Plus 145 September October 2021

LIL NAS X BATTLES STIGMA BECAUSE YOU’RE MORE THAN YOUR STATUS

GOOD MORNING AMERICA’S

TONY MORRISON IS OUR PERSON OF THE YEAR

THE EMMY WINNER TOPS OUR LIST OF AMAZING PEOPLE LIVING WITH HIV

NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2021 hivplusmag.com

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IMPORTANT FACTS FOR BIKTARVY®

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

(bik-TAR-vee)

MOST IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT BIKTARVY

POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS OF BIKTARVY

BIKTARVY may cause serious side effects, including:

BIKTARVY may cause serious side effects, including:  Those in the “Most Important Information About BIKTARVY” section.  Changes in your immune system. Your immune system may get stronger and begin to fight infections that may have been hidden in your body. Tell your healthcare provider if you have any new symptoms after you start taking BIKTARVY.  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 BIKTARVY.  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 effects of BIKTARVY in clinical studies were diarrhea (6%), nausea (6%), and headache (5%).

 Worsening of hepatitis B (HBV) infection. Your

healthcare provider will test you for HBV. If you have both HIV-1 and HBV, your HBV may suddenly get worse if you stop taking BIKTARVY. Do not stop taking BIKTARVY without first talking to your healthcare provider, as they will need to check your health regularly for several months, and may give you HBV medicine.

ABOUT BIKTARVY BIKTARVY is a complete, 1-pill, once-a-day prescription medicine used to treat HIV-1 in adults and children who weigh at least 55 pounds. It can either be used in people who 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.

BIKTARVY does not cure HIV-1 or AIDS. HIV-1 is the virus that causes AIDS. Do NOT take BIKTARVY if you also take a medicine that contains:  dofetilide  rifampin  any other medicines to treat HIV-1

BEFORE TAKING BIKTARVY Tell your healthcare provider if you:  Have or have had any kidney or liver problems,

including hepatitis infection.  Have any other health problems.  Are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. It is not known if BIKTARVY can harm your unborn baby.

Tell your healthcare provider if you become pregnant while taking BIKTARVY.  Are breastfeeding (nursing) or plan to breastfeed.

Do not breastfeed. HIV-1 can be passed to the baby in breast milk.

Tell your healthcare provider about all the medicines you take:  Keep a list that includes all prescription and over-the-

counter medicines, antacids, laxatives, vitamins, and herbal supplements, and show it to your healthcare provider and pharmacist.

 BIKTARVY and other medicines may affect each other.

Ask your healthcare provider and pharmacist about medicines that interact with BIKTARVY, and ask if it is safe to take BIKTARVY with all your other medicines.

These are not all the possible side effects of BIKTARVY. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you have any new symptoms while taking BIKTARVY. 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.

Your healthcare provider will need to do tests to monitor your health before and during treatment with BIKTARVY.

HOW TO TAKE BIKTARVY Take BIKTARVY 1 time each day with or without food.

GET MORE INFORMATION  This is only a brief summary of important information

about BIKTARVY. Talk to your healthcare provider or pharmacist to learn more.

 Go to BIKTARVY.com or call 1-800-GILEAD-5  If you need help paying for your medicine,

visit BIKTARVY.com for program information.

BIKTARVY, the BIKTARVY Logo, GILEAD, the GILEAD Logo, KEEP BEING YOU, and LOVE WHAT’S INSIDE are trademarks of Gilead Sciences, Inc., or its related companies. Version date: February 2021 © 2021 Gilead Sciences, Inc. All rights reserved. BVYC0467 06/21

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REAL

BIKTARVY

PAT I E N T S

KEEP BEING YOU. Because HIV doesn’t change who you are.

BIKTARVY® is a complete, 1-pill, once-a-day prescription medicine used to treat HIV-1 in certain adults. BIKTARVY does not cure HIV-1 or AIDS.

Ask your healthcare provider if BIKTARVY is right for you.

Watch their stories at BIKTARVY.com Featured patients compensated by Gilead.

Please see Important Facts about BIKTARVY, including important warnings, on the previous page and visit BIKTARVY.com.

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contents

issue

145

ON THE COVER 18 BRIGHT LIGHT IN THE BIG CITY Our Person of the Year, Good Morning America's Tony Morrison, recently opened up about living with HIV and the debilitating effects of its stigma. Now he's inspiring others and looking toward a bright future ahead.

16 AMAZING PEOPLE OF THE YEAR From playwrights and Pose stars, to aunties and acrobats, to politicians and nonprofit founders — meet the inspiring activists living with HIV who are Plus magazine's 25 Amazing People of the Year.

ON THE COVER & ABOVE Tony Morrison photographed

by Heidi Gutman for ABC News

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CONTENTS DAILY DOSE 6

WORLD AIDS DAY 2021 What does WAD mean in a postpandemic world?

BUZZWORTHY 8

NAS X TAKES THE LEAD Lil Nas X uses the VMAs to talk about HIV in the South.

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GOODNIGHT, KING Late actor Michael K. Williams was dedicated to telling the stories of his community.

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LEGEND OF A DIVA A new film pays homage to trans HIV activist Connie Norman.

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THE PREP EFFECT Today's prevention methods are slashing transmission numbers.

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TREATMENT 14

BLOCK, LOCK, & DONE Science discovers a promising new avenue toward a cure.

WELLNESS

46 DOWNER DAY? Advice on how to survive the tougher days of life.

47 LEARNING CURVE Educating health care workers on caring for LGBTQ+ folks.

PARTING SHOT

CLICKS BY COU RTN E Y ( 1 6); CH UCK STALL ARD ( 13); J EFF KR AVITZ /G E T T Y IMAG ES FOR MT V-VIACOMCBS (8)

48 SHADOWS OF THE PAST One writer reexamines a decades-old case of stigma.

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chief executive officer & executive editorial director DIANE ANDERSON-MINSHALL editorial director NEAL BROVERMAN

evp, group publisher & corporate sales JOE VALENTINO

editor in chief DESIRÉE GUERRERO

vp, brand partnerships & associate publisher STUART BROCKINGTON

EDITORIAL managing editor DONALD PADGETT editors at large TYLER CURRY, ALEX COOPER senior copy editor TRUDY RING contributing editors KHAFRE ABIF, MARK S. KING mental health editor GARY MCCLAIN staff writers MEY RUDE, RACHEL SHATTO contributing writers JOHN CASEY, ANDRE JACKSON, MATTHEW HAYS, ASHLEY INNES, JIM PICKETT ART executive creative director RAINE BASCOS art director BEN WARD editor at large digital art CHRISTOPHER HARRITY PRINT PRODUCTION production director JOHN LEWIS production editor JACOB ANDERSON-MINSHALL PRIDE MEDIA EDITORIAL editorial director, print NEAL BROVERMAN editorial director, digital MIKELLE STREET editor in chief, the advocate TRACY E. GILCHRIST editor at large, the advocate JOHN CASEY editor in chief, out DANIEL REYNOLDS digital director, out.com RAFFY ERMAC editor in chief, out traveler JACOB ANDERSON-MINSHALL digital director, pride TAYLOR HENDERSON director of podcasts & special projects JEFFREY MASTERS ADVERTISING & BRAND PARTNERSHIPS senior director, ad operations STEWART NACHT manager, ad operations TIFFANY KESDEN managing director, brand partnerships JAMIE TREDWELL creative director, brand partnerships MICHAEL LOMBARDO senior manager, brand partnerships TIM SNOW junior manager, advertising & brand partnerships REEMA THARANI DIGITAL vp, technology & development ERIC BUI social media manager CHRISTINE LINNELL social media editor JAVY RODRIGUEZ CIRCULATION director of circulation ARGUS GALINDO FINANCE/ACCOUNTING vp, finance BETSY SKIDMORE accounts receivable controller LORELIE YU accounting manager PAULETTE KADIMYAN OPERATIONS director of human resources DRU FORBES chief of staff DUSTINA HAASE-LANIER ADVERTISING & SUBSCRIPTIONS Phone (212) 242-8100 • Advertising Fax (212) 242-8338 Subscriptions Fax (212) 242-8338 EDITORIAL Phone (310) 806-4288 • Fax (310) 806-4268 • Email editor@HIVPlusMag.com

FREE BULK SUBSCRIPTIONS FOR YOUR OFFICE OR GROUP Any organization, community-based group, pharmacy, physicians’ office, support group, or other agency can request bulk copies for free distribution at your office, meeting, or facility. To subscribe, visit HIVPlusMag.com/signup There is a 10-copy minimum.

FREE DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTIONS Plus magazine is available free to individual subscribers — a digital copy of each issue can be delivered to the privacy of your computer or reader six times per year. We require only your email address to initiate delivery. You may also share your digital copies with friends.

To subscribe, visit HIVPlusMag.com/signup NEED SUBSCRIPTION HELP? If you have any questions or problems with your bulk or individual magazine delivery, please email our circulation department at Argus.Galindo@pridemedia.com Plus (ISSN 1522-3086) is published bimonthly by Pride Publishing Inc. Plus is a registered trademark of Pride Publishing Inc. Entire contents ©2021 by Pride Publishing Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A. FOLLOW US ON FACEBOOK AND TWITTER

Facebook.com/ HIVPlusMag

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EDITOR’S LETTER

COU RTESY

BY DESIRÉE GUERRERO

“I’M SORRY, THE RESULTS ARE POSITIVE.” As the just-turned-16-year-old me sat in a dingy, fluorescent-lit room in a local clinic, these words seemed to shoot down my spine and into my stomach simultaneously. But for me, it was not an HIV diagnosis.

In that moment, I learned I had become pregnant from a one-night encounter at a high school party a couple months prior (one that I’d hoped to forget).

Upon learning of my “condition,” I was immediately removed from my high school and sent to a continuation school for pregnant teens and “juvenile delinquents” (the boy who impregnated me, however, was not).

Within the blink of an eye, my life was changed forever.

I was ostracized from society. My high school friends stopped coming around. I was no longer invited to parties. I was an unfortunate social casualty, quickly forgotten — now just “damaged goods.” Or so the world had me believe at the time.

As I take on my new role as editor in chief of Plus, I tell this story not to suggest I understand what it’s like to receive an HIV diagnosis or what it’s like to live with this condition — but rather to illustrate the common enemy many of us share: stigma.

It is stigma that shames us for doing nothing wrong; for being normal, healthy, sexual beings who are sometimes merely victims of scientific realities. It is stigma that begins to erode at our sense of self, making us somehow feel dirty or bad or unworthy of love. But the good news is, stigma is a lie. It’s an illusion created by an often racist, sexist, homophobic, and transphobic

society intended to make you feel othered. And when you start to understand this, you can finally be free.

Though it’s certainly easier said than done, I eventually began to dismantle the effects of the stigma that so damaged my young sense of self. And, much like our cover star and Person of the Year, Good Morning America’s Tony Morrison (page 18), I slowly learned to find my self-worth, my power, my voice, and most importantly, regain my self-love.

In my four years as a journalist and editor with Plus, I’ve been struck time and time again by the emotional similarities of my story compared to those living with HIV — which reminds me that we are all more alike than different. But even more so, it reminds me that stigma must be stamped out. Check out our Q&A with writer Steven Reigns (page 48) as he takes a deep dive into a particular case of HIV stigma that occurred some 30 years ago.

Some of the most amazing people I have ever met in my life happen to be living with HIV — and I will no longer accept a world that would ever make them feel anything but amazing. Period.

This is why I’m especially proud that my first issue as editor in chief celebrates the 25 Most Amazing People of the Year (starting on page 16). Every year this list honors the activists, artists, politicians, health care workers, and others living with HIV who are not only dedicated to eradicating stigma but the virus itself.

We also celebrate World AIDS Day in this issue, observed annually on December 1. This year, contributing writer Ashley Innes re-examines WAD through a post-pandemic lens (page 6).

As 2021 draws to a close, we reflect on another tumultuous year of political upheavals and pandemic woes — but we’ve also had some progressive moments too. Drag Race All Stars’ Trinity K. Bonét spoke about U=U on national television (page 28) and Broadway legend and Pose star Billy Porter came out about living with HIV (page 38). Queer musical superstar Lil Nas X used his platform to talk about HIV in the South (page 8). And today, we are closer than ever to an HIV vaccine and cure (page 14).

Sure, we may not know what the future holds, but together we can continue to make it a little bit brighter for each other.

