Indiana has six laws that criminalize people living with HIV (PLWH), including two laws that make it a felony to donate blood, plasma, and semen for artificial insemination if a person knows they have HIV. Our new report examined the enforcement of Indiana’s HIV-related donation laws and found that at least 18 people in Indiana were charged with 21 violations of the state’s HIV-related criminal donation law between 2001 and 2023. All of the arrests stemmed from an attempt to donate at a plasma center. Additionally, Indiana’s HIV-related donation laws disproportionately impact Black people, and Black men in particular. 

State population, PLWH, and HIV-related donation arrests in Indiana by race and sex

By Miguel Fuentes Carreño, Williams Institute Policy Fellow and Research Data Analyst
El Heraldo de México
June 30, 2024

This year has come with signifiant changes in the U.S. immigration policy and legal landscape, by creating double borders to LGBTIQ+ immigrants, particularly those for Latin America. They face not just a physical border that is getting tighter, but also an invisible border within the system itself. President Biden enforced new restrictions to asylum seekers in the souther border, tightening the requirements to obtain the status.

The Williams Institute is seeking an experienced director to lead the Institute’s educational programming for judges, lawyers, law students, and the public. The Director will also be responsible for running three of the Institute’s premier annual programs: the Williams Institute Moot Court Competition, the Dukeminier Awards Journal, and the Institute’s Annual Update Conference. After the second year in the position, the Director will teach a course at UCLA Law focused on sexual orientation, gender identity, and the law.

Deadline to apply: July 31, 2024

For the past eight years, Blachford-Cooper Research Director Kerith Conron has led a team of scholars in defining and executing a research agenda that informs LGBTQ public policy debates. During her tenure, she authored and co-authored several dozen reports, including estimates of the LGBTQ population and studies on issues that impact LGBTQ communities, such as poverty, student loan debt, barriers to higher education, COVID-19, and gun violence. Much of her work focused on LGBTQ youth, immigrants, and transgender people. 

Kerith presented the Williams Institute’s work to policymakers and government organizations, including testifying before Congress, making a keynote address to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and presenting to the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights, the Federal Committee on Statistical Methodology, and the LGBTQI+ Rights in Foreign Assistance Interagency Working Group.

She is looking forward to spending time with family, and we wish Kerith all the best in her next chapter.

Join us for a webinar on the results from our recent survey. Panelists will discuss the meaning and implications of these findings on China's LGBTQ population today. The webinar will be in English with Chinese subtitles.

The Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law is an academic research institute dedicated to conducting rigorous, independent research on sexual orientation and gender identity law and public policy.