In October of 2023, a coalition representing 110 networks of people living with HIV met to discuss a deep-rooted but under-discussed issue in HIV advocacy - molecular surveillance. 

When Elon Musk acquired Twitter, now known as “X,” there were immediate concerns about how his leadership style and company would hinder “Black Twitter.” While not technically a separate platform,  Dr. Moody-Ramirez, author of From Blackface to Black Twitter: Reflections on Black Humor, Race, Politics and Gender, explains that Black Twitter is not a separate digital platform or space.

I’ve now made a career out of being an award-winning debate coach and HIV advocate. Like the foundation of a home, being an advocate is a core part of who I am. Asking me to stay silent is like asking the ocean not to wave – it's against the very nature of its existence.

Growing up in the Bronx in the 1980s, Will Ramirez saw his mother, Alicia -- a devout Catholic and church volunteer -- show love and compassion to men who often were afflicted with a mysterious, deadly virus sweeping through New York City’s gay community.

In September, 2023, hundreds of key stakeholders and advocates convened in Washington, DC, to attend the annual United States Conference on HIV/AIDS (USCHA). The yearly conference featured over 120+ sessions on critical topics like biomedical HIV prevention, aging, service delivery, health equity, and telehealth, all while centering on the needs of those with HIV and the mission to end the epidemic.

With the virtually constant onslaught of national political news, it is incredibly demanding to ask the general public also to be well-versed in our nation’s foreign policy. Those interested in foreign affairs are likely immersed in the issues of Ukraine and/or the Israel-Palestinian conflict. While debate and air time remain primarily dedicated to these noteworthy issues, another foreign affair was heavily debated but rarely centered. 

A nationally-known HIV researcher and practicing clinician, Dr. Hyman Scott believes that PrEP, the once-daily drug that can prevent transmission of the potentially deadly virus, has become arguably the most important weapon in the anti-HIV arsenal.

Long before they received their acclaimed stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, two well-respected and now household names, Denzel Washington and Tom Hanks, impressed Hollywood in the film Philadelphia. Released in 1993, the film centers around Attorney Andrew Beckett (Hanks), who was fired for being gay and living with HIV.

Nearly 20 years before the songs Old Town Road and Despacito peaked at #1 on Billboard’s charts, another song seemed to be played on an endless loop. Released in 1995, ”One Sweet Day” by Boys II Men & Mariah Carey sat at the top of the charts for 16 weeks, tying it for 2nd longest reign in Billboard’s history.

The potential for violence during police encounters with Black Americans is all too common, but when the person in custody is living with HIV, their health status in proximity to law enforcement can often result in prosecution.

World AIDS Day occurs annually on December 1. It is a worldwide opportunity to unite all of us in the fight to eliminate HIV, honor those we've lost, and show support for people living with HIV. For me, this day represents a time for reflection and action. This year I'm reflecting on how much the music of my childhood continues to impact me.

A new report from The Williams Institute examining the beginning and ending stages of the HIV criminalization cycle in Louisiana paints an even clearer picture of the demographic most impacted by discriminatory and outdated laws criminalizing people with HIV in the state.

Black people—and especially Black men—were the majority of people identified as suspects and arrested for HIV-related crimes, according to research by The Williams Institute.

Louisiana enacted its law in 1987, becoming one of the first states to criminalize HIV—nine years before the release of lifesaving antiretroviral drugs that allowed people living with HIV to achieve viral suppression and before FDA approval of PrEP, a game-changer in HIV prevention.

Louisiana has one primary HIV criminal law, intentional exposure to HIV. Intentional exposure is a felony; the maximum sentence is ten years imprisonment and a $5,000 fine. The law provides a heightened sentence for deliberate exposure to a first responder performing their official duties. In this case, the maximum penalty increases to 11 years and a fine of up to $6,000. Additionally, a conviction for intentional exposure to HIV requires the person convicted to register as a sex offender under Louisiana law for 15 years.

A conversation with the legendary actor Andre De Shields is a master class.

The Tony-award-winning actor is currently receiving rave reviews as Ben Loman in the Broadway revival of Arthur Miller's "Death of A Salesman." De Shields plays the successful and wealthy older brother of Willy Loman (Wendell Pierce), a salesman grappling with a fruitless life in a burgeoning America. The latest production of "Salesman" makes history as the first Broadway revival of the dramatic masterpiece to feature African American actors in the leading roles.

