The U.S. government’s theme for World AIDS Day 2022 is Putting Ourselves to the Test: Achieving Equity to End HIV, which emphasizes accountability and action. This theme echoes the Biden-Harris Administration’s dedication to ending HIV/AIDS as a public health threat worldwide by addressing health disparities in communities that have been disproportionately affected by COVID-19 and monkeypox.
“This World AIDS Day, we acknowledge the role equity plays in either the success or failure of our Nation’s HIV response. Providing equitable access to HIV testing, prevention, care, treatment, and research is key to ending the HIV epidemic,” said Harold Phillips, Director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy. “The COVID-19 pandemic has tested our resolve and our ability to focus on ending the HIV epidemic. This World AIDS Day, we must recommit and re-energize all sectors of society to center equity within our HIV response by ensuring that everyone with HIV and those at-risk for infection have access to appropriate HIV testing, treatment, and prevention services. We encourage everyone to get an HIV test and to help us combat HIV-related stigma. As we work to implement the National HIV AIDS Strategy, this year’s theme reminds us that the time has come to act, and for all of us to put ourselves to the test of ending HIV.”
Since 2020, I’ve been reminded time and again of the dangers of spreading misinformation and targeting any population as less worthy of care than others and of politicizing a pandemic or health crisis. What I saw in the 1990s happened again: The medical community stepped up, often at risk to themselves, to extend compassion and care to the poorest, the oldest, the most vulnerable among us. Whoever sows divisiveness, intolerance, and hate among us is not acting in the best interests of all of us.
My heart continues to go out for those who struggle with HIV and AIDS, and I’m grateful for the strides that scientific research and medicine have taught us about reacting to and controlling viral pandemics. The knowledge came at great cost. To ignore or dismiss it is a disservice to all people everywhere.
These are the NAMES Project AIDS Quilt Panels that I was a part of. Except for John’s, they were designed by me. Pete Martinez created John’s, and Tom and I were invited to add to it. Those I created were worked on by several people, including my late mother, Lynne, Debby, Amy, Tom, Nora, Vicki, and Lisa.
I have this large notebook filled with photos, mementos, correspondence, programs, and other miscellany documenting some of my experiences related to HIV and AIDS. For the first time in years, I just read my six-page introduction to it. So many details I’ve forgotten about those years, a buffer that nature sometimes provides to help us heal. My memories left me crying, but so, so grateful for the people and places that gave me purpose and passion.
Every time I choose to be kind, to lift my voice for anyone marginalized and mistreated, to urge compassion and acceptance, I hope to honor the people whose names are on these panels. They could have been anyone’s son, brother, lover, friend: ordinary people pursuing their lives. They were made extraordinary by their talents, courage, perseverance, and love of others. They touched untold lives and are missed every day.
I didn’t hear a single thing about WAD this year, although that may be due to my absence from social media. The only thing I did notice was MPs wearing red ribbons in Parliament.
I saw and heard very little as well, but I think it’s because I’m on a severely curtailed news diet for my own mental health.