse or share needles or other items that have body fluids on them.

IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION What is the most important information I should know about GENVOYA? GENVOYA may cause serious side effects: • Worsening of hepatitis B (HBV) infection. GENVOYA is not approved to treat HBV. If you have both HIV-1 and HBV and stop taking GENVOYA, your HBV may suddenly get worse. Do not stop taking GENVOYA without first talking to your healthcare provider, as they will need to monitor your health.

Who should not take GENVOYA? Do not take GENVOYA if you take: • Certain prescription medicines for other conditions.

It is important to ask your healthcare provider or pharmacist about medicines that should not be taken with GENVOYA. Do not start a new medicine without telling your healthcare provider.

• The herbal supplement St. John’s wort.

• Any other medicines to treat HIV-1 infection.

What are the other possible side effects of GENVOYA? Serious side effects of GENVOYA may also include: • Changes in your immune system. Your immune system may get stronger and begin to fight infections.

Tell your healthcare provider if you have any new symptoms after you start taking GENVOYA.

• Kidney problems, including kidney failure. Your healthcare provider should do blood and urine tests to check your kidneys. If you develop new or worse kidney problems, they may tell you to stop taking GENVOYA. • Too much lactic acid in your blood (lactic acidosis), which is a serious but rare medical emergency that can lead to death. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get these symptoms: weakness or being more tired than usual, unusual muscle pain, being short of breath or fast breathing, stomach pain with nausea and vomiting, cold or blue hands and feet, feel dizzy or lightheaded, or a fast or abnormal heartbeat.

• Severe liver problems, which in rare cases can lead to death. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get these symptoms: skin or the white part of your eyes turns yellow, dark “tea-colored” urine, light-colored stools, loss of appetite for several days or longer, nausea, or stomach-area pain.

The most common side effect of GENVOYA is nausea.

Tell your healthcare provider if you have any side effects that bother you or don’t go away.

What should I tell my healthcare provider before taking GENVOYA? • All your health problems. Be sure to tell your healthcare provider if you have or have had any kidney or liver problems, including hepatitis virus infection.

• All the medicines you take, including prescription and over-the-counter medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements. Other medicines may affect how GENVOYA works. Keep a list of all your medicines and show it to your healthcare provider and pharmacist.

Ask your healthcare provider if it is safe to take GENVOYA with all of your other medicines.

• If you take antacids. Take antacids at least 2 hours before or after you take GENVOYA. • If you are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. It is not known if GENVOYA can harm your unborn baby.

Tell your healthcare provider if you become pregnant while taking GENVOYA. • If you are breastfeeding (nursing) or plan to breastfeed. Do not breastfeed. HIV-1 can be passed to the baby in breast milk.

You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit www.fda.gov/medwatch, or call 1-800-FDA-1088.

Please see Important Facts about GENVOYA, including important warnings, on the following page.

Ask your healthcare provider if GENVOYA is right for you.

GENVOYA.com

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GENVOYA does not cure HIV-1 or AIDS.

SHOW YOUR

POWER Take care of what matters most—you. GENVOYA is a 1-pill, once-a-day complete HIV-1 treatment for people who are either new to treatment or people whose healthcare provider determines they can replace their current HIV-1 medicines with GENVOYA.

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IMPORTANT FACTS WHAT IS GENVOYA®? (jen-VOY-uh) MOST IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT GENVOYA GENVOYA may cause serious side effects, including: •

Worsening of hepatitis B (HBV) infection. GENVOYA is not approved to treat HBV. If you have both HIV-1 and HBV, your HBV may suddenly get worse if you stop taking GENVOYA. Do not stop taking GENVOYA without first talking to your healthcare provider, as they will need to check your health regularly for several months.

This is only a brief summary of important information about GENVOYA® and does not replace talking to your healthcare provider about your • condition and your treatment.

•POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS OF GENVOYA GENVOYA can cause serious side effects, including: •

• •

• • Too much lactic acid in your blood (lactic acidosis), which

is a serious but rare medical emergency that can lead to death. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get these symptoms: weakness or being more tired than usual, unusual muscle pain, being short of breath or fast breathing, stomach pain with nausea and vomiting, cold or blue hands and feet, feel dizzy or lightheaded, or a fast or abnormal heartbeat.

GENVOYA does not cure HIV-1 infection or AIDS. ABOUT GENVOYA GENVOYA is a prescription medicine used to treat HIV-1 in people 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 77 pounds and have never taken HIV-1 medicines before. GENVOYA can also be used to replace current HIV-1 medicines for some people who have an undetectable viral load (less than 50 copies/mL of virus in their blood), and have been on the same HIV-1 medicines for at least 6 months and have never failed IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION HIV-1 treatment, and whose healthcare provider determines that they meet certain other requirements.

What is the most important information I should

•

•know GENVOYA does not cure HIV-1 or AIDS. Ask your healthcare about GENVOYA?

provider about how to prevent passing HIV-1 to others.