A celebrated Black queer artist, De Shields began his professional career in a 1969 Chicago production of "Hair." His star turn in the title role of the 1978 Broadway hit, "The Wiz," opposite Stephanie Mills, has endeared him to audiences across the globe.

De Shields insists that his most challenging role is always the one directly in front of him. Whether performing for an entire house or in scenes with Neil Patrick Harris in the hit Netflix comedy “Uncoupled,” or standing before a classroom filled with fresh-faced students. Each time he steps on stage, he does so as an advocate. Over the last five decades, he's prioritized helping audiences understand and accept what it means to be human.

"As an actor-activist, I want to fill intimate spaces with enormous beauty," De Shields proclaimed.

Before Rashad Burgess held the professional title of Vice President of Advancing Health and Equity at Gilead Sciences or the personal identification of husband and father, he witnessed the devastating effects of HIV in the early nineties as a gay teenager growing up on the south side of Chicago. As it did then, today, the disproportionate impact of HIV in the Black community experienced by Black gay men continues to fuel Burgess' work.

"I got to see what happens when you have inequity and communities being disproportionately impacted by HIV," Burgess tells The Reckoning. "I've always felt a call to make a difference in communities that felt like they were on the margins or felt vulnerable. No matter what role I've had in my career, that has driven me."

Formerly the Branch Chief of Capacity Building in the HIV/AIDS Prevention division at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Burgess has dedicated most of his adult life and the last nine years with Gilead Sciences toward decreasing the impact of HIV in Black communities. In July, he stepped into his new role at Gilead Sciences as Vice President of Advancing Health and Equity.

The Reckoning spoke with Burgess about Gilead's efforts to tackle the HIV epidemic in the South. In a wide-ranging conversation, Burgess talks about Gilead's $100 million COMPASS Initiative, the impact of COVID-19 on testing and care, the importance of education and access to PrEP to curb new acquisitions, and why he believes the epidemic will end in his lifetime.

I tested positive for HIV in the spring of 1987. I had less than 200 T-Cells, which meant I met the threshold for an AIDS diagnosis. The counselor gave me six months or so to live. There were no treatments for AIDS yet. He suggested I go home and put my affairs in order. I was 30 years old. I didn't have any "affairs" to put in order. In actuality, I probably had been living with HIV for seven years by then. My husband, Chris Brownlie, who I met in 1980, already had AIDS and was experiencing opportunistic infections. Chris died in November 1989. Last month, after celebrating 66 years and four months of life (the required age to receive full social security benefits), I received my first social security check.

I've started writing my memoir. I've had thirty-six years and four months since that AIDS diagnosis to put my "affairs" in order. I've been thinking a lot about what it means to come of age, live through, and grow old in the age of HIV/AIDS. And more importantly, what we've learned, if anything, over the last 41 years that might be of importance to young Black gay men coming of age today in the middle of three pandemics—HIV/AIDS, Covid-19, and now, Monkeypox. André Gide said, "Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.” Monkeypox has become the new Black Plague. Black and Brown gay, men who have sex with men, and/or same gender loving men represent over 50% of the current cases of monkeypox in the United States.

In his debut novel, “Desire Lines,” author Cary Alan Johnson births a story about Black queer friendship, desire, and addiction during the onset of the HIV epidemic in New York City in the 1980s. Desire Lines marks Johnson’s first foray into long-form fiction after spending much of the last decade breathing life into characters aimed at centering the experiences of Black queer men in an HIV narrative where they have historically been forgotten.

“Of all the really great books, movies, and shows produced about gay men’s experience with AIDS in the 1980s, none have focused on Black gay men,” said Johnson. “Of all the great work about cocaine and crack addiction, none focused on the experience of Black gay men. The 1980s was a period of hysteria and pain, but it was also a moment of intense introspection and spiritual alignment. You either sank or you swam. Many of us swam and continue to swim, and I want to tell this story.”

In Desire Lines, readers follow an unnamed Black gay narrator as he grows up in Brooklyn captivated by a vision of life on the other side of the river, where the sparkle and glitter of Manhattan beckon. Coming into adulthood, he finds himself living in a five-floor walk-up in Hell's Kitchen just as the AIDS epidemic is hitting the city. We follow him and his group of friends as they experience the first wave of illness and death and then accompany him on a two-year journey to Zaire, Central Africa, where he must confront corruption and homophobia in new and unexpected ways.