Peace & Blessings, DESIRÉE GUERRERO EDITOR IN CHIEF

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d a i ly d o s e

by ashle y innes

SOMBER CELEBRATION THIS YEAR’S WORLD AIDS DAY CORRESPONDS WITH A BACKSLIDING OF PROGRESS, MOSTLY THANKS TO COVID-19. THERE IS STILL REASON FOR OPTIMISM, THOUGH. E V E RY Y E A R O N December 1 we pause to commemorate World AIDS Day. It is an opportunity to intersect multiple spaces in time. We reflect on the past by remembering those we’ve lost, and those who fought to get us to this point. We exist in the present by acknowledging how far we have come. We celebrate those living with HIV and those advocating for our communities every day.

We look forward and hope for a better future, knowing we have all the tools needed to end the epidemic. And we continue to make progress towards a cure.

Yet in a future with so many possibilities, we still must accept the current reality. Even with all the scientific advancements that have been made, HIV remains.

According to data from UNAIDS, in 2020 it’s estimated that 37.7 million people were living with HIV across the globe, with an estimated 1.5 million new cases and approximately 680,000 people dying from AIDS-related illnesses.

For the second straight year, progress toward ending the HIV epidemic was stalled by the COVID-19 pandemic. UNAIDS reports that people living with HIV experience more severe outcomes from COVID than people not living with HIV. In mid-2021, most people living with HIV, specifically outside of the U.S., did not have access to COVID vaccines.

Studies from England and South Africa found that the risk of dying from COVID among people with HIV was double that of the general population. UNAIDS also reports COVID lockdowns and other restrictions 6

have disrupted HIV testing and, in many countries, led to steep drops in diagnoses and referrals to HIV treatment. This includes the U.S., as many organizations have seen a drop in testing, PrEP usage, and adherence to HIV medication.

T his information lets us know that despite the progress that’s been made, there is still much work to do. It will take more than medicine to end the epidemic.

The impact of disparities, stigma, and other social determinants of health remain, particularly for communities of color, queer people, and women.

So, on World A IDS Day while we commemorate, acknowledge, and celebrate, we must also commit. We must pledge to do the hard work to end the HIV epidemic.

The last few years have been particularly challenging for everyone. But the good news is we made it. We are still here, and we have the power to affect change and make a difference. We have the power to ensure the memory of those we have lost. We have the power to advocate for those still here. And we have the power to eliminate the societal ills that allow HIV to exist. HIV work is social justice work, and I ask that you stay motivated and committed to continuing the fight. Committed to fighting misinformation with education, fighting stigma with science, and fighting hate with love, until the end.

On World AIDS Day and every day, stay committed to the fight. Not sure how you can help? Go to UNAIDS.org/en/takeaction to find out how.

ASHLEY INNES is a writer and HIV advocate. Follow her on Twitter @Ash_Innes.

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J EFF KR AVITZ FOR MT V-VIACOMCBS/G E T T Y IMAG ES

Lil Nas X performs onstage during the 2021 MTV Video Music Awards at Barclays Center on September 12, 2021

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MONTERO’S MESSAGE LIL NAS X CONTINUES TO CHAMPION CHANGE BY INCLUDING AN IMPORTANT MESSAGE ABOUT HIV IN HIS 2021 MTV VMA PERFORMANCE.

BY MIKELLE STREET recently turned up the star power for the 2021 MTV Video Music Awards in New York City. He showed up on the red carpet in a custom Atelier Versace piece that was part suit, part gown. Then, he took to the stage for a sexy, energetic performance of his hits “Industry Baby” and “Montero (Call Me By Your Name).” He finished the night taking home the event’s biggest award: Video of the Year. The win was historic as Nas X is the first out Black gay artist to collect the accolade. Maybe most spectacular though was his performance, which drew attention to more than just his music and nearly nude body.

LIL NAS X

Joining Nas X on stage was Mardrequs Harris from the Southern AIDS Coalition, who wore a shirt that featured the number 433,816 in red, representing the number of people living with HIV in the U.S. South as of 2015.

“Lil Nas X delivered a powerful performance at the VMAs and shined a spotlight on the stigma that fuels HIV, especially across the South,” GLAAD posted on Twitter following the performance.

HIV rates and stigma continue to plague the region (Nas X himself is from Georgia). Stigma has been proven to keep people from getting tested and seeking care, which leads to more spreading of the virus.

“This experience was surreal!” Harris said in a statement following the VMAs. “Having the opportunity to share the stage with Lil Nas X was something I never would have imagined. And to have him use his platform to raise awareness about HIV stigma is invaluable to the work.”

That HIV stigma was highlighted on a national stage only weeks after rapper DaBaby went on an ignorant, anti-HIV rant felt revelatory. DaBaby has since posted a now-deleted apology and met with advocates about his past statements.

But Nas X did more than just remind viewers of HIV’s toll. The star also has been hosting a “baby registry” crafted to go alongside his album pregnancy stunt, where he appeared with a baby bump in publicity photos. The registry is actually a listing of charities that fans can donate to. Thirteen of the charities listed are a part of the Gilead Compass Initiative (GileadCompass.com), aimed to reduce HIV-related health disparities, build awareness, advance education, and reduce stigma.

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SALUTE TO A SOLDIER

LATE ACTOR MICHAEL K. WILLIAMS NEVER SHIED AWAY FROM TELLING THE STORIES OF MARGINALIZED PEOPLE, INCLUDING THOSE LIVING WITH HIV.

BY ANDRE JACKSON

10

T H E R E WA S A N O U T P O U R I N G of grief after legendary actor Michael K. Williams was found dead of a drug overdose in his Brooklyn apartment in September.

“It is with deep sorrow that the family announces the passing of Emmy-nominated actor Michael Kenneth Williams,” publicist Marianna Shafran told The Hollywood Reporter.

“They ask for your privacy while grieving this unsurmountable loss.”

Williams had acted in esteemed p roje c t s in clu ding Boardwalk Empire, The Spoils Before Dying, and Lovecraft Country, receiving one of his five Emmy nominations for the latter. He was arguably best known, however, for the role of Omar Little on The Wire. Little was a neighborhood Robin Hood, stealing from drug dealers and sharing the proceeds with his Baltimore community.

Then, in the 2017 miniseries When We Rise, Williams played Ken Jones, a veteran living with HIV who struggled with questions of identity and addiction.

“I look at his life and as someone who is like a real American hero,” Williams told Plus for a past cover story. “And it’s real honest for me to tell you that. This is a man who has been on the front lines for our

country in the military. He’s a darkskinned Black man that was in the Navy at a time when it was probably not that easy to get in the Navy. He hid his homosexuality while doing all of that, and then to have all that taken from him. Then to say to himself, ‘OK, I’m gonna turn over a new leaf and move to San Francisco and start a new life for myself.’ Only to be hit by the tidal wave and the front lines of HIV/AIDS and having to fight that frontline battle with the whole meds and everything, having to get proper health care.”

“First of all, you have to identify what the damn thing was,” Williams continued. “You know, that’s four wars. That’s four battles that he’s fought face-to-face: civil rights, gay rights, HIV, the good old American military. It’s like — and to see him now — to have all that history behind his eyes, and to be in that presence it’s really humbling.”

Williams had an incredible ability to craft complicated characters who didn’t fit in neat boxes.

The Brooklyn native and alumnus of the National Black Theatre was not known to identify as gay, though he played several gay characters, including Little, Jones, and Leonard Pine on the series Hap and Leonard.

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Welcome to once-monthly HIV treatment.

Once a month, and you’re

good to go.

CABENUVA is the only complete, long-acting prescription injectable used to replace daily HIV pills in certain adults.

CABENUVA is given as two injections monthly by a healthcare provider, after taking about a month of once-daily starter pills. It’s important to attend all appointments.

It's a long-acting injectable that works continuously to keep you undetectable for an entire month.*

"HIV pills aren't on my mind anymore."

Orlando Stays undetectable with CABENUVA

Important Facts About CABENUVA This is only a brief summary of important information about CABENUVA and does not replace talking to your healthcare provider about your condition and treatment. (kab' en ue vah)

*Undetectable means the amount of HIV in the blood is below the level that can be measured by a lab test. Results may vary.

ABOUT CABENUVA

Orlando has been compensated by ViiV Healthcare.

CABENUVA is a complete prescription regimen used to treat HIV-1 infection in adults as a replacement for their current HIV-1 treatment when their healthcare provider determines that they meet certain requirements.

HIV-1 is the virus that causes Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

CABENUVA contains 2 different medicines: • cabotegravir • rilpivirine It is not known if CABENUVA is safe and effective in children.

DO NOT RECEIVE CABENUVA IF YOU • have ever had an allergic reaction to cabotegravir or rilpivirine.

• are taking certain medicines: ° carbamazepine ° rifampin ° oxcarbazepine ° rifapentine ° phenobarbital ° dexamethasone (more than a single-dose treatment), and/or ° phenytoin ° rifabutin ° St John’s wort (Hypericum perforatum)

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Ask your doctor about CABENUVA

BEFORE RECEIVING CABENUVA Tell your healthcare provider about all your medical conditions, including if you: • have ever had a skin rash or an allergic reaction to medicines that contain cabotegravir or rilpivirine.

• have or have had liver problems, including hepatitis B or C infection.

• have ever had mental health problems.

• are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. It is not known if CABENUVA will harm your unborn baby. CABENUVA can remain in your body for up to 12 months or longer after the last injection.

Please see additional Important Facts About CABENUVA on the following page.

9/22/21 5:18 PM

CABENUVA.com

Important Facts About CABENUVA (cont'd) BEFORE RECEIVING CABENUVA (cont'd) Tell your healthcare provider about all your medical conditions, including if you: (cont'd) • are breastfeeding or plan to breastfeed. Do not breastfeed if you take CABENUVA. ° You should not breastfeed if you have HIV-1 because of the risk of passing HIV-1 to your baby. It is not known if CABENUVA can pass to your baby in your breast milk. ° Talk with your healthcare provider about the best way to feed your baby during treatment with CABENUVA. Tell your healthcare provider about all the medicines you take, including prescription and over-the-counter medicines, vitamins, and herbal supplements. Some medicines interact with CABENUVA. Keep a list of your medicines and show it to your healthcare provider and pharmacist when you get a new medicine.

You can ask your healthcare provider or pharmacist for a list of medicines that interact with CABENUVA. Do not start taking a new medicine without telling your healthcare provider. Your healthcare provider can tell you if it is safe to take CABENUVA with other medicines.

POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS OF CABENUVA CABENUVA may cause serious side effects, including: • Allergic reactions. Call your healthcare provider right away if you develop a rash with CABENUVA. Stop receiving CABENUVA and get medical help right away if you develop a rash with any of the following signs or symptoms: ° fever ° blisters or sores in mouth ° generally ill feeling ° blisters ° tiredness ° redness or swelling of the eyes ° muscle or joint aches ° swelling of the mouth, face, lips, or tongue ° trouble breathing • Post-injection reactions have happened within minutes in some people after receiving their rilpivirine injection. Most symptoms resolved within a few minutes after the injection.

Symptoms may include: ° trouble breathing ° feeling warm ° stomach cramps ° feeling light-headed or feeling like you are going to pass ° sweating out (faint) ° numbness of your mouth ° feeling anxious ° blood pressure changes

POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS OF CABENUVA (cont’d) CABENUVA may cause serious side effects, including: (cont’d) • Liver problems. People with a history of hepatitis B or C virus or people who have certain liver function test changes may have an increased risk of developing new or worsening changes in certain liver tests during CABENUVA treatment. Liver problems have also happened in people without history of liver problems or other risk factors. Your healthcare provider may do blood tests to check your liver function. Call your healthcare provider right away if you develop any of the following signs or symptoms of liver problems: ° your skin or the white part ° nausea or vomiting of your eyes turns yellow ° loss of appetite (jaundice) ° pain or tenderness on the right side of your stomach area ° dark or “tea-colored” urine light-colored stools (bowel ° ° itching movements) • Depression or mood changes. Call your healthcare provider or get emergency medical help right away if you have any of the following symptoms: ° feeling sad or hopeless ° have thoughts of hurting feeling anxious or restless yourself (suicide) or have tried ° to hurt yourself The most common side effects of CABENUVA include: • pain, tenderness, hardened • headache mass or lump, swelling, • muscle or bone pain redness, itching, bruising, and • nausea warmth at the injection site • sleep problems • fever • dizziness • tiredness • rash These are not all the possible side effects of CABENUVA. Call your doctor for medical advice about side effects. You may report side effects to FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088.

GET MORE INFORMATION • Talk to your healthcare provider or pharmacist.

• Go to CABENUVA.com or call 1-877-844-8872, where you can also get FDA-approved labeling.

January 2021 CBN:1PIL Trademark is owned by or licensed to the ViiV Healthcare group of companies.

©2021 ViiV Healthcare or licensor.

CBTADVT190002 June 2021 Produced in USA.

