In this issue:
- Meet our Shero of the Month: Aryah Lester
- Organizing Spotlight: Florida PWNers Are Committed to Changing Policies and Electoral Organizing
- How Does PWN Help You? Tell Us in a Short Survey
- Have You Taken the #VotePositive Pledge?
- #PWNVotes 2020 Toolkit Shows How to Register Yourself and Others to Vote
- Apply for an AIDSWatch 2020 Scholarship
Meet our Shero of the Month: Aryah Lester
Our September Shero of the Month is Aryah Lester of Washington, District of Columbia. Her story is truly one of inspiration having faced many obstacles and still overcoming them. She said, “The first time I truly learned about privilege was after my transition. I never knew there existed so many bottom rungs to standard society before living as a black woman of transgender experience. I was staying at a youth shelter in Manhattan when I first transitioned, and I experienced homelessness twice after that. That time in my life taught me how to push through struggle, gain street smarts, and gain skills in areas such as sex work which I still utilize to this day. Although my life is exceedingly blessed now, I cannot forget where I’ve been and how it has positioned me.”
| Read the full story here! |
Organizing Spotlight: Florida PWNers Are Committed to Changing Policies and Electoral Organizing
HIV has long been misunderstood by the legal system. There are currently laws in 33 states criminalizing people living with HIV for exposure to HIV, nondisclosure of HIV and/or transmission. PWNers in Florida understand how these draconian laws do nothing to lower HIV incidence. We interviewed PWNers Kamaria Laffrey, lead organizer of the Florida HIV Justice Coalition on behalf of Sero Project and Alecia Tramel-Mathis, core leader for Team Shine about their HIV decriminalization efforts and Organizing for Power: Road to 2020.
Q. You have been working with the Florida HIV Justice Coalition to modernize the current HIV statute. What has that process been like? Why is it important for this to happen?
A. The FL HIV Justice Coalition brings together people living with HIV, HIV advocates, and people representing organizations that work with people living with HIV and/or at the intersections of HIV, to bring our state’s laws into alignment with current science. Florida still has–and enforces–laws that criminalize people living with HIV for consensual sex acts.
A person living with HIV can be convicted of a felony in Florida for consensual sex acts where there was no intent to harm, no harm occurred, and no transmission of HIV took place (or was even possible, since the law doesn’t look at what we know about modern science, such as that a person with an undetectable viral load cannot transmit HIV, and doesn’t take into account other factors such as whether condoms were used).
The National HIV/AIDS Strategy recommends that states review their criminalization laws to be sure they don’t undermine public health goals of testing and treatment, and CDC researchers reaffirmed that recommendation in a 2017 study, in which they found that HIV criminalization laws had “no detectable prevention effect.” We are working together to make Florida a state where nobody fears being tested or treated for HIV.
| Read the full interview here! |
How Does PWN Help You? Tell Us in a Short Survey
Positive Women’s Network wants to hear from you. Take 10-15 minutes to share how you engage with PWN, which programs and resources you use, and how we can do better, and you will be entered in a drawing for two $25 gift cards. **This survey is only for self-identified women and people of trans experience living with HIV.**| Take the survey here! |
Have You Taken the #VotePositive Pledge?
Have you taken the #VotePositive pledge yet?
With more than 1.1 million people living with HIV nationally and millions more connected to the HIV service delivery system, and with a long history of effective activism, the HIV community holds great potential as an organized electorate. Yet no national voter organizing efforts to date have deliberately invested time, capacity, or resources to engage this base.
PWN, the premiere national membership body of women and transgender people living with HIV, plans to change this by leading an innovative, nonpartisan electoral organizing effort.
Vote Positive will leverage deep HIV community organizing roots in ten states to register, engage, educate, and mobilize “hard-to-reach” voters, while providing tools to HIV organizations to scale up their own nonpartisan voter engagement efforts. Learn more about our 2020 HIV Voter Engagement Plan.
| Take the #VotePositive Pledge! |
#PWNVotes 2020 Toolkit Shows How to Register Yourself and Others to Vote
To win on #HIV in 2020, our community must be ready to vote before going to the polls! Use the information inside Part 1. Preparing the Vote: Registering Voters & Removing Barriers to Voting of the #PWNVotes Election Toolkit to make sure you and your allies are prepared for Election Day. The links include resources for registering to vote, finding out eligibility rules in your state, knowing your rights, and tips for getting others registered and making voting more accessible. #PWNVotes!
| Check out the #PWNVotes Election toolkit! |
Apply for an AIDSWatch 2020 Scholarship
AIDSWatch scholarships are open through Oct. 11 at 8pm ET / 5pm PT. Apply today! A total of 50 hotel, travel, and registration scholarships will be issued through this process. Travel accommodations will include two nights (Sunday, March 29 and Monday, March 30) at the Sheraton Pentagon City Hotel in Arlington, Virginia along with airfare, train, or mileage reimbursement for transportation. Hotel rooms will be shared (two scholarship recipients in a double room) and participants will be responsible for all incidental costs at hotel, ground transport, and meals outside of AIDSWatch plenary meals (breakfast and lunch on March 30).
AIDSWatch is the largest annual national constituent-based advocacy event focused on HIV policy in the United States. The event draws hundreds of people living with HIV and their allies to Washington, DC for two days to educate Members of Congress and their staff about HIV. Participants will receive training on current science, legislative priorities, and how to conduct effective meetings with their elected representatives.
| Apply for a scholarship here! |