HIV and sex work criminalization often intersect, which means a person suspected of “exposing” someone to a virus can be grouped with a person exchanging sex for money, housing, or food, as both are labeled “criminals.” Advocates from both decriminalization sectors have rallied for doing away with these long standing policies, which have public health and criminal justice implications.

Organizations ranging from the Positive Women’s Network and the Sero Project to Sex Workers Outreach Project USA (SWOP-USA) have concentrated forces most recently to tackle both HIV and sex work criminalization in a collective called Health Not Prisons. They’re organizing to remove criminal charges and shift policing away from sex workers and people living with HIV (PLWH).

Chauncey McGlathery, sexual justice coordinator at the Sero Project, supports breaking down the silos that have kept HIV activists and sex worker activists from joining forces.

There was a bedtime and morning ritual in the Malebranche household. A kiss from the family patriarch to his son David and daughter Michelle that was so routine—his decision to replace David’s kiss with deafening silence—reverberated loudly throughout their home in Galway, NY, in the summer of 1992.

Despite being an exceptional student with degrees from Princeton, Emory, and Columbia Universities, Malebranche, now 53, had become accustomed to achieving a level of success that appeared to impress everyone but the Haitian-born surgeon he called dad. Yet he was not accustomed to being viewed as a disappointment by the man he idolized.

“Donna, is our son trying to tell us something?” Malebranche recalls his father asking his mother almost daily, particularly after getting his ears pierced, and choosing to wear an earring in the right ear only on this particular day, which in the early 90s was a cultural indicator that a man was not heterosexual.

“He would ask her that question every morning. He would not let it go,” Malebranche said. “So after the third or fourth morning, she'd say, ‘What do you want me to do? I can’t cover for you.’”

“I'm 23. If he's not man enough to ask me directly, he’s not man enough to hear it from me, so you tell him,” he said. “And so she did. Those three days that I was home, he didn’t speak to me at all.”

Before meeting her wife, Paulette Martin worried about aging alone.

She was 40, single, and recently out to her children. What she knew was that she didn’t want to become a burden in her golden years. She was worried about who would take on the responsibility of caring for her.

Fast forward some years, Paulette moved from Hawaii to New York in 2014. She desired connections with other Black LGBTQ elders and heard of SAGE, a national organization committed to advocacy and services for LGBTQ elders. They were having a party and needed volunteers for setup. It was also where she met Pat, her wife of four years.

“I was helping to put together swag bags for the party which Pat was hosting,” Paulette told The Reckoning. “As we were putting things together, I noticed that people were talking over Pat.”

Somewhat frustrated, she spoke up.

“I told them you all should submit to Pat. She knows what she is doing. I didn’t even know her.”

In June, Alphonso Mills, 30, and his fiance Ja’Mel Ware, 33, will become fathers. They shared the news of their expanding family in a short video posted on their respective social media accounts on Feb 22, marking the 22nd week of their baby’s development. While Black queer couples are frequently raising children that are both biological and adoptive, especially in the South, Ware, who identifies as a queer transmasculine man and was assigned female at birth is carrying the couple’s first child. On testosterone for over a decade, Ware says he never imagined that he’d one day have to decide to stop receiving gender-reinforcing hormones in order to conceive, but that was before he met Mills.

Ware proposed in October 2020, during a trip to Walt Disney World after dating Mills for two years. It was a surprise affirmation of their commitment to each other that Mills later reciprocated with a proposal of his own.

“There was just something about our connection that made me realize as long as I could do this, I would do it,” Ware says.

Queer couple Ja’Mel Ware, 32, and Alphonso Mills, 29, avoided each other for months after they first met at The Vision Cathedral of Atlanta in 2018. The avoidance—a result of excitement, fear, and an internal knowing that the journey they were about to embark upon would be different than any relationship they’d ever experienced—was cemented during a recent Thanksgiving trip to Disney World. It would prove to be a full-circle moment for Ware, who until recently associated the “most magical place on earth” with one of his most painful childhood memories.

Picture it. Atlanta. June 23, 2006. A Black church boy sits in a room awaiting the results of a rapid HIV test. The seconds feel like hours and the hours feel like days. The clock strikes 3 p.m., he is now fifteen minutes away from embodying the stereotype of Black gay men living with HIV as an inevitability. His greatest fear is confirmed. He is HIV-positive. He is also given 90 days to live. But for Morris Singletary, 43, Founder and CEO of Pozitive2Positive, there are no tears, only the beginning of an awakening that would lead him to fight for his life and the lives of other Black same gender loving church boys living with HIV.