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DIVAS DON’T DIE

CH UCK STALL ARD

A new documentary honors one of the AIDS epidemic’s fiercest unsung heroes.

The title may be immediately arresting for many, since the term “AIDS” now feels connected to a darker time when many a young, vibrant life was cut short, but AIDS Diva: The Legend of Connie Norman is meant to jar us back to those painful and pivotal years.

In fact, “AIDS diva,” “ex-drag queen,” “ex-IV drug user,” and “ex-high-risk youth” were all among Norman’s self-descriptive terms. Now, 25 years after Norman’s death from AIDS-related complications, this new documentary is finally giving the fearless activist her due.

AIDS Diva follows Norman, a transgender woman living with HIV, as she faces her own mortality and grows into a pioneering activist with ACT UP/LA during the late ’80s and early ’90s. At the time, when even the queer community often ostracized trans people, Norman’s cries for justice often rose higher than the rest.

Since its premiere in August at Outfest, the Los Angeles LGBTQ+ film festival, AIDS Diva has garnered much praise and secured its place as one of the most important documentaries of the year.

The film features rare archival footage of Norman as well as of fellow soldiers in the fight, including Harry Hay, Sheila Kuehl, and Larry Kramer.

(AIDSDivaConnie.com)

The drop in HIV transmissions from 2012 to 2017 at a sexual health clinic in London following a combination of prevention methods (including PrEP), early diagnoses from frequent testing, and timely treatment for those testing positive.

The data demonstrated the staggering efficacy of PrEP when combined with lessons of U=U, or undetectable equals untransmittable.

Source: HIV Medicine

—DESIRÉE GUERRERO

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effort aims to cure HIV using a novel “block-lock-excise” approach and is backed by a $26.5 million grant from the National Institutes of Health. The multidisciplinary group of researchers, known as the HIV Obstruction by Programmed Epigenetics Collaboratory, is being led by scientists at Gladstone Institutes, Scripps Research, and Weill Cornell Medicine.

The biggest hurdle to curing HIV has been the virus’s ability to hide a reservoir of latent copies within immune cells. Up to now most viable cure efforts have aimed at reactivating

genetic material during evolution,” said Cedric Feschotte, one of the investigators and professor of molecular biology and genetics at Cornell’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Feschotte studies these so-called endogenous retroviruses, which make up about 8 percent of modern humans’ DNA. Identifying which proteins are used by our immune cells to lock up endogenous retroviruses opens the way to developing “new repressive molecules that can target HIV and lock it permanently,” Feschotte said. “The concept is exciting, and it

the structure of the virus, making it harder for other proteins to access the HIV genes and potentially turn them on. This could prevent the v irus from awakening and reactivating. That would keep HIV from returning even after someone goes off antiretroviral treatment.

“The idea is not only to lock HIV so it cannot replicate without using drugs, but essentially to throw away the key, keeping it locked away forever, unable to do any more harm,” Valente said.

The “excise” part of the new approach uses recent advances in genome editing. By employing

LOCKING UP HIV— AND TOSSING THE KEY

A NEW “BLOCK AND LOCK” CURATIVE APPROACH COULD SOLVE THE PROBLEM OF VIRAL RESERVOIRS AND PERMANENTLY SILENCE HIV. that virus reservoir in order to kill it with antiretroviral therapy — an approach called “shock and kill” or “kick and kill.” Unfortunately, those approaches haven’t been able to wake every single copy of the latent virus (at least not without also bringing about severe side effects).

The HOPE Collaboratory is taking “a fundamentally different approach to targeting HIV than what everyone else has been trying,” Dr. Melanie Ott, director of the Gladstone Institute of Virology and program director for the collaboratory, explained in a press statement.

T he new a lter native t a c tic , “block-lock-excise,” targets latent HIV without reactivating it. The inspiration for this tactic arose from the fact that researchers have found ancient viruses that are integrated into the human genome but are no longer active or viable.

“T he central concept behind [this] strategy is inspired by the way our cells naturally cope with the remnants of ancient retroviruses that have integrated into our

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makes sense. We want to accelerate what evolution has already achieved with thousands of relatives of HIV previously defeated and buried in every human[’s] cells.”

The researchers have also found that these ancient inactive viruses are missing several elements that HIV contains. They’ve identified two elements in particular, one a sequence of DNA and the other a protein called Tat, which are necessary for latent HIV to reactivate and begin replicating again.

“We have shown that blocking Tat with certain drug-like small molecules can lock HIV in its dormant stage, and this block stays in place for some time, even if antiretroviral therapy is interrupted,” said Susana Valente, also a principal investigator and associate professor of immunology and microbiology at Scripps Research. “With the ‘block and lock’ approach, we basically want to push HIV into becoming like a harmless, ancient virus.”

T he pharmaceutical solution would block the Tat protein and alter

CR ISPR /C a s 9 genome - ed it in g technology, researchers could delete the remnant HIV hiding in the DNA of immune cells. That would eliminate all traces of HIV and any chance of the virus rebounding.

The collaborators are drawn from 12 institutions around the globe, three pharmaceutical companies, clinical groups in Africa and Brazil providing data and samples from people living with HIV, and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, which will bring insights and perspectives from people living with HIV. “It’s absolutely key that this i s a mu lt i -i n s t it ut ion a l a nd multidisciplinary approach,” said Gladstone’s Danielle Lyons, program manager for the HOPE Collaboratory.

“Bringing together this diverse group of people with expertise across various disciplines is what will really drive the discovery of a cure for HIV.” The HOPE Collaboratory is one of 10 groups awarded a five-year grant under the Martin Delaney Collaboratories program, the flagship program on HIV cure research at the NIH.

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Our 25 Amazing People of the Year WHO ARE ALSO LIVING WITH HIV

Meet the activists, actors, performers, parents, and others who persevered, challenged the status quo, and inspired the world during a year of political turmoil and multiple pandemics.

SH UT TERSTOCK

BY PLUS E DI T OR S

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OUR 25 AMAZING PEOPLE OF THE YEAR...WHO ARE ALSO LIVING WITH HIV

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Finding

HIS

Light After years of living in shame and silence, Good Morning America’s Tony Morrison recently opened up to the world about the suffering he’s experienced from HIV stigma. Now, he’s an inspiration to others.

BY DE SI R É E GU E R R E R O

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OUR 25 AMAZING PEOPLE OF THE YEAR...WHO ARE ALSO LIVING WITH HIV

wish I could say that I chose this time to speak out, except, I feel that it’s this time we are in that chose me,” Good Morning America producer and journalist Tony Morrison recently wrote. “During the pandemic, with nowhere else to look but the mirror, I found the courage to face myself and the fortitude to live honestly and openly.”

In a deeply personal and moving essay published on GMA’s website in August, Morrison recounts an eight-year journey beginning with a positive HIV diagnosis at 24. He then describes the years of darkness that followed and explains how our current global COVID crisis was, ironically, what led him to finally free himself from HIV stigma once and for all.

Upon meeting Morrison, or even seeing his pics on Instagram, it’s hard to believe the now two-time Emmy-winning 32-yearold has lived through such difficult times, considering his charismatic smile and a personality that seems to radiate positivity.

But sadly, trauma came early to Morrison, as he explains he lost not one but two father figures early in life.

“I was actually born in the Philippines — I’m half Filipino, half Indian…and my birth father passed away when I was very young, like one or two years old,” he recalls. “My mother remarried an American and we eventually moved to the U.S., to Florida…. I became naturalized in seventh grade.”

Morrison says that after a long bout with illness, his stepfather eventually passed away too. “So that’s like [my] foundation of trauma,” he says, “especially for my birth father, I didn’t really get to know him.”

Morrison says he got his first job at Disney World, “of course,” and went to college in Tampa. After not quite finding his footing in

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business school, Morrison says he “got into photography, moved to New York for fashion photography…and then realized Fashion Week was only two weeks out of the year, and I really needed an actual job.”

From there, he “fell into TV” and news production and worked at CNN for a while, and has now been with ABC News and the GMA team for six years. However, in the midst of all that career growth in the Big Apple (no small feat!), Morrison was grappling with a painful secret — he was living with HIV and silently suffering the debilitating effects of stigma.

“I have been living with HIV for eight years,” reads the opening words of Morrison’s essay. “It has taken me eight years and a global pandemic to be able to articulate those words confidently and put [them] to paper.”

“Not a day has gone by that I didn’t feel shame, fear, guilt and often, anguish,” he continued. “And I have lived every single one of those days carrying a weight of humiliation, because that’s what society told me I should feel; that’s what our society told me I deserved. And I know that’s what society has probably whispered to you too, about people like me.”

Morrison also explained in the essay that after his diagnosis he became very depressed and “convinced myself I could never be worthy of love…. For eight years, I dealt with my diagnosis in hiding and I grieved in silence.”

A turning point he says happened when a caring health care professional explained the concept of U=U (undetectable equals untransmittable) to him: “I finally landed in the care of a doctor who I will never forget.

She was kind and patient and was the first to assure me that my life had only just begun….

Most of all, she told me that I wasn’t alone.”

Fast forward to 2021. Morrison says that in a much quieter, post-pandemic world, he could no longer avoid the demons he’d been running from. He decided it was time to face them head on.

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Scenes of Morrison’s life and work behind the cameras at Good Morning America

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Morrison has already won two Emmys and a GLAAD Media Award

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OUR 25 AMAZING PEOPLE OF THE YEAR...WHO ARE ALSO LIVING WITH HIV

Despite the freedom and support he now feels in opening up about his HIV status, Morrison advises others to not feel pressure to come out — whether it be as LGBTQ+ or as living with HIV — and only to do so if and when it feels right and safe for them.

“I would say, let life take you on that journey,” he says. “Let the time choose you versus you choosing that time. That’s what happened for me….

I put this off for so long. And I don’t think I would have had the tools mentally, physically, emotionally to do all this until now, in a weird kind of screwed up way, I guess.”

These days Morrison says he’s looking forward to continuing to build a future in the world of TV and film, and is enjoying his newfound role as an advocate for others living with HIV. “I was out at dinner the other night and someone came up to me and asked if I was Tony from Instagram,” Morrison recalls. “They have been wanting to come out to their mom and said reading my story helped them. And was I was like, That’s cool. So in moments like that, I know that sharing my story in such a way was more than the right thing to do. And [it] just opens so many other doors for other people, when we’re able to have these kinds of conversations and normalize these kinds of conversations about our own personal stories, whatever they might be.”

H EIDI GUTMAN/ABC N E WS

“It was a few layers of things,” he says now of the decision to come out as living with HIV. “But the main thing was, you know, this time during COVID, a time of self-ref lection, of solitude, of just being alone, I discovered I really liked that alone time… It gave me the opportunity to really finally connect with myself in a way that I really did not take the time to, up until now. And really, it was an offer to deal with this part of my life.”

“And that compiled with the environment of loss,” he continues.

“Just the overall COVID loss and loss in general, loss in my life, burying two dads, you know, thinking about all those things. I arrived at the thought that it was really unfair for me to live a life of shame and regret and apprehension when so many [who died during the early days of the epidemic] didn’t get the chance to. And that really weighed on me….

So it was like, Get your ass into gear.

You’ve built a really great life and you’ve done nothing wrong.”

Morrison says that not only did he realize, “I should share my story, but as a journalist and a producer, I really thought it would be a disservice to not do it in the way that I did, given the mediums that I command and report on…. I’ve set up LGBT communities internally…and help with their inclusive storytelling here [at ABC] — but I sort of at times felt like a fraud because I was telling these stories but not my own.”

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IMPORTANT FACTS FOR BIKTARVY®

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

(bik-TAR-vee)

MOST IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT BIKTARVY

POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS OF BIKTARVY

BIKTARVY may cause serious side effects, including:

BIKTARVY may cause serious side effects, including:  Those in the “Most Important Information About BIKTARVY” section.  Changes in your immune system. Your immune system may get stronger and begin to fight infections that may have been hidden in your body. Tell your healthcare provider if you have any new symptoms after you start taking BIKTARVY.  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 BIKTARVY.  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 effects of BIKTARVY in clinical studies were diarrhea (6%), nausea (6%), and headache (5%).

 Worsening of hepatitis B (HBV) infection. Your

healthcare provider will test you for HBV. If you have both HIV-1 and HBV, your HBV may suddenly get worse if you stop taking BIKTARVY. Do not stop taking BIKTARVY without first talking to your healthcare provider, as they will need to check your health regularly for several months, and may give you HBV medicine.

ABOUT BIKTARVY BIKTARVY is a complete, 1-pill, once-a-day prescription medicine used to treat HIV-1 in adults and children who weigh at least 55 pounds. It can either be used in people who 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.

