PWN’s February 2022 Shero of the Month is Rymsky Evans of Jackson, Mississippi. Rymsky Evans is an activist and has been the Mississippi State Lead for Positive Women’s Network since November 2021.
Rymsky is the mother of two adult sons and hopes to add a Labrador or Bulldog to her family soon. When it comes to her personal life she shares, “I have two hobbies: I’m a licensed hairstylist; I love doing hair. I’m also a painter, I love to paint. When I want to have a moment to break away and get into a stress-free environment, it’s doing hair and painting for me. They’re both very calming.”
Diagnosed in 2016, Rymsky didn’t have immediate access to support, so she set out to find it. For many people living with HIV, it takes some time to digest an HIV diagnosis, that includes Rymsky, who struggled with her status for the first two years of her diagnosis. Now, she’s making waves. “A lot of people ask, ‘How in the world are you in a good place?’ I have always been the person that didn’t let anything stop me.” It was that spirit that inspired Rymsky to seek out organizations to make an impact and support other people living with HIV.
That’s when Rymsky found PWN. Getting started with PWN was a no-brainer for her, “I researched Positive Women’s Network, and after that, I was sold. I got involved in some of the meetings and started talking to different people. I just fell in love with the fact that women were fighting for women, and having other women living with the same diagnosis was a positive for me. In my state, a lot of women don’t live out loud with HIV. We don’t even have support groups and spaces for women. When I saw that there was an organization that focused on women with HIV, specifically women of color and trans women, I had to get involved.”
Since getting involved with PWN, Rymsky has become even more active in HIV advocacy spaces. She is currently a part of the Sero Project Justice Institute Cohort, honing her skills in HIV decriminalization advocacy and developing an understanding of how the state legislature works. When talking about this work, Rymsky shared she is most proud of “being able to be a part of my state, Mississippi HIV Planning Council as a voice for Black women and women of color in general. To be able to make things known about what our community needs, offer peer support, and be a peer navigator for women and girls living with HIV, and connecting them to the services that they need.” Although Rysmsky isn’t employed as a peer navigator, a lot of her time is spent directing others living with HIV to valuable resources and treatment.
One of four advocates chosen to participate in the inaugural Health Not Prisons Collective State Advocates Program, Rymsky hopes to bring change to the state of Mississippi when it comes to HIV decriminalization, and build a coalition of women – specifically Black women, to change the narrative and make our voices known. This includes demanding better for all women, including women of trans experience. Next month in March, Rymsky will introduce the collective at the state’s Aids Watch event.
So what’s next for Rymsky? She would really like to see a PWN chapter formed in the state of Mississippi. But in the meantime, Rymsky stays motivated with meditation and devotion. When it comes to self-care, she gets her fair share, “if you don’t take care of yourself, you’re not able to take care of anybody else. And so self-care is one of the major things that I practice every day, if it be devotion, if it be going to work out in the gym, or quality time with myself going out to a restaurant, you know, something good because I learned I have to take care of myself.”