Dear PWN Community,
Today, October 23, 2018, is the fifth National Day of Action to End Violence Against Women Living with HIV. This year’s Day of Action falls at a time when a crucial part of our community—people of trans experience—are facing an attempt to erase their very existence, perpetrated by the Trump administration as a cynical campaign ploy to score political points and mobilize the right-wing base ahead of the midterm elections. This new proposal policy is a clear example of state violence that dehumanizes vulnerable communities, exacerbating physical violence against women of trans experience.
Click here to find ways you can participate in and support the Day of Action online or in person.
Positive Women’s Network – USA (PWN-USA), a national network of women and people of trans experience living with HIV, called for the Day of Action in 2014 during Domestic Violence Awareness Month in response to the brutal, high-profile murders of Cicely Bolden and Elisha Henson following disclosure of their HIV-positive status. Our goal has always been to propose concrete solutions to address the many forms of violence faced by people living with HIV.
Women with HIV suffer lifetime sexual assault at five times the rate of the general population and are twice as likely to face intimate partner violence (IPV). We also suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression at much higher rates than the general population. In 2015, 53% of trans women of color report having been sexually assaulted in their lifetime, and 10% within the past year; 54% reported experiencing some form of intimate partner violence. Since trans women of color are disproportionately impacted by HIV—which can also leave them more vulnerable to violence—we can speculate that these alarming rates are even higher for them.
Yet women living with HIV frequently do not report the violence perpetrated against us because we know that, more often than not, we will not be believed, or worse: We could face further violence at the hands of law enforcement. For many women living with HIV, especially women of trans experience, who don’t speak fluent English, or with precarious immigration status, going to the authorities is not a viable option. For people with HIV, the risks are amplified, as stigma and the spectre of criminalization based on our HIV status hang over our heads—especially when the highest apparatus of the state attempts to deny our very existence and our humanity.
Show your support for the Day of Action to End Violence Against Women Living with HIV here.
Intimate partner violence doesn’t happen in a vacuum. As mostly Black, Latinx, and low-income women and people of trans experience living with HIV, we are survivors of an entire system of structural violence that includes intergenerational poverty; slavery and genocide of our ancestors; and the War on Drugs, which has played out as a war on poor people of color. Financial insecurity can lead us to stay in abusive relationships. Homelessness and desperation can lead us into situations where we are at high risk of violence. Fear of criminalization or deportation can keep us quiet about the abuse we face. All of these structural factors leave us ever more vulnerable to different types of violence and exploitation.
We can’t end violence against women and people of trans experience living with HIV without changing how power is held and by whom. Join us tomorrow on our National Get Out the Vote Day to mobilize the HIV vote.
PWN-USA envisions a world where women living with HIV can lead long, healthy, dignified lives, free from stigma, violence, discrimination, or coercion. We have seen the power we wield when we come together across race, gender, age, ability, geography, socioeconomic class, religion, immigration status—all the wedges white male politicians, desperately clinging onto the last vestiges of their power in a rapidly changing nation, use to divide us.
When we have each other’s backs, when we refuse to be divided, we are truly a force to be reckoned with. When we protect the rights of people of all races, genders, and any immigration status to bodily autonomy, safety, economic security, proper health care, housing, education, and opportunity, violence against our communities will no longer be tolerated.
Stand with us today, on our 5th Day of Action to End Violence Against Women Living with HIV this October 23. We are your siblings, friends, neighbors, coworkers, aunts, mothers, grandmothers, cousins, nieces. We need you.
Show your support by endorsing our platform for rights, safety and dignity for our communities—and by helping get out the vote tomorrow!
In sisterhood and solidarity,
Team PWN-USA
P.S. Having each other’s backs means doing our part to make sure leaders who represent our communities are elected. That’s why we ask you to join us TOMORROW, October 24, for a National #PWNVotes Get Out The Vote Call Day by calling or texting at least 5 likeminded relatives, friends, coworkers, or neighbors to remind them to vote. Early voting will be starting in most places. PWN-USA is committed to building power and turning our communities out to the polls this November. Will you join us?
P.P.S. Help spread the word on social media! Here’s a social media toolkit to make it easy.