BIKTARVY does not cure HIV-1 or AIDS. HIV-1 is the virus that causes AIDS. Do NOT take BIKTARVY if you also take a medicine that contains:  dofetilide  rifampin  any other medicines to treat HIV-1

BEFORE TAKING BIKTARVY Tell your healthcare provider if you:  Have or have had any kidney or liver problems,

including hepatitis infection.  Have any other health problems.  Are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. It is not known if BIKTARVY can harm your unborn baby.

Tell your healthcare provider if you become pregnant while taking BIKTARVY.  Are breastfeeding (nursing) or plan to breastfeed.

Do not breastfeed. HIV-1 can be passed to the baby in breast milk.

Tell your healthcare provider about all the medicines you take:  Keep a list that includes all prescription and over-the-

counter medicines, antacids, laxatives, vitamins, and herbal supplements, and show it to your healthcare provider and pharmacist.

 BIKTARVY and other medicines may affect each other.

Ask your healthcare provider and pharmacist about medicines that interact with BIKTARVY, and ask if it is safe to take BIKTARVY with all your other medicines.

These are not all the possible side effects of BIKTARVY. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you have any new symptoms while taking BIKTARVY. 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.

Your healthcare provider will need to do tests to monitor your health before and during treatment with BIKTARVY.

HOW TO TAKE BIKTARVY Take BIKTARVY 1 time each day with or without food.

GET MORE INFORMATION  This is only a brief summary of important information

about BIKTARVY. Talk to your healthcare provider or pharmacist to learn more.

 Go to BIKTARVY.com or call 1-800-GILEAD-5  If you need help paying for your medicine,

visit BIKTARVY.com for program information.

BIKTARVY, the BIKTARVY Logo, GILEAD, the GILEAD Logo, KEEP LOVING, and LOVE WHAT’S INSIDE are trademarks of Gilead Sciences, Inc., or its related companies. Version date: February 2021 © 2021 Gilead Sciences, Inc. All rights reserved. BVYC0370 04/21

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NIKKI

KEEP LOVING.

LIVING WITH HIV SINCE 2008 REAL BIKTARVY PATIENT

Because HIV doesn’t change who you are.

BIKTARVY® is a complete, 1-pill, once-a-day prescription medicine used to treat HIV-1 in certain adults. BIKTARVY does not cure HIV-1 or AIDS.

Ask your healthcare provider if BIKTARVY is right for you.

See Nikki’s story at BIKTARVY.com.

Featured patient compensated by Gilead.

Please see Important Facts about BIKTARVY, including important warnings, on the previous page and visit BIKTARVY.com.

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Trinity K. Bonét

During her initial run on season 6 of RuPaul’s Drag Race, Trinity K. Bonét (a.k.a. Joshua Jamal Jones, who, like most queens, uses female pronouns for his drag persona) impressed viewers with her top-notch lip sync skills. With her performances and polish, she built herself into the lore of the series as one of the top lip sync assassins. But she also let fans into her personal life as she revealed she is living with HIV. She did this in an episode of the aftershow Untucked and became the second queen in series history to do so (Drag Race season 2 contestant Ongina revealed she was living with HIV on the main stage in 2009).

Fast forward to this year’s All Stars 6, when Bonét chose once again to 28

speak out about living with HIV, this time bringing a strong message about U=U (undetectable equals untransmittable).

In a particular challenge, the queens placed themselves into groups and produced segments of “Pink Table Talk,” a chat show modeled off of Jada Pinkett-Smith’s popular Facebook series, Red Table Talk.

Bonét was matched with A’keria C. Davenport and Eureka O’Hara, and were given the topic of sex to discuss.

While Davenport took the segment to talk about having a feminine body due to previously living as a trans woman, Bonét spoke about attitudes around HIV. “The thing about me when it comes to sex, is in my particular community, it’s very taboo when it comes to being open and honest about their status,” she said. “Being a person who is openly HIV-positive, for a long time I was a lot of secrets for a lot of people. But I’m nobody’s secret. I’m successful, I got my shit together, I’m good in bed. I’m taking care of myself — I’m undetectable which is untransmittable.

“There’s a lot of people out here who are not educated that you can be with someone who is HIV-positive if they are undetectable and not catch the virus,” she continued.

“Thank you for that and I definitely tip my wig to you,” Davenport responded in the roundtable-style discussion. “A lot of people are afraid to acknowledge that they are HIVpositive because of the stigma that we live in in this world.”

Throughout her career, Bonét has functioned as a high-profile activist around various HIV-related efforts as well as the BLM movement. In addition to bringing awareness to HIV facts on international TV, she has participated in Slay Stigma (a drag tour across Canada to raise awareness about HIV), worked with the organization LetsGetChecked, and headlined events like Rock The Know on Worlds AIDS Day.

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IN NIS C ASE Y PHOTOG R APHY

DANIEL GARZA

Daniel G. Garza, a 50-year-old gay activist from Laguna Beach, Calif., calls himself, “a Mexicanborn, Texas-raised, California-living Latino.” He was diagnosed with HIV in 2000 and became an advocate, activist, and community leader almost immediately. “The lack of information that I had when it came to HIV [and] AIDS and the myths that my family had made it necessary for me to educate myself to help them,” he explains. “Then I realized that there was a lack of representation in the Latino community, a message was missing, and someone to speak up. I always had a volunteering nature… and HIV gave me a purpose.”

Garza says that “the top resource my community needs to thrive is communication without fear, stigma, and shame,” so it’s fitting that he’s a spokesperson for the group Positively Fearless. He also serves as a board member for Radiant Health Centers and previously served on the Laguna Beach HIV Advisory Committee.

The podcaster (whose show Put It Together passed the 300-episode milestone this year) says one of his biggest recent accomplishments was landing an interview with folks at the Prevention through Active Community Engagement (PACE) Region 9 Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health. That important conversation revolved around “how the community and local government offices can work together to make prevention, testing, and PrEP part of the conversation in the Latino community while taking into consideration cultural, religious, and social differences, thus reducing stigma, shame, and fear.”

That’s critical, Garza says, because “Latinos are still being diagnosed throughout North, Central, and South America because we are afraid to speak up against years of religious and cultural traditions.”

Although Garza admits he “made HIV a career” through his advocacy, public speaking, and consulting, he adds, “there is so much more to me.”

“Life and the world will give us labels, but they only have value when we accept them,” Garza says. “For many years I was told I was disabled until someone said I wasn’t and then my wings opened, and I flew as high as I could, and I’m still flying!”

Garza is also a life/spiritual coach. Known as “The Card Divo,” the intuitive has developed his own line of tarot cards called “The Alignment.” And he’s written the children’s book Grumpy Bunny and the Colors Game, a “guided meditation for parents to read to children to help them channel their energy.”

With his partner, Christian P. Ramirez, Garza launched Lilmesican Productions Inc – A Social Enterprise, which now has three live stream shows airing on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube. And through all of it, Garza has continued to act and do stand-up.

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OUR 25 AMAZING PEOPLE OF THE YEAR...WHO ARE ALSO LIVING WITH HIV

Alicia Diggs

Alicia Diggs has been living with HIV for 20 of her 49 years, and she’s made good use of every year. Not only is she an author, a PhD, and a fierce advocate for people living with HIV, she’s also a member of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, the manager for the Office of Community Engagement of the North Carolina-Chapel Hill Center for AIDS Research, and a member of many other HIV support organizations.

“Through my trials and tribulations, I made a decision to fight and stand strong as a woman living with HIV so that I can help my fellow brothers and sisters fight and stand strong,” she says about her decision to be a leader in her community. “It has been important to me to help build coalitions and solidarity within and amongst our diverse communities so that we can dispel the myths, rid the stigma, and educate others about HIV.” Being included on this list reminds her that there are “so many amazing, inspiring, and fabulous leaders out there doing this work,” and that the work she does really does make a difference.

Before she became a leader herself, Diggs says she had other leaders and community members who supported, protected, and pushed her, and she wants to live up to that legacy, passing the torch to others like herself.

“As people living with HIV, it is important that we know that decisions about us cannot be made without us. Our voices and input are the key to ending the HIV epidemic,” she says.

“If you feel like the door is not open to you, create your own door. If you feel there is not room at the table for you, create your own table. Do not take no for an answer and make sure that your voice is heard because you are the change we want and need to see in the world.”

For many people living with HIV, Sadiq Ali’s story sounds familiar: Disclosing your status to a trusted coworker only to find the news quickly going viral and soon everyone is acting different around you. Ali experienced this in 2014 when he was training as a circus performer in Europe. As he described in a moving essay this year in the British newspaper Metro, Ali endured a whisper campaign that preceded his peers avoiding him.

“The [rumors were] really damaging because I was still struggling at the time to accept my diagnosis and it felt like a devastating blow for others to reject me so publicly,” Ali wrote. “Around the same time, I was still learning about HIV and I quickly discovered through talking to my doctors that the daily medication I was taking would soon mean I couldn’t pass on HIV to sexual partners — never mind performing ones.”

Instead of ending his acrobatic dreams, Ali mustered the courage to call a meeting with his instructors and fellow students. He spoke candidly about his HIV status and answered as many questions as he could, allaying many of their irrational fears. Eventually, his classmates turned around and embraced him fully, even helping him clean up his blood after he cut himself during a performance.

Ali, raised in a Muslim household in Scotland, has since adopted the mantle of HIV activist. He not only shared his experience in Metro, but has been one of the stars of a public service campaign attempting to tackle HIV stigma. “[The campaign is] not about saying a HIV diagnosis is easy, but showing you can still fulfill your dreams,” Ali writes. “We’re pilots and radio presenters, mums and dads, nurses and circus performers.”

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LUGUZ Y ATKINS (DIGGS); COU RTESY (ALI)

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B R AN DON NICK

DONJA R. LOVE

Against all odds, Donja R. Love had an incredible 2021. Amid the wreckage of COVID, the New Jersey-based queer playwright — best known for his acclaimed 2019 work on HIV in the Black samegender loving community, one in two— directed a dramatic series he wrote that “holds space for queer and trans people navigating through trauma.” Love, in June, then became the first winner of the newly revived Terrence McNally Award from the Philadelphia Theatre Company; the award will help ensure his newest work, What Will Happen to All That Beauty?, moves swiftly to production. Also this year, Love launched the first-ever prize for aspiring playwrights living with HIV. The contest, spearheaded via his arts initiative, Write It Out!, has the backing of Billy Porter and GLAAD, the LGBTQ+ media watchdog group.

Love’s recent accomplishments h ave tr i g ge re d s o m e w i s t f u l memories for the young writer. “ B e i n g n a m e d a s o n e of P l u s magazine’s 25 Amazing People of the Year is mind-blowing,” Love says. “It’s also healing. This is unfathomable to that [younger] Donja, who was just diagnosed 13 years ago. This moment is shining a light on that Donja. Though he’s alone, scared, and about to enter one of the darkest moments of his life, being on this list is helping this Donja illuminate a path for that Donja to reach healing and purpose.”

It’s taken years of internal work for Love to get past the painful days of his diagnosis and channel it into personal and professional triumph.

Everyone living with HIV has to walk that path, Love says, and he stresses that no one should feel diminished if they are still struggling with selfesteem and self-blame.

“Many of us are navigating our status in shame and silence, making it difficult to even be considered for a list like this,” Love says. “To these people who have not told anyone about their status, I see you. Your journey with your status is your journey. No one can tell you how to live in your truth but you. You are just as worthy and amazing as everyone on this list. I celebrate you in this moment. I love you!”

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Nilsa Hernandez

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MARC WAGNER

Marc Wagner is a longtime HIV survivor from Pittsburgh who has remained devoted for decades to aiding the research and scientific communities.

This year, Wagner ser ved as the community lead for the introduction module for the CUREiculum 2.0, which will be hosted on the TAG (TreatmentActionGroup.org) website later this year. These are clinical trials focused on finding an HIV cure.

“I seroconverted between 1984 and early 1985. So, it is 36 years now,” says Wagner of how long he’s been living with HIV. “There is a great deal of satisfaction that comes when you can help others.

That is my driving force in all the work I do…. HIV may have changed the focus of my life, but the value added far outweighs all the challenges I have had to face because of it.”

Wagner has written several published scientific articles on HIV over the years, volunteered for many clinical studies and organizations, and has been a longtime active member of the International AIDS Society. This year also he became the co-chair for the National CAB for the MWCCS — the longest running study of both HIV-positive and HIV-negative men and women in the United States.

“I am honored to have been chosen,” says the out advocate on being one of Plus magazine’s Most Amazing’s People of the Year. “I would also continue to do the research and advocacy either way. I am full of gratitude to receive this recognition.”