Do • NOT take GENVOYA if you: • Take a medicine that contains: alfuzosin (Uroxatral®), carbamazepine (Carbatrol®, Carnexiv®, Epitol®, Equetro®, Tegretol®, Tegretol-XR®, Teril®), cisapride (Propulsid®, Propulsid Quicksolv®), dihydroergotamine (D.H.E. 45®, Migranal®), ergotamine (Cafergot®, Migergot®, Ergostat®, Medihaler Ergotamine®, Wigraine®, Wigrettes®), lovastatin ® ® (Altoprev , Mevacor ), lurasidone (Latuda®), methylergonovine Who should not take GENVOYA? (Methergine®), midazolam (when taken by mouth), phenobarbital (Luminal®), phenytoin (Dilantin®, Dilantin-125®, •Phenytek®), pimozide (Orap®), rifampin (Rifadin®, Rifamate®, Rifater®, Rimactane®), sildenafil when used for lung problems (Revatio®), simvastatin (Vytorin®, Zocor®), or triazolam (Halcion®).

•

Take the herbal supplement St. John’s wort.

• •Take any other HIV-1 medicines at the same time.

•

What are the other possible side effects GET MORE INFORMATION of GENVOYA? •

This is only a brief summary of important information about

•GENVOYA. Talk to your healthcare provider or pharmacist • •

to learn more.

Go to GENVOYA.com or call 1-800-GILEAD-5 If you need help paying for your medicine, visit GENVOYA.com for program information.

Those in the “Most Important Information About GENVOYA” section.

Changes in your immune system.

New or worse kidney problems, including kidney failure.

Severe liver problems, which in rare cases can lead to death.

Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get these symptoms: skin or the white part of your eyes turns yellow, What I tell urine, my healthcare before darkshould “tea-colored” light-coloredprovider stools, loss of appetite taking GENVOYA? for several days or longer, nausea, or stomach-area pain.

•The most common side effect of GENVOYA is nausea.

These are not all the possible side effects of GENVOYA. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you have any new •symptoms while taking GENVOYA. Your healthcare provider will need to do tests to monitor your health before and during treatment with GENVOYA. •

BEFORE TAKING GENVOYA

•Tell your healthcare provider if you: •

Have or have had any kidney or liver problems, including

• hepatitis infection.

Have any other medical condition.

Are pregnant or plan to become pregnant.

• • Are breastfeeding (nursing) or plan to breastfeed. Do not breastfeed if you have HIV-1 because of the risk of passing HIV-1 to your baby.

• •

Tell your healthcare provider about all the medicines you take: • Keep a list that includes all prescription and over-thecounter medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements, and show it to your healthcare provider and pharmacist.

• Ask your healthcare provider or pharmacist about medicines that should not be taken with GENVOYA.

HOW TO TAKE GENVOYA

• GENVOYA is a complete one pill, once a day HIV-1 medicine.

Ask your healthcare provider if GENVOYA is right for you.

• Take GENVOYA with food.

GENVOYA.com

GENVOYA, the GENVOYA Logo, LOVE WHAT’S INSIDE, SHOW YOUR POWER, GILEAD, and the GILEAD Logo are trademarks of Gilead Sciences, Inc., or its related companies. All other marks referenced herein are the property of their respective owners. Version date: September 2017 © 2017 Gilead Sciences, Inc. All rights reserved. GENC0176 11/17

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D A I LY D O S E

BY TYLER CURRY

WHEN IT’S TIME TO LET GO

SHUTTERSTOCK

THE CRISIS THAT CAME WITH YOUR DIAGNOSIS WILL EVENTUALLY FADE AWAY.

WHEN YOU ARE first diagnosed with HIV, it can feel like the life you once had is no longer yours. Everything can feel like it’s changed due to this permanent “thing” you now have to lug around. HIV isn’t one singular occurrence, but a series of personal, traumatic experiences strung together to make up the epidemic we know of today. And no matter how much information you know, or how many poz people you have in your life, nearly every new diagnosed person has their own personal crisis.

When I was first diagnosed, I was in a relationship with someone who was HIV-positive. I knew what undetectable meant and, in my head, knew what it was to be healthy with HIV. However, knowing someone with HIV—or even dating them for that matter—could never have prepared me getting that diagnosis myself.

After a full month of living in a state of complete and utter disbelief, it wasn’t so much the disease that scared me as it was the thought of telling my friends and family about my new status. I didn’t want to play witness to the fear, sadness, and concern that flashed across their faces as they scrambled for the right words. There was nothing my boyfriend could have said or done to help me avoid what was ahead. I was in my own personal HIV crisis, and I had to embrace this reality if I was going to ever move beyond it.

For the next five years, I tackled every topic related to HIV I could think of and wrote about it for the public to see. Sometimes I got it wrong. But every essay and conversation was part of my journey through my own internal conflict. Each article, video, and social media post

brought me one step closer towards shedding my own stigma and getting back to being me. Although my process might not be someone else’s, we all have a choice to either work through our crises or stay paralyzed by them.

