Dear friends,
I hope you are doing well as we recognize the 35th World AIDS Day. We’ve been in this epidemic for a long time, and today means a lot to me personally. Almost 30 years ago, I was given 6 to 18 months to live when I was diagnosed with AIDS. Fortunately, we have made incredible advances so people can live long, healthy lives. But we still have much to do to ensure everyone has access to effective treatments, to find a cure, and to end the epidemic of HIV stigma and discrimination.
The Williams Institute has always included work on HIV discrimination and stigma in our research portfolio. And this year, we’ve seen our research lead to several important policy changes.
Just today, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ) announced its finding that Tennessee and Shelby County violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by enforcing the state’s HIV criminalization law that applies to sex workers. The factual findings by the DOJ rely directly on groundbreaking Williams Institute research, led by our HIV Criminalization Project Director Nathan Cisneros and University of Memphis professor of social work Robin Lennon-Dearing.
The study finds that prosecutions are primarily the result of undercover police operations targeting Black cis and transgender sex workers. These women are arrested based on a contrived conversation, not because they had sex that put anyone at risk. For those conversations, which are often about oral sex, they receive a felony conviction instead of a misdemeanor, serve years in jail, and are put on Tennessee’s sex offender registry for life—just because they are HIV-positive.
Based on its investigation and this injustice, the Department of Justice concludes that Tennessee’s statute “is outdated, has no basis in science, and discourages testing and further marginalizes people living with HIV.” It orders the state to immediately stop enforcing the law and seek legislative repeal to end the law’s stigmatizing effect and devastating life-long consequences on People Living with HIV.
Earlier this year, our research also supported the decision by the FDA to finally end its discriminatory practice of limiting gay and bisexual men from donating blood. As of this fall, screenings adopted by the Red Cross and others ask every individual about their behaviors that might put them at risk for HIV instead of screening people out based on their sexual orientation. The Williams Institute helped lead the way for these changes by publishing the first report on the much-needed positive impact that allowing men who have sex with men to donate blood would have on the nation’s blood supply. In 2014, we predicted it would increase the blood supply in the United States by 2 to 4%—saving hundreds of thousands of lives. That finding helped create this year’s policy change.
HIV continues to impact many in the LGBTQ community. Discriminatory laws, like HIV criminal laws, which were aimed initially at gay and bisexual men, now primarily affect Black men and women who are straight and LGBTQ.
The Williams Institute will continue to conduct research on HIV until this epidemic—both the medical epidemic and the accompanying epidemic of discrimination and stigma—ends for everyone.
We hope you will join us by supporting this vital work.
Thank you,
Brad
Brad Sears
Founding Director of the Williams Institute
Roberta A Conroy Scholar of Law & Policy
|
|