K ATH ERIN E FREITES (H ERNAN DEZ ); COU RTESY ( WAG N ER)

When Nilsa Hernandez left her native Venezuela for neighboring Brazil, it was a matter of life or death for the now 64-year-old activist. A crisis in her home country meant she no longer had access to the life-saving medical care necessary to keep her viral load undetectable.

“I began to feel the consequences on my health.

That’s why I immigrated to Brazil. It was the way out because I wanted to live,” recounts Hernandez.

So, she picked up her life, leaving practically all she had ever k now n behind.

Her n a nde z move d f r om Ciudad Bolívar in Venezuela to Rio Branco, the capital of the Brazilian state of Roraima, where she could access treatment through the country’s public health system.

However, once she reached Brazil, Hernandez faced new challenges, like being unhoused, in addition to discrimination and violence. It was through the kindness of others that she was eventually able to find a small house to rent, and that marked a turning point for the former grocer, who decided she needed to help those in similar circumstances.

“That’s why I dedicate myself to supporting my compatriots, who arrive in the country in a similar situation to the one I had when I arrived here,” she says.

To that end, Hernandez created Valientes por la Vida (“Brave for Life”), a volunteer initiative that seeks to help other Venezuelans living with HIV who, like her, moved to Brazil for treatment, but have little to no resources or information about how to receive it once there. Hernandez is rightfully proud of the work she and Valientes are doing.

“My greatest achievements this year were helping save many lives and sharing hope and knowledge with compatriots who have come to Brazil from Venezuela in search of a way to take care of themselves, to stay alive, to live a healthy life,” she says. “I’m pleased and proud to be able to volunteer so that the human side, which we all have, can be used to help renew hope for those who need it most.”

Despite her difficult, life-saving work, Hernandez is reluctant to call herself a leader. “I don’t really consider myself a leader,” she demurs.

“Because the leaders are everyone else, including people like me, who are living with HIV. They all exercise different types of leadership; they’re brave in their fight for a better life. I consider myself a guide, helping people find information, welcoming, and supporting them in their needs.”

While there’s no question Hernandez is doing great work for her community, Valientes por la Vida is grappling with difficulties raising the funds needed to continue and expand that work. “We do what we do with a lot of love and heart, but there comes a point where it’s not enough,” she explains. “I have the will, but that’s not always enough. I don’t like to ask for these things; I’m more of a doer, but if I’m asking for this now, it’s because we need everyone’s support.”

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CARL FOX “I learned early on that if I was to survive, I had to be proactive,” the amazing Carl Fox says.

He first learned this lesson in 1985, when the then27-year-old gay man was told by his doctor he was now living with HIV — but not for long, according to the medical world at the time. The doctor gave him two years to live. It was a familiar sentence delivered to many gay and bi men of the period, but one Fox found himself unable to accept.

“I was told to go home and basically die,” Fox, now 63, recalls, but when he felt no different six months later, he returned to the doctor with a new message of resolve that stays with him to this day.

“I have decided not to die from this, and you can’t make me!” he recalls telling the doctor.

Fox lost his partner and far too many friends during that period and the years to follow, but he also taught himself to speak out and fight back.

“We had to fight for ourselves, and go and demand services, help, medications, everything. We had to be leaders,” Fox says, later adding that since those dark times he strives “never to be silent when fighting” for the health care rights and needs of others.

Fox’s perseverance was tested yet again six years ago when a sudden spine issue left him partially paralyzed. Dogged rehabilitation has since returned 50 percent of its former strength to his lower body, and he recently put himself to an important, albeit small, test of his abilities.

“I managed to jump about 2 inches, and can do a short, bad sprint!” he proudly reveals.

It’s the intersectionality of his never-say-die attitude along with an undying loyalty to the community that led Fox to participate in a landmark study through the University of Cincinnati’s Infectious Disease Clinic.

Researchers are studying gene modification with the hope of lowering the entry of HIV into the white blood cells called lymphocytes, and laying the groundwork for a potential cure down the road.“Within the last 12 months I have received two infusions, and am now waiting to see if it works,” Fox says. “It is a two-year study, and double blind, but in the end, they may cure this disease! Nothing tops that!”

TERRY L. BON D J R . (FOX ); COU RTESY ( TH E MARSHALLS)

Kalvin and Eunice Marshall When husband and wife Kalvin and Eunice Marshall, ages 65 and 64 years old, were both diagnosed with HIV back in 2007, they didn’t see any straight couples like themselves being public about their experiences. So they decided they’d become that couple. And now, well over a decade later, they have created a legacy of education, community, and visibility that will last for generations.

“After our diagnosis in 2007, our vow, if we lived, was to become a shining light to other couples that would be diagnosed after us, so they could see there is life after a diagnosis of HIV as a couple,” the Marshalls say.

“Because we did not see heterosexual couples leading the charge to acknowledge that there are straight couples living and striving after a HIV diagnosis, we decided we would become visible in the HIV community so others could see that it is possible to continue in a marriage or a relationship after a diagnosis of HIV. We can’t say it has been an easy journey, but we would not have survived without the support of each other.”

Together, they’ve become facilitators for HIV support groups in Houston, helping create the Houston Heterosexual HIV Awareness Task Force, and Eunice helped start Women With A Purpose, an HIV support group for women. The couple also goes to high schools and universities in the area to spread awareness to younger Texans.

Now, as they prepare to celebrate 37 years of marriage together, they’re also ready to keep on spreading awareness. “The heterosexual experience has been overlooked in the history of HIV,” they say. “Our stories have not been heard or told. Who better to tell our stories than those that are heterosexual? Men and women have continued to be mislabeled and ignored in the HIV community. We offer more to the history of HIV than what has been portrayed.”

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OUR 25 AMAZING PEOPLE OF THE YEAR...WHO ARE ALSO LIVING WITH HIV

AAN S. RIANTO

Aan S. Rianto is a 51-year-old gay man and activist in Indonesia who has been living with HIV since 2015. He is the founder of Jaringan Equals Indonesia (Equals_id on Facebook) — the only community partner working with the Prevention Access Campaign to continuously promote the concept of U=U (undetectable equals untransmittable) in Indonesia. Rianto is utilizing the power of social media to help spread this messaging safely in his homeland.

He says one of his proudest accomplishments of 2021 is “being able to talk about stigma and discrimination and other issues faced by PLWHIV in Indonesia globally through many virtual forums.”

Rianto also says he is excited to “continue educating and advocating for the U=U movement in Indonesia, pushing [COVID-19] vaccines for PLWHIV, and transitioning to newer [treatment] regimens by empowering my peer community with the latest updated information, so everyone knows their rights to live equally, just as other people without HIV.” “I think it is very important to be able to voice what the community needs,” adds Rianto, “and what it is like being in a marginalized community, what it is like to be stigmatized and discriminated [against], especially when it comes human rights and being treated with humanity, and not based on HIV status, gender diversity, sexual orientation, or religious beliefs.”

The fearless activist also plans on continuing to spread the message of U=U and eradicating stigma in Indonesia and around the globe: “The U=U movement

is a great tool to break through stigma and social judgments — everyone living with HIV can now live just like others without HIV, by not able to transmit HIV to others sexually.”

Rianto also believes in the idea that, despite our different statuses, we are all “HIV equal.”

“At the end of the day, HIV is just a medical status that everyone has — positive, negative, or ‘don’t know.’ HIV doesn’t have to define who we are. We are all human beings with every right to be respected, because no one is safe from HIV transmission unless everyone knows their status.”

Deirdre Johnson is a woman on a mission to eradicate the stigma around HIV and end the criminalization of people living with it — and she’s winning.

“When I was first diagnosed [21 years ago], I thought I would have to live a life of shame and despair because of my HIV status. Instead, I live a full life following my dreams and passions without apologies and creating change along the way,” she says.

Johnson isn’t just thriving, however; she’s putting in the work and fighting so that others living with HIV can have the same outlook. The fight, in Johnson’s case, starts with justice reform. To that end, Johnson cofounded the ECHO VA coalition, which stands for Ending Criminalization of HIV and Overincarceration in Virginia, alongside Dr. Cedric Pulliam. This past March, SB1138, a bill Johnson advocated for, passed in the Virginia state legislature and effectively decriminalized HIV non-disclosure. In doing so, it ended decades of antiquated and ineffective laws that not only added to the feelings of mistrust people living with HIV had for the health care system, but added to the ongoing issue of mass incarceration.

While her peers might consider Johnson a leader, that’s not how she sees herself.

Johnson’s all about collaboration. “The word ‘leader’ implies a single person, and none of the work that I’m involved in was done by just me. I like to refer to myself and others as a ‘partner in change’ instead of being called a leader,” she explains. “I think that it’s important for all of us to be partners in change among people living with HIV because the representation of all lived experiences needs to be seen, heard, and celebrated. One person cannot lead alone; it takes all of us to work collectively to lead.”

One project Johnson is excited about is her new website, DeirdreSpeaks.com, launched earlier this year. Through the site, Johnson is utilizing her experience of living with HIV for more than two decades to help educate and inspire others. And if you should know anything about Johnson, it’s that when she sets her mind to achieve something, she will — with a big, welcoming smile on her face.

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OUR 25 AMAZING PEOPLE OF THE YEAR...WHO ARE ALSO LIVING WITH HIV

For Two-Spirit musician Tony Enos, it’s important to be an example of possibility.

“When I first received my HIV diagnosis, it felt like all possibilities had come to an end, and I was s e nt e n c e d t o inevitable doom,” he ex plains. “ How e ver, 1 5 years later, just the opposite has been the case. I’d like for people to be able to look at my work, what I do, and how I conduct my spirit, and say to themselves, ‘Hey, Tony’s doing it, that means I can do it too.’ Harvey Milk used to say, ‘You gotta give ‘em hope.’ I pray that I can be hope for people when they feel abandoned by hope.”

NOZIBELE QAMNGANA-MAYABA Nozibele Qamngana-Mayaba never really set out to be a children’s book author — or an HIV advocate for that matter. But sometimes destiny has other ideas. The 30-year-old from Johannesburg, South Africa, discovered she was living with HIV in 2013 after nonchalantly taking a routine test at a Wellness Day event at her work. Qamngana-Mayaba says she was in complete shock when the test came back positive since she had only had one sexual partner at that time in her life.

Fortunately today, after some difficult years of heartache and healing, Qamngana-Mayaba is a happily married woman and successful self-published author, and has reached over 100,000 subscribers on YouTube. She was first inspired to write her children’s book, I Am Still Zuri, after her young niece had seen her taking her HIV 36

While Enos has been living with HIV for 15 years, it wasn’t until 2020 that the pop artist felt ready to share his status with the public. When the time was right, Enos turned to his favorite medium, music, as his means to come out. The release of his fourth studio album, POSI+IVE, wasn’t just a personal declaration, but also an opportunity for Enos to educate his fans about U=U. “It’s important to know that undetectable equals untransmittable,” Enos told the South Philly Review in August 2020. “If you’re undetectable, you cannot transmit HIV. I’ve been undetectable for 14 years. And I think there’s still a lot of villainizing of HIV-positive people.”

This year has been a busy one for Enos, who worked with the Ford Foundation’s Disability Futures Project to release his “Others Like Me” single and music video alongside two other Two-Spirit artists with a goal to uplift disabled Native American artists (Enos is of Cherokee, Black, Italian, Puerto Rican, Pakistani, and Melanesian descent.)

He was also invited to perform at the Kennedy Center’s millennium stage concert series in October.

“That one made my head spin!” says Enos with a laugh.

Enos credits his success to taking on life’s challenges with the right attitude and doing so has been cathartic for the singer.

“I’ve found that my best life begins with gratitude and awareness. I think those are the gateways to making whatever it is you want to come to fruition,” he says, offering this advice to others regardless of their status: “Keep going, it’s better than the alternative.”

medicine. The book is her attempt to answer such questions for young people in a destigmatizing way.

Qamngana-Mayaba says publishing this story was among her proudest accomplishments of this year. “This is a book based on a 7-year-old girl that was born with HIV. She courageously tells her story to bring more awareness about HIV.” “When I came out with my story, I didn’t necessarily set out to be a leader among people living with HIV,” she continues. “But I wanted to represent people who could not speak for themselves. People who are still in denial about their statuses.

People who have been rejected by their partners after disclosing their HIV statuses. I wanted them to see themselves in me. If that makes me a leader, it’s an honor.

