World AIDS Day, first observed in 1988, was the world’s first global health day. Today, more than thirty five years later, the message has evolved, but the mission has not. UNAIDS reports that tens of millions of people are still living with HIV worldwide, and far too many are still newly diagnosed each year. But what has changed is possibility. What has changed is power.
This year’s theme, Let Communities Lead, is a reminder that the real progress has never come from the top down. It has always come from the people living the reality, challenging misinformation, demanding dignity, and pushing science, policy, and public understanding forward. Communities have always been the backbone of this movement, even when institutions failed them.
We remember the early days of the epidemic, when fear shouted louder than facts and cruel headlines tried to define human beings by a virus. GLAAD itself was born out of that moment to confront stigma head-on. And decades later, the same pattern still lurks beneath the surface: misinformation, silence, and shame. They spread faster than truth if we allow them to.
But the truth is powerful. HIV is preventable. Treatment works. Undetectable means untransmittable. People living with HIV can and do live long, full, beautiful lives. Stigma cannot survive the light of real stories, real facts, and real leadership from the communities most affected.
World AIDS Day is not a day of mourning. It is a day of clarity. A day to say what must be said, loudly: Communities lead. The world follows. And the fight continues.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
