🤲🏽 WORLD AIDS DAY 🟰 EQUALIZE🤞🏽

On 1 December, World AIDS Day, we lift up and empower our LGBTQ+ siblings who are living with HIV, and we remember the countless lives lost to the ongoing AIDS pandemic. Founded in 1988, World AIDS Day was the first-ever global health day. UNAIDS (the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS) estimates that some 37.7 million people were living with HIV in 2020, including some 1.5 million people who became newly infected that year. An estimated 36.3 million people have died of AIDS-related illnesses since the pandemic began.

More than forty years ago, the first AIDS cases were reported in the United States. We won’t repeat the NY Post’s shocking, disparaging headline about the tragedy of HIV/AIDS at the beginning of the epidemic, but defamatory, damaging, and stigmatizing news during the AIDS crisis is why GLAAD was founded.

Decades later, the vocabulary has changed about the places where HIV/AIDS is still epidemic, but the pain and vitriol remain the same. Their spread is fueled by no information – or misinformation – about heartbreakingly simple facts that – if known – would signal every reason for hope: Progress in science and medicine now makes HIV not only preventable, but when treated properly, absolutely untransmittable.

Misinformation and stigma thrive in silence. Neither can stand the humanizing light of facts, stories of actual lives, and game changing, accurate news about the fact that we can prevent HIV.