“All I do is to tell my story, with the hope that someone out there resonates with it and finds parts of themselves within it,” adds Qamngana-Mayaba. “I look at this

list and I see so many people that I’ve come to admire on this journey, and to be included with them is a privilege.” (EthniKids.africa)

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Stephen Hart

London-based actor, singer, playwright, and activist Stephen Hart has been serving as an inspiration to others for many years now for bravely baring his trauma and truth in his work. In 2009, Hart created a critically acclaimed off-Broadway show called Shadowed Dreamer, which addressed his living with HIV as a result of a brutal sexual assault four years prior. The show recently enjoyed a 10-year anniversary revival in New York City in 2019.

Since first writing Dreamer, the gay artist of color (born in Scotland of British and Puerto Rican descent) has

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MANDISA NIKITA DUKASHE Professional success and personal fulfillment seemed a distant dream for Mandisa Nikita Dukashe when she was growing up in South Africa. Losing her mother and abandoned by her father as a young child, Dukashe found herself working on a farm at age 12 to support her grandmother and siblings. By 19, she had tested positive for HIV and imagined her short, difficult life was nearly over.

Now, at 44, she is a happily married nurse and one of the most prominent HIV activists in South Africa. As managing director of the HIV Survivors and Par tners Network, Dukashe espouses the importance of treatment and prevention and regularly spreads the word on U=U, or undetectable equals untransmittable. As part of the fifth anniversary of the movement’s launch, Dukashe helped lead an online discussion on how U=U has changed life and where the effort is headed.

“I am very passionate about community development and am a U=U pioneer in South Africa,” Dukashe says. “I am also a cofounder of U=U Africa Coalition, a movement that seeks to scale up U=U in Africa working under the Prevention Access Campaign.”

become a beacon of light not only in the theater world but also for sexual assault survivors, those living with HIV, and basically anyone who has ever felt like an outcast.

When we contacted Hart to let him know he had been chosen as one of our Amazing People of the Year, he had coincidentally just gotten home from a read-through of a play he’s been working on for two years “about a group of friends living with and affected by HIV/AIDS in 1995.”

“It feels unbelievable! I keep thinking that you sent the email to the wrong person,” the multi-talented 49-yearold says with a laugh. “Being a creator can be a lonely job sometimes, so knowing that what I have done has made enough of a difference to someone that they took the time to put me forward is a complete honor.”

Hart also has a YouTube series called Hart Talks, “a place where people can talk, tell their stories, laugh, cry and watch me make a fool of myself from time to time.”

Of his proudest accomplishments of the last year was “writing a play and having real actors bring these characters to life,” as well as celebrating “five years of my YouTube channel. I am very proud of what it has done over the years.”

“I never started out looking to become a leader, I just wanted to make the journey a bit easier, and less lonely than it had been for me back in 2005,” says Hart. “I was drugged and raped, and my world just came tumbling down around me when this happened — but then six months later [when I found out I was HIV-positive], I felt the air leave my body…. Eventually I realized that I had to make my body start breathing again. This took time but with the help of writing my one-man show…I realized that I had a voice and I had to use it.”

Dukashe remained booked and busy this year, completing her master’s degree in public health and publishing a book about her inspiring journey, As I Rise Above. She hopes her life serves as an example to other women living with HIV that any dream is still attainable.

“Being in a mixed status marriage also generated a lot of interest [in my life], inspiring many discordant couples and giving hope to other women living with HIV to see that finding love is possible even if one is HIV-positive,” Dukashe says.

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OUR 25 AMAZING PEOPLE OF THE YEAR...WHO ARE ALSO LIVING WITH HIV

Billy Porter Billy Porter is an amazing person by any measure, starring in acclaimed stage and screen productions, winning major awards, dominating red carpets with his fabulous outfits, penning a memoir, and becoming a director. But his success has come after years of trauma that, he revealed this year, left him unable to feel joy — including an HIVpositive diagnosis in what he’s called the worst year of his life.

The Pose star opened up about living with HIV in a Hollywood Reporter article in May. Born in 1969, he had lived through the worst years of the AIDS crisis and got tested for HIV regularly, but a test came back positive in 2007. “I was the generation that was supposed to know better, and it happened anyway,” he told the Reporter. The result came in a year when he’d also been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and filed for bankruptcy. He’d had some success as an actor and singer, but by that year he was “on the precipice of obscurity,” he noted.

He was no stranger to trauma, “having been sent to a psychologist at age 5 because I came out of the womb a big old queen; being sexually abused by my stepfather from the time I was 7 to the time I was 12; [and] coming out at 16 in the middle of the AIDS crisis,” he said. But the trauma also propelled him forward, and he’s worked through much of it in his career — forgiving his father and stepfather as his Kinky Boots character, drag queen Lola, forgave her father, and confronting HIV stigma as his Pose character, Pray Tell, faced the virus and its complications. Also, the COVID-19 lockdown gave him an opportunity to reflect on his life, and this year, before the Reporter article appeared, he finally told his mother about his positive diagnosis. She responded with acceptance and love.

Porter’s career has been on an upward trajectory for several years. He won a Tony Award for Kinky Boots in 2013 and an Emmy for Pose in 2019, becoming the first out gay Black man to win for Lead Actor in a Drama Series. He shared in a 2014 Grammy for the Kinky Boots cast album, so he only needs an Oscar to achieve the rare EGOT status. This summer he received glowing reviews for playing a genderless fairy godmother in the latest movie version of Cinderella, so it appears he’ll be in demand for some time to come.

He’s expanding beyond performing as well. He’s making his directorial debut with What If?, a film about a romance between a transgender teen girl and a cisgender boy; the release date has yet to be set. He’s going to be writing Fruits of Thy Labor, a drama series about three generations of a Black family, for NBC streaming service Peacock. Pose co-creator Ryan Murphy is making a Netflix documentary about Porter titled Rise, and Porter’s memoir, Unprotected, is out this fall. In an advance review, Publishers Weekly called it “revelatory.” He’s married to Adam Smith, co-owner of eyewear brand Native Ken, and thanks to good medical treatment is healthier than ever — and undetectable. And ready to experience joy.

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NATHANIEL HALL

Nathaniel Hall made an impact this year with his outstanding performance in Russell T. Davies’s HIV drama It’s a Sin — and he’s also been open in recent years about his own experiences living with HIV since his teens.

In an interview with Attitude magazine in 2019, Hall first spoke about the devastation he felt when he learned he had contracted HIV following his first sexual experience at 16. (The article was republished this year due to his appearance on It’s a Sin.) “It was like being hit by a truck” the now-34-year-old Hall remembered of receiving the diagnosis.

Hall revealed he had been involved in a whirlwind romance with an older lover “between 23 and 26,” given the pseudonym of “Sam.” Sam claimed he had tested negative at the time, so Hall gave protection and safe sex little thought. But two weeks after his 17th birthday he discovered he was HIV-positive. He was bluntly (and inaccurately) informed he’d most likely be dead by age 37.

“That was so hard to hear, to have a date on it,” he recalled.

Hall said he turned to drugs and alcohol, self-medicating through substance abuse. By 2017, however, he realized his abuse was destroying his “drive and sense of purpose” and he no longer recognized the hollowed face staring back at him from the mirror.

Finally realizing his “mental health had taken a nose dive,” he decided he “could either let this eat me up and swallow me whole, or flip it and turn it into [something] positive.”

The result of his epiphany was First Time, his hilarious but gut-wrenching one-man show, in which he revealed to the world he was living with HIV. And now, Hall is again tackling the issue of HIV in It’s a Sin. He plays Donald Bassett, the actor boyfriend of protagonist Ritchie Tozer, played by Years & Years frontman Olly Alexander. The show follows four hopeful young adults who move to London in 1981 to embrace their lives and identity, only to have their worlds torn apart by the explosion of HIV in the United Kingdom during the next decade.

SH UT TERSTOCK (PORTER); VERTIC AL C AROUSEL (HALL); COU RTESY G ILE AD (DANIELS)

Tarik Daniels

Tarik Daniels isn’t your average 36-year-old. While many millennials are still figuring out what to do with their lives, Daniels is a Black queer writer and performer, a city commissioner for Austin’s LGBTQ Quality of Life Advisory Board, and mental health advocate who founded his own organization, What’s In The Mirror?, raising awareness and knowledge about mental health and suicide in communities of color.

This year, Daniels also curated the BlaQ Awards, honoring Black and queer contributions in Austin, Texas, and Lil Nas X included his organization in his Montero album release’s “baby registry,” which listed charities and nonprofits for fans to support and donate to.

“It really feels rewarding to be named on the 25 Amazing People of the Year list,” Daniels says. “When I got courage and strength to first openly disclose my status, I was so afraid of HIV stigma and how it would negatively affect my life. It’s beautiful to receive positive reinforcement for a decision I was so afraid to make.”

But through that fear, he knows that being visible as a Black queer man living with HIV is important. And he knows that it’s even more important to be visible as a Black queer man living with HIV who is also living his best life and accomplishing his dreams.

“Visibility continues to be a huge factor for why so many people living with HIV don’t stay in treatment and

HIV care. Black and brown gay men who sleep with men still lead in new HIV cases,” he says. “Many of us don’t see people who look like us publicly, thriving while living with HIV. HIV is not the same epidemic as it was 40 years ago.

Our community needs to see more people living with HIV and know that their lives matter and they are not in this alone.” (WhatsInTheMirror.org)

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OUR 25 AMAZING PEOPLE OF THE YEAR...WHO ARE ALSO LIVING WITH HIV

BRYAN C. JONES

dignity and self-respect remains intact and is strengthened through the DIRT model.”

Jones believes that his community most needs “real and meaningful involvement of community-based organizations. The ASOs need to adopt a [local] communitybased organization and bring them to the table utilizing racial equity, understanding that the smaller organizations don’t have the resources of the ASOs. But the ASOs must put value to the fact that they have the trust of the community, understand the needs, and address the intersections already.”

Looking back at the past year, Jones says he’s proud of presenting at the International AIDS Conference in San Francisco. A founding steering committee member and ambassador for Prevention Access Campaign’s U=U campaign, Jones “took the DIRT model to Canada,” when he was invited to speak with other U=U activists at Canada’s parliament when the nation became the first to officially endorse undetectable equals untransmittable.

He adds, “Personally, I think my greatest accomplishment was having a young person living with HIV set up a meeting with me because they wanted to learn all they can and help present programs with me.”

Jones would like to take this moment to amplify the HIV criminalization case of Nushawn Williams, “who is currently being held in upstate New York after completing his lengthy prison sentence. He was picked up from prison and has been held under civil confinement for over six years with no release or out date in sight.”

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HIV activist Bryan C. Jones is a 61-yearold, same-gender-loving Black man from Cleveland who has been “thriving with an [HIV] diagnosis for 38 years.” Jones tells Plus, “I don’t really use pronouns but I tell folks my pronoun is M.F. because I’m relentless when it comes to speaking up for the rights and lives of people living with HIV and AIDS.” Jones is the founder of The DIRT Advocacy Movement, which he first developed in 2013 in Cleveland when “it became apparent to me the best way to engage and educate Black folks was to identify places that provided services that dealt with the intersection needs, such as food pantries.”

DIRT is an acronym for Direct, Inspiring, Reachable, and Teachable, which Jones argues is “everything that many ASOs [AIDS Service Organizations] and funded agencies fail to…do. It’s a conversation for Black folks that look like us, live like us, and talk like us. It’s a conversation stripped away of all pretense. You must cultivate the ‘dirt’ [community] before the grass can grow. It doesn’t reinvent anything, it utilizes our cultural practices to help educate and build back up a sense of community.”

Quoting Audre Lorde, Jones says, “There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live singleissue lives. One must meet the community at various intersections addressing many others needs.” The impact of this method is more than reducing HIV diagnoses in a community. “Most importantly their

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ELIZ AB E TH B ROOKS

Deondre B. Moore At 27, Deondre B. Moore has already been a beloved and respected community leader for years. After learning he was living with HIV at 19, the dedicated educator and activist wasted little time in beginning to advocate for and inspire others.

“I feel that I have had an obligated duty to be a leader in the field of HIV among young people living with HIV and within my community since my diagnosis at 19,” Moore tells Plus. “I’ve realized that sharing one’s lived experiences can help others in so many ways, most importantly to know that they are not alone, and that everything at some point will be OK.” Moore has worked with countless HIV organizations and campaigns over the years, and currently works for the Prevention Access Campaign, the founding organization of U=U (undetectable equals untransmittable).

He’s also wants to help bring the voices of marginalized folks to our government’s ears and is currently focused on being elected as a state representative in his home state of Texas.