Perhaps the hardest part about living with HIV is believing that people see you differently because of your status, as if HIV suddenly supersedes any accomplishment or characteristic. I have been a public figure living with HIV for five years now, and up to this day I witness people react as if I’ve got one foot in the ground when I tell them I’m poz.

But along my journey of acceptance with HIV, there came a point where the internal battle just… stopped.

It seemed as if my status was no longer my bitch of a boyfriend, but had become more a distant cousin. HIV no longer had any influence over my life. I had worked through every situation and scenario and figured out the type of person with HIV that I am.

The what-ifs were over, the looming questions answered, and I found myself in a place I didn’t think was possible. I found myself moving on from my own personal HIV crisis.

Believe me, there are no shortcuts or fast passes when it comes to overcoming an HIV diagnosis. You have to let yourself feel every emotion, and express those emotions to those around you. You have to examine yourself in the mirror and face down those insidious voices saying you are somehow less than you were before. It is an arduous rite of passage, but it’s one that so many before us would—and did—die to have.

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B AC K TA L K B Y C O L E H AY E S

BATHROOM BREAKS

JOSH ROBBINS IS no stranger

to stigma. Since he was diagnosed as HIV-positive in 2012, Robbins has become a staunch activist online, through his award-winning blog, I’m Still Josh; his video series HIV Video Minute with Josh Robbins; and his Ask HIV mobile app. Since first sharing his personal journey online, Robbins— who began HIV Video Minute for Plus—has unintentionally created his own brand around what it means to be living a healthy life with HIV. In 2015, HIV Video Minute evolved into #HIVScoop, a multi-platform social media series of buzzworthy HIV-related videos, tweets, and posts. Robbins still uses the series to share fun and clever HIV news.

“I think people like it,” Robbins says. “I like it. So, I guess that’s all that matters, right?”

Even now, Robbins’s success seems to have been almost preordained. “I simply started sharing some of my personal journey online and I think it resonates still with some people, and that’s why I advocate for others,” he says. “I try and steer clear of any HIV politics. I’ve been to D.C. twice and both times I missed my flight. I

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think that is saying something!”

But that doesn’t mean he hasn’t faced stigma due to his HIV-positive status. Robbins says he responds to haters by trying to “understand where negative energy comes from—a place of ignorance, of fear, or of insecurity.

Then I like to spend time building on whatever common ground I share with the person [who] is stigmatizing others. I choose my battles.”

Another antidote to stigma: Robbins is now attempting to build the biggest “digital encouragement wall” on Pinterest—with quotes from influencers of all types, photos, memes, and inspirational posters— aimed at newly diagnosed people.

Robbins is also partnering with Napo Pharmaceuticals, makers of the antidiarrheal drug Myetsi, on its #MyHIVThankYou campaign, which hopes to provide those living with HIV “a place to say thanks” or to show appreciation to someone, like a doctor or friend, who’s been instrumental in their journey.

Now a spokesperson for Napo, Robbins admits he has personally battled gastrointestinal issues on HIV meds and has no qualms

talking about the gut-wrenching side effect many poz people are too embarrassed to discuss.

“I think everyone, really, has this anxiety and embarrassment when it comes to gastro and stomach issues,” he shares. “I got over my hesitation a long time ago and found a solution that works for me. People should talk about it more, in my opinion.

Who cares?”

Mytesi is the only Food and Drug Administration-approved medicine that specifically targets HIV-related diarrhea. Robbins has made it part of his own treatment.

He says his collaboration with Napo began when the company, “shared the news about Mytesi with me and I was obviously intrigued,” he remembers. “I checked out the information about diarrhea and decided to chat with my doctor and see if I could get a prescription.

My doctor wrote one immediately.

Napo’s team members really care and know their information. I think their compassion, work ethic, and responsiveness is why I am really proud to be advising for #MyHIVThankYou.”

COURTESY OF JOSH ROBBINS

ACTIVIST, VLOGGER, AND SOCIAL MEDIA STAR JOSH ROBBINS IS BRUTALLY HONEST WHEN IT COMES TO LIVING WITH HIV.

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The world is my stage, and this is just Act 1.

Let’s Grow Old Together See what life with HIV looks like from diagnosis through grandkids with a little help from Walgreens. Explore Kecia’s HIV journey at Walgreens.com/LetsGrowOldTogether. ©2017 Walgreen Co. All rights reserved.

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BECAUSE YOU’RE MORE THAN YOUR STATUS

TRANSPARENT’S BREAKOUT STARS TACKLE HIV ONSCREEN (AND OFF) ONE-PILL TREATMENT AND NEW RESISTANCE FIGHTERS

WHY WE TODRICK HALL THE RAPPER & BROADWAY STAR GETS REAL ABOUT BLACK MEN AND HIV

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018 www.hivplusmag.com

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