It is with deep gratitude and thanks that I write my final MPU as PWN’s Lessow Reproductive Health Law Fellow. Throughout the last year we navigated various domestic policy and legal updates including: the government shutdown, cuts to long-term housing, ADAP changes in Florida, escalating state sanctioned violence by ICE, increasing criminalization, and continued attacks on the trans community. Despite the continued challenges, people power through organizing is the bedrock of resistance and hope.
PWN reaffirmed for me that intersectional and transformative solidarity are essential to liberation. As Audre Lorde stated “we do not live single-issue lives,” and therefore our advocacy cannot be siloed. DRUM (Desis Rising up & Moving) defines transformative solidarity as: “when masses of oppressed communities choose to forgo something that would benefit them, and do not take it because it comes at the expense of other oppressed communities.” As the Trump administration continues dismantling social safety nets while criminalizing communities most impacted by HIV, it can be easy to fall into a zero-sum approach to policy advocacy. Zero-sum thinking describes a belief that if one group wins then another group must lose. This approach to policy helps bolster “divide and conquer” tactics where otherwise aligned communities are pitted against each other based on the false narrative that we cannot all “win.” The goal is to keep us fighting each other over minor funding so we won’t work together to break the systems that keep us in cycles of poverty, violence, and crisis. Even when we do not win, our fight cannot leave others behind. The state violence and the organized chaos of this administration is designed to destabilize our movements by capitalizing on fractures between us. We must be fiercely intentional about our response.
As an Ethiopian-immigrant, the increased criminalization of immigrants over the last few years exemplifies for me the need for continued intersectionality and transformative solidarity in the HIV movement that transcends borders. Historically, the United States used health status as an excuse to exclude groups of people and reinforce national borders.* From 1993 to 2009, the United States included HIV/AIDS on the list of health-related grounds to exclude immigrants. Today’s immigrant detention emerged from the detention of Black bodies, and it was Haitian migrants specifically who bore the violence. The first time immigrants were held at Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp, the “island outside the law,” was early in the HIV pandemic and it was Haitian migrants who were first indefinitely detained. Immigrants living with HIV were transferred to a separate area of Guantanamo called “Camp Bulkeley,” the HIV detention camp.
Despite unsanitary conditions they were forced to live under, Haitian migrants held demonstrations to draw attention to the United States’ military violence. At the same time, ACT UP protested outside of the office of Immigration and Naturalization Services in New York and formed a secret network of safe spaces to provide assistance for Haitians who were released from Guantanamo. The case of Haitians at Guantanamo illustrates intersecting forms of oppression: immigration status, anti-Blackness, HIV status, and anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments. Black bodies were a site of state sponsored violence, but also a site of resistance as Haitians even engaged in hunger strikes to shed light on their situation. The crisis at Guantanamo demonstrated international solidarity; in addition to protests, nonprofits, including prominent legal organizations, brought a lawsuit that led to a federal judge ordering the closing of the camp and the release of Haitians in 1993.
State violence transcends the imaginary boundaries of the nation state. The Trump administration shut down USAID (United States Agency for International Development), an agency providing assistance to about 130 countries with a budget of about $63 billion. Reduction in international aid has been accompanied by drastic cuts to domestic programming and increased military funding. The administration now aims to use its global power and financial influence to coerce nations into signing extractive health agreements before receiving aid. The agreements essentially use people living with health conditions, including HIV, as a bargaining chip so the United States can access mineral resources and private health data.
The road ahead is not easy, and many days it looks bleak. But, as we know harm and violence transcends borders, so must our solidarity and organizing. Political organizing that recognizes the interconnectedness of both our harm and liberation serves as a north star amidst the chaos of current times. I will carry this learning with me in mind, heart, and soul as I continue on my professional and personal journey. It has been a privilege to learn from and with you all. Until we meet again, I will carry on all that I have learned and unlearned from doing this work alongside you all.
With solidarity, love & immense gratitude,
Helina Haile
*For more information about how the United States used health status to exclude groups of people and reinforce national borders, read Steven W. Thrasher’s book, “The Viral Underclass” (2022), especially pages 135-136.
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