“Two of my biggest accomplishments this year has been leading the development of a new national initiative on behalf of [PAC] called ‘The Journey to 400,000,’ which aims to put more emphasis on the estimated number of people in the U.S. who are living with HIV, but not yet virally suppressed,” explains Moore. “If we get more people to reach viral suppression, then we can see a greater decline in new HIV diagnoses and, ultimately, an end to the HIV epidemic. This initiative launches on World AIDS Day.” On being honored as an Amazing Person of the Year, Moore is characteristically humble and hopeful. “While I don’t do this work for accolades or recognition, it’s always rewarding to see the impact that the work I’m doing is having on others. It’s also extremely motivating and lets me know I’m doing everything I am supposed to be doing, so I have to keep it up!”

Moore adds that continuing to combat stigma is just as important as battling the virus itself.

“It’s imperative that folks continue getting the information around HIV and AIDS correct and debunk any myths or misinformation every chance they get, regardless of their HIV status. HIV is not a death sentence, and people living with HIV are not nasty or dirty. We are loving and caring human beings, who deserve the same respect as everyone else. People who are living with HIV are able to live long and healthy lives, and thanks to medical advancements, PLWHIV can live worry free of sexual transmission to their partners due to being on effective treatment.”

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• are breastfeeding or plan to breastfeed. Do not breastfeed if you take DOVATO. This is only a brief summary of important information about ° You should not breastfeed if you have HIV-1 because of the risk of DOVATO and does not replace talking to your healthcare provider passing HIV-1 to your baby. about your condition and treatment.

One of the medicines in DOVATO (lamivudine) passes into your breastmilk. ° What is the most important information I should know ° Talk with your healthcare provider about the best way to feed your baby. about DOVATO? Tell your healthcare provider about all the medicines you take, If you have both human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) including prescription and over-the-counter medicines, vitamins, and infection and Hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, DOVATO can herbal supplements. cause serious side effects, including: Some medicines interact with DOVATO. Keep a list of your medicines and show • Resistant HBV. Your healthcare provider will test you for HBV infection it to your healthcare provider and pharmacist when you get a new medicine. before you start treatment with DOVATO. If you have HIV-1 and • You can ask your healthcare provider or pharmacist for a list of medicines that hepatitis B, the HBV can change (mutate) during your treatment with interact with DOVATO. DOVATO and become harder to treat (resistant). It is not known if DOVATO • Do not start taking a new medicine without telling your is safe and effective in people who have HIV-1 and HBV infection. healthcare provider. Your healthcare provider can tell you if it is safe • Worsening of HBV infection. If you have HBV infection and take DOVATO, to take DOVATO with other medicines. your HBV may get worse (flare-up) if you stop taking DOVATO. A “flare-up” What are possible side effects of DOVATO? is when your HBV infection suddenly returns in a worse way than before.

DOVATO can cause serious side effects, including: Do not run out of DOVATO. Refill your prescription or talk to your ° • See “What is the most important information I should know healthcare provider before your DOVATO is all gone. about DOVATO?” Do not stop DOVATO without first talking to your healthcare ° • Allergic reactions. Call your healthcare provider right away if provider. you develop a rash with DOVATO. Stop taking DOVATO and get ° If you stop taking DOVATO, your healthcare provider will need to check medical help right away if you develop a rash with any of the following your health often and do blood tests regularly for several months to check signs or symptoms: fever; generally ill feeling; tiredness; muscle or joint aches; your liver function and monitor your HBV infection. It may be necessary blisters or sores in mouth; blisters or peeling of the skin; redness or swelling to give you a medicine to treat hepatitis B. Tell your healthcare provider of the eyes; swelling of the mouth, face, lips, or tongue; problems breathing. about any new or unusual symptoms you may have after you stop taking • Liver problems. People with a history of hepatitis B or C virus DOVATO. may have an increased risk of developing new or worsening For more information about side effects, see “What are possible changes in certain liver tests during treatment with DOVATO. side effects of DOVATO?” Liver problems, including liver failure, have also happened in What is DOVATO? people without a history of liver disease or other risk factors.

DOVATO is a prescription medicine that is used without other HIV-1 Your healthcare provider may do blood tests to check your liver. medicines to treat human immunodeficiency virus-1 (HIV-1) infection Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get any of the in adults: who have not received HIV-1 medicines in the past, or to following signs or symptoms of liver problems: your skin or the replace their current HIV-1 medicines when their healthcare provider white part of your eyes turns yellow (jaundice); dark or “tea-colored” urine; determines that they meet certain requirements. HIV-1 is the virus that light-colored stools (bowel movements); nausea or vomiting; loss of appetite; causes Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). It is not known and/or pain, aching, or tenderness on the right side of your stomach area. if DOVATO is safe and effective in children.

• Too much lactic acid in your blood (lactic acidosis). Too much Who should not take DOVATO? lactic acid is a serious medical emergency that can lead to death. Tell your healthcare provider right away if you get any of Do not take DOVATO if you: the following symptoms that could be signs of lactic acidosis: • have ever had an allergic reaction to a medicine that contains dolutegravir feel very weak or tired; unusual (not normal) muscle pain; trouble breathing; or lamivudine. stomach pain with nausea and vomiting; feel cold, especially in your arms • take dofetilide. Taking DOVATO and dofetilide can cause side effects that and legs; feel dizzy or lightheaded; and/or a fast or irregular heartbeat. may be serious or life-threatening.

• Lactic acidosis can also lead to severe liver problems, which can What should I tell my healthcare provider before using DOVATO? lead to death. Your liver may become large (hepatomegaly) and you may Tell your healthcare provider about all of your medical conditions, develop fat in your liver (steatosis). Tell your healthcare provider right including if you: away if you get any of the signs or symptoms of liver problems • have or have had liver problems, including hepatitis B or C infection. which are listed above under “Liver problems.”

• have kidney problems.

• You may be more likely to get lactic acidosis or severe liver • are pregnant or plan to become pregnant. One of the medicines in DOVATO problems if you are female or very overweight (obese). (dolutegravir) may harm your unborn baby.

• Changes in your immune system (Immune Reconstitution ° Your healthcare provider may prescribe a different medicine than DOVATO Syndrome) can happen when you start taking HIV-1 medicines. Your if you are planning to become pregnant or if pregnancy is confirmed during immune system may get stronger and begin to fight infections that have the first 12 weeks of pregnancy. been hidden in your body for a long time. Tell your healthcare provider right If you can become pregnant, your healthcare provider may perform a ° away if you start having new symptoms after you start taking DOVATO. pregnancy test before you start treatment with DOVATO. ° If you can become pregnant, you and your healthcare provider should talk about the use of effective birth control (contraception) during treatment with DOVATO. ° Tell your healthcare provider right away if you are planning to become pregnant, you become pregnant, or think you may be pregnant during treatment with DOVATO.

Important Facts About DOVATO

©2021 ViiV Healthcare or licensor.

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SO MUCH GOES INTO WHO I AM H Why could DOVATO be right for you? DOVATO is proven to help control HIV with just 2 medicines in 1 pill. That means fewer medicines* in your body while taking DOVATO. It’s proven as effective as an HIV treatment with 3 or 4 medicines.

Learn more about fewer medicines at DOVATO.com DOVATO is a complete prescription regimen to treat HIV-1 in adults who have not received HIV-1 medicines in the past or to replace their current HIV-1 medicines when their doctor determines they meet certain requirements.

Results may vary. *As compared with 3- or 4-drug regimens.

What are possible side effects of DOVATO? (cont’d) • The most common side effects of DOVATO include: headache; nausea; diarrhea; trouble sleeping; tiredness; and anxiety.

These are not all the possible side effects of DOVATO. Call your doctor for medical advice about side effects.

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.

Where can I find more information?

• Talk to your healthcare provider or pharmacist.

• Go to DOVATO.com or call 1-877-844-8872, where you can also get FDA-approved labeling.

Trademark is owned by or licensed to the ViiV Healthcare group of companies.

March 2021 DVT:6PIL

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Jeffrey Drew

Jeffrey Drew has been on various HIV treatments for nearly 32 years, but these days his daily regimen involves zero pills. Drew’s viral load is currently undetectable, he says, and he is not taking any meds for his HIV. The Los Angeles-based casting director claims to be effectively cured of HIV after taking part in an experimental vaccine trial over the past year and a half. Drew’s journey is chronicled in the short film, Right to Try, co-produced by Oscarwinning actress Octavia Spencer and

JORDAN J. EDWARDS Jordan J. Edwards is putting his own experiences as an “outside the box” type of Black man to good use, helping a community largely neglected by society due to the fact that it, too, is so varied and unique.

The 30-year-old, sexually-fluid Black man is the new director of the BQPlus Center of Liberation 44

featuring a song from pop superstar Katy Perry. Directed by Zeberiah Newman, Right to Try won the Audience Award for Documentary Short at this summer’s Outfest, Los Angeles’s LGBTQ+ film festival, and is slated for wide release December 1, on World AIDS Day. T h e m o v i e c h r o n ic l e s t h e debilitating side effects Drew experienced during the trial’s early days and how COVID interrupted the entire process (the doctor spearheading the experimental vaccine was initially yanked away from his HIV duties to work on the eventual coronavirus vaccine).

Newman also had to operate around filming complications due to social distancing, and dealing with a subject who most doctors would consider immunocompromised.

But Drew — who was paid nothing for the trial as it was not funded by a major pharmaceutical company — saw his participation as a labor of love.

“Truthfully, survivor guilt has

a lot to do with my decision [to participate],” Drew says. “I’m very fortunate. I lost so many friends and it plays on my psyche and my spirits some days. That’s why I still do fundraisers and get involved.

Truthfully, with those warriors in the late ’80s [and] early ’90s that took to the streets and demanded health care and help for people who were dying, there’s a throughline why we have the ability to marry and other gay rights.”

D r e w s ay s r e s e a r cher s a r e continuing to study his body’s reaction to the experimental vaccine.

Whatever the outcome of Drew’s HIV status, he sees his participation as a step towards the long-sought cure.

“I would love to see a generation of people who wouldn’t have to deal with HIV and AIDS,” Drew says.

“People are still getting infected, people are still developing into fullblown AIDS around the world. Even if the trial is a big flop, they have all this new information now. That was important to me.”

at the Normal Anomaly Initiative in Houston. The Normal Anonmaly provides much-needed services, like free HIV testing for the community, but also seeks to increase resources such as transportation services and sustainable employment for marginalized folks in the region.

Most important to Edwards, though, is that leadership is in-tune with the community they seek to help.

“The Normal Anomaly Initiative is currently the only Black queer-led organization with a physical space in Houston,” Edwards says.

Edwards believes many wellintentioned at tempts to help marginalized Black queer folks have failed in part because they didn’t account for the breadth and diversity of the community. In effect, he believes you can’t help a person or community without knowing them first.

“I feel that it is essential to have multiple expressions of representation,” he says. “People living with HIV may have some similarities in their stories, but we are all different.”

The story of HIV among the Black queer community in Houston is one of disparate impact. Edwards points to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control which shows Black people generally account for the highest rates of persons newly living with HIV, and male-to-male sexual contact is listed as the leading cause amongst Black folks newly living with HIV (79 percent in 2018).

Edwards has been living with HIV since 2013, and says his sexual fluidity has guided his approach to helping the community at the Normal Anomaly and elsewhere.

It’s helped him understand that just as he and his needs are unique, so, too, are those of the folks he seeks to help on a daily basis.

“I am not stereotypical of what society has deemed a ‘Black gay man,’ Edwards says. “I identify as sexually fluid because I don’t fit a specific box; I have my own narrative. As a leader living with HIV, I feel that your uniqueness, identity, and walk through life do not have to be defined by your HIV status. Take it one breath at a time.”

T WIT TER (DRE W ); PISCES 3 1 0 PHOTOG R APHY. (EDWARDS)

OUR 25 AMAZING PEOPLE OF THE YEAR...WHO ARE ALSO LIVING WITH HIV

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While our People of the Year honors living activists, CARL BEAN was chosen before his passing and it still seemed a fitting way to honor this amazing indivudual.

COU RTESY

Carl Bean

Carl Bean, the HIV and LGBTQ+ activist, gospel singer, and minister who sa ng the L GBTQ+ Pr ide song “I Was Born This Way,” died at 77 years old on September 7 following an illness, making him our only posthumous Amazing Person of the Year. Bean’s song inspired Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way” from her 2011 album of the same name, which celebrated its 10-year anniversary in May. Because of this, Bean was able to enjoy some overdue accolades for his contributions to this inspiring anthem — and the world — before his passing.

In the 1970s, Bean found success as a Motown singer, working with legends like Dionne Warwick, Sammy Davis Jr., and Miles Davis. As an out gay man, he gave up his singing career after being asked to croon heteronormative love songs. After Motown, Bean worked to create LGBTQ+ inclusive churches in the U.S. and throughout the Caribbean.

