In this issue:
- Shero of the Month: Evonne Kaho
- Join us for PWNCares: Healthy Beyond ARVs
- Vote for PWN for POZ Best Video Series!
- Public Charge and the Impact on the HIV Community
- #CancelKavanaugh
Shero of the Month: Evonne Kaho
Our September Shero of the Month is Evonne Kaho of Jackson, Mississippi, known in the LGBTQ community as Queen Mother of the South for the crucial support she provides to transgender women. She is Mississippi State Lead for Positive Women’s Network – USA, a National Advisory Board member for Positively Trans at Transgender Law Center, and a member of the Mississippi HIV Planning Council. Active in the Transgender Law Center’s ACA Positive campaign, Evonne said of attacks on the Affordable Care Act: “Everyone should be able to access medical care, whenever they need it. Everyone deserves to feel safe. Everyone.”
| Read more |
Nominate your shero for PWN Shero of the Month here!
Next Monday, Oct. 8: Join Us for PWNCaresHealthy Beyond ARVs
October 7-13 is Mental Illness Awareness Week—an occasion to bring mental health out of the shadows, talk about it, and, in so doing, combat the stigma it brings–and Oct. 10 is World Mental Health Day.
Join PWN-USA next Monday, Oct. 8, at 4pm EDT/1pm PDT as we launch the latest video in the #PWNCares series during a live online conversation—a “virtual coffee table chat”—with the women interviewed in the video.
Watch the trailer for the video here!
The full video, which will be premiered during the virtual coffee table, will be available for streaming and download on our website here, along with a discussion guide that may be helpful for use in support groups, women’s meetings, health care settings, or other events.
| Register here |
Vote for PWNCares for POZ Best Video Series!
We are honored to have had our interactive multimedia series, #PWNCares, nominated for Best Video Series in the POZ Awards! Be sure to vote for your favorite nominees by the World AIDS Day deadline: Saturday, December 1, 2018.
| Vote now! |
How Will the Trump Administration’s New Public Charge Rule Affect the HIV Community?
Throughout history, people have moved to make better lives for themselves and their children. Trump’s “public charge” rule change, set to be announced this week, will reduce our neighbors, who want the same things for their families that we all want–health, safety, dignity, economic security–to a calculation of what is in their pockets when they arrive and the cost of any pre-existing health conditions they may have. The invaluable contributions of immigrants to their communities, families, and our nation will be ignored and discarded.
This new rule, if enacted, could have serious consequences for immigrants living with HIV and other chronic health conditions. Read PWN-USA’s statement on public charge here.
PWN-USA will be co-hosting a webinar next Wednesday, Oct. 3, at 2pm EDT/11am PDT, along with partners from African Services Committee, National Immigration Law Center, and National Health Law Program. To learn more about the possible impacts of the rule change on immigrants living with HIV, please join us.
| Register here |
PWNers Fight to #CancelKavanaugh
Hundreds of protesters, including PWNer and sexual assault survivor Mary Jane Maestas of Delta, Colorado, and PWN’s executive director Naina Khanna, have been demonstrating against confirmation of Trump’s Supreme Court nominee Judge Brett Kavanaugh in Washington, D.C. While women’s rights and bodily autonomy have been on the line since his nomination was announced, credible allegations of sexual assault that have come out in recent weeks and a public hearing last Thursday with echoes of Anita Hill have fueled the urgency to stop his confirmation.
Dozens of protesters, including Mary Jane, were arrested after occupying the offices of three women senators to protest Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
Check her out in this USA Today photo (above)!
And watch Naina confront Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in the D.C. airport!
Call your Senators today at 202-224-3121 and tell them to vote no on Kavanaugh!
Want to do more? Our partners at Housing Works and Center for Popular Democracy are helping organize outraged folks just like us to take the Senate by storm and make sure survivors are heard. If you live in the D.C. area, are within driving distance, or would be down to join a carpool to Washington, D.C., fill out this form.