Bean led the Unity Fellowship Church Movement, becoming the liberal denomination’s founding prelate. In a statement announcing his death, the church wrote, “Archbishop Bean worked tirelessly for the liberation of the underserved and for LGBTQ people of faith and, in doing so, helped many find their way back to spirituality and religion.”

The church noted his extensive activism, including founding the Minority AIDS Project in Los Angeles in 1985. The organization was the first in the area that focused on the transmission of HIV in the Black community. Bean’s work received widespread recognition, including an NAACP Image Award in 1987.

An intersection in Los Angeles was renamed Archbishop Carl Bean Square in his honor in 2019.

Born in Baltimore in 1944, Bean was raised by his godparents after the death of his mother during an abortion procedure. He told Vice in 2016 that his uncle sexually abused

him growing up. After his family found out he was queer, Bean attempted suicide. Bean ended up in a mental health ward, but a psychiatrist helped him eventually accept his sexuality.

“That gave me enlightenment and the chance to accept myself. If I had another doctor, I might have been a different animal,” he said.

Bean eventually moved to New York and then Los Angeles where he connected with Motown executives for “I Was Born This Way,” and history was made. He told NPR in 2019, “I always say the lyric found me, and it was very natural.”

He also told the outlet how honored it felt to have been an inspiration for Lady Gaga’s hit.

“I felt it was a great tribute, and it was the continuation of saving lives,” he said. “So you know, [the song] has just been a blessing to my life. And it’s been a blessing, once again, to even another generation’s life through the take that Gaga did on it.”

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wellness

JUST NOT FEELING IT TODAY? ON A DAY LIKE THAT, IT’S EASY TO FALL INTO QUESTIONING YOUR LIFE AND YOUR HAPPINESS. HERE’S HELP.

BY GA RY M CC L A I N

T E R R Y W O K E U P with kind of a vague feeling that something wasn’t quite right. Life just feels hard. Her medication regimen is going fine. She feels fine. Life is fine. Nothing specific. Maybe just everything.

She’s had days like this before. And they sure are difficult to go through. Her energy feels lower. And so does her mood.

In a way, Terry wonders if it isn’t almost worse to feel just generally out of sorts than to experience a “real” problem. At least with a real problem, she can figure out a strategy to address it. But a day when she isn’t feeling it? What do you do when can’t identify what’s bothering you? Terry knows from experience that on days when she is a feeling a little offtrack and without a clear reason why, her mind tends to go to dark places.

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“It’s not like you’re sick,” she tells herself.

“You can still do the basics today, even go to work.” But she can’t help but also ask herself, “Is there something going on with me? Do I have a something going on with my mental health or my physical health that I should worry about?”

Terry knows how important it is to stay optimistic. So she can’t help but feel concerned about herself — her health, her emotions, her outlook.

How about you? Do you have days when you aren’t quite feeling yourself and can’t help but feel alarmed that your emotional or physical health might be headed south?

Scary, right?

Here’s some help with coping on those days: Give yourself a pep talk. The last thing you need to do is to fall into self-criticism.

Instead, be kind to yourself by talking back to any negative self-talk with words of encouragement. Remind yourself that you’ve had not-so-great days before. That you’re doing what you need to do to take care of yourself. And you’ve got a support team you trust backing you up. A good pep talk can help keep your mind from wandering into darker territory.

Avoid catastrophizing. Use your self-talk to help keep your perspective on the big picture.

Remind yourself that a day when you don’t feel at your best is just that: It’s a day when you don’t feel at your best. Nothing more.

Don’t turn it into a catastrophe by giving it meaning it doesn’t need to have. Engage your rational mind.

Mental health editor, GARY MCCLAIN, PH.D., is a therapist, patient advocate, and author in New York. He specializes in working with those diagnosed with chronic and catastrophic medical conditions.

(JustGotDiagnosed.com)

M ENTAL H E ALTH AM ERIC A /PE XELS (STRESSED MAN); MA XIMILIAN IMAG ING (MCCL AIN)

HOW TO BE OK ON THOSE DAYS WHEN THINGS DON’T FEEL OK

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wellness

Remember: Normal is a moving target. You can waver from feeling your absolute best self and still be at what, for you, is your range of what’s normal. Most likely, if you haven’t already discovered this, some days are better than others. A bad day doesn’t mean a bad life.

It’s just a bad day. If you keep this in mind, you will be more able to take a day like this in stride.

Talk it out. One of the best ways to regain your perspective and stay focused on the big picture is by talking things out with someone you trust, someone who can listen without judging or telling you what to do. Someone who knows you can help you sort out how you’re feeling and remind you of some of those other days when you felt more like yourself, or even when you didn’t feel so great but found a way to cope.

A question: Is it time to consider reaching out to a mental health professional to learn some new coping skills? Don’t go through this alone!

Distract yourself. When you spend too much time focusing on what’s bothering you, you can end up magnifying it and making it feel bigger or even come up with some other reasons to feel bad. That’s the pathway to catastrophizing. So try some positive distractions. Get involved in your daily tasks.

Do something you enjoy or that relaxes you.

Socialize.

Push forward but not too hard. The message here is to stay involved in your life. That’s what I mean by pushing forward. Take things one step at a time. Rest when you need to. Be nice to yourself. This is not a day to be a hero, so also consider asking for help.

Listen for a message. Keep in mind that a day when you feel out of sorts may be the result of pushing yourself too hard the day before.

Listen to your body. Talk to yourself. Lean in. Is there a message you need to hear about how to take better care of yourself?

SH UT TERSTOCK

Trust your instinct. There is a difference between pushing through a day when you’re not at your best and denial of emotional or physical symptoms you need to pay attention to. You know yourself. If your instinct tells you something is not quite right, then do what you need to, including calling your doctor and letting them know what’s going on.

Not quite feeling yourself today? Not feeling quite OK doesn’t mean you’re not OK. Stay focused on the big picture. Each day — a good day, a not-so-good day — is another opportunity to learn about what you need to do to be at your best.

Take good care of yourself. Always.

TEACHABLE MOMENT

BIAS AMONG MEDICAL PROFESSIONALS CAN TRICKLE DOWN TO NEGATIVE HEALTH IMPACTS FOR LGBTQ+ PATIENTS. ONE COMPANY IS ATTACKING THE PROBLEM HEAD-ON.

BY N E A L B R OV E R M A N

M A N Y P E O P L E S E E K I NG treatment or care will place doctors, nurses, and pharmacists on a pedestal, imagining them as universally knowledgeable and trustworthy. The truth is that physicians and others in the health care industry are simply human and subject to not just mistakes but also intolerance and judgment.

Many LGBTQ+ people have experienced that firsthand, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Experiencing ignorant health care professionals is disturbing enough, but studies show 8 percent of LGB patients have been denied care because of their sexual orientation and nearly 27 percent of trans individuals have been turned away at doctors’ offices because of their gender identity.

Acknowledging this quiet epidemic, the Department of Health and Human Services announced a ban on anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination in health care, including among insurance companies and care providers. Though it’s a positive step, there is still a need to more proactively attack prejudice in health care.

A new accredited and free education program hopes to be part of the solution. OptumHealth Education, which provides continuing education courses for health care workers, partnered with OutCare Health for the learning series. A webcast, titled “Caring for the LGBTQ+ Community: An Introduction” and led by two leaders in the LGBTQ+ health sphere, explores the negative effects that implicit stigma can have on the mental and physical well-being of LGBTQ+ patients, explains the importance of correct pronouns and terminology to ensure respectful communication, and covers the health problems common among queer people, like HIV and cancer.

“LGBTQ+ people face a number of unique challenges and barriers when it comes to their health and well-being. Many of these barriers are rooted in discrimination, stigma, and a simple lack of awareness and knowledge,” Dr. Amy Nguyen Howell, Optum senior national medical director, Office for Provider Advancement, said in a statement. “We launched this educational series as part of our commitment to advancing health equity and improving the health care experience for everyone we serve.” (OptumHealthEducation.com) H IVPLUS MAG .CO M

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parting shot

by n e al b rove r man

NATIONAL TRAGEDY

POET STEVEN REIGNS DIVES INTO THE DISTURBING TALE OF DAVID ACER, AN HIVPOSITIVE FLORIDA DENTIST CAUGHT IN A TORNADO OF BLAME THREE DECADES AGO. REIGNS TELLS US WHO ACER WAS AND WHY HIS STORY REMAINS SO RELEVANT. AF TE R S E VE R AL P EO P LE were diagnosed with HIV in a small Florida town in the late 1980s, an unassuming dentist named David Acer was unfairly labeled a Typhoid Mary. The reputation of the closeted Acer, who died in 1990, was dragged through the mud as homophobia and HIV panic spread from Jensen, Fla., to all corners of the country. Writer Steven Reigns, the first Poet Laureate of West Hollywood, spent 10 years researching Acer’s story; the result is A Quilt for David, Reigns’s lauded retelling of the ordeal, one that combines history with poetry and prose. Reigns spoke with Plus about his book — available now from City Lights Publishers — and what it tells us about health-related fear and misinformation.

Tell us about David’s family. Are they still alive and did you speak with them for the book? David disclosed his sexuality and HIV status to his mom when he was sick.

Soon his mother and stepfather moved into his house from Ohio to take care of him. A hospice nurse recalled they would sit by his bedside daily. I spoke with his mother briefly at the start of my research. It was always my hope that she would see the book. Sadly, she died a few years ago.

How far, or how little, do you think our society has changed in its outlook on HIV in 30 years? Unlike COVID, the modes of HIV transmission coincide with behaviors that have religious or societal judgment such as sex, anal sex, or IV drug use. These judgments have lessened and that has helped with stigma. Today we’re seeing hysteria, data denying, and scapegoating with COVID.

You utilize a very unconventional structure in the book. Why did you choose this storytelling method?

Poetry is the language of our emotions. The public reaction and unquestioned accusations of Acer’s accusers seemed fueled only by emotions. I thought short prose and poetry could give an understanding and empathic view into the life of David Acer and this horrible situation. Even though the work is poetry, I chose not to take poetic license or fictionalize details. Every detail is from my research. This is a story already saturated with so much misinformation and I did not want to add to it.

What do you hope readers get from the book? I think after reading this, they will be able to hold and understand the complexity of the situation and people involved. The book humanizes David, but is also generous to the struggles of his accusers. This was a terrible time in our history, and I feel for everyone who was a part of it.

Who was David as a person? David was concerned about being out and ostracized in his small town. He was socially shy, owned a cocker spaniel, and for recreation he played tennis or spent time on his ski boat. He was fearful of being outed and would drive about two hours to Miami to go to gay bars and socialize. When he feared he had HIV, he would take that same drive south to go to doctor’s offices and use an alias.

What lessons from David’s story are applicable today? What happened to David could happen to any of us — an accuser has outside motivations and their finger pointing changes our life and legacy. I’d like to think that things have changed in terms of scapegoating and villainizing, yet this incident is an example of the quick, unexamined, and unnuanced assessments we see sometimes in cancel culture.

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E VANS VESTAL WARD

What attracted you to David’s story and were you aware of it when it was in the news? I wasn’t initially attracted to David as much as I was interested in what happened in that dental office. I worked as an HIV test counselor for a decade; presented at national conferences. I’ve tested and given results to over 9,000 people. At work in 2008, I remembered in the 8th grade seeing a young woman on TV talk about getting HIV from her dentist. With all my transmission knowledge, I couldn’t figure out how that happened. I started researching it and kept encountering stories loaded with bias, hysteria, and homophobia.

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Providing high-quality, LGBTQ-affirming healthcare - regardless of ability to pay. Proudly welcoming patients at our new Downtown Brooklyn location!

To become a patient and to learn more, visit callen-lorde.org/brooklyn or call 718.215.1818 Callen-Lorde Brooklyn 40 Flatbush Ave Ext, 3rd Floor Brooklyn, NY 11201

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HOW DOES HIV TREATMENT WORK AS HIV PREVENTION Starting and sticking with HIV treatment every day helps lower the amount of HIV in your body. It can get so low it can’t be measured by a test.

That’s undetectable.

Less HIV in your body means it causes less damage. And according to current research, getting to and staying undetectable prevents the spread of HIV through sex.

It’s called Treatment as Prevention. Or TasP for short.

There’s no cure for HIV, but if you stick with treatment you can protect yourself and the people you care about.

Talk to a healthcare provider and watch It’s Called Treatment as Prevention at YouTube.com/HelpStopTheVirus

GILEAD and the GILEAD Logo are trademarks of Gilead Sciences, Inc. All other marks are the property of their respective owners. © 2020 Gilead Sciences, Inc. All rights reserved. UNBC7269 08/20

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