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Deirdre decided to advocate more fiercely when her youngest son was a senior in high school. She knew that by the time she finished the PWN Policy Fellowship that her son would be off to college, leaving her without much to do. Her advocacy has centered around the fact that she wanted her children to have the chance to be whatever they envisioned for themselves and modeling that by changing the HIV narrative in Virginia. She began to change that narrative by talking about HIV with family, friends, and supporters. She wanted to show them that HIV did not define her.
Today, Deirdre’s advocacy efforts appear in museums, magazines, newspapers, on social media and television. As a PWN Policy Fellow, the participants go through a year-long training of the legislative process that prepares them for a 3-month practicum project before graduating from the fellowship. Deirdre created a brochure on the need to modernize Virgina’s HIV criminalization laws.
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Reviewing the bill was a huge undertaking, because the turnaround time was extremely short. Deirdre forwarded the bill to National Partners in Change, which included PWN’s policy team Breanna Diaz and Kelly Flannery. After an unsuccessful attempt by Deirdre and Breanna to speak with Delegate Mark Levine of Virginia, Levine’s office reached out to Deirdre to provide public comment on the bill the night before its first reading in front of the judiciary committee. She provided comments and attempted to provide more comments two days later but didn’t have the opportunity, so the bill passed out of the subcommittee. Here is a brief excerpt from Deirdre’s statement:
“Although I know my status, am undetectable, and disclose to my partners, it is not easy and in many cases unsafe for us living with HIV. While we would like to thank the patron of this bill for its introduction to Virginia lawmakers, we believe there is still work to do on this bill to ensure that ALL people living with HIV are represented equally and fairly. Amending our current code to explicitly include language on detectable and transmittable may align science with law, but it proves problematic for the most marginalized populations in Virginia. That is not equal nor fair.“
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Deirdre said, “Some of us complain about things we think we can’t change or don’t want to change, but now I know not just MY voice but OUR voice matters and will be heard. Trust and work the process–and be prepared!”
Congratulations Deirdre! We are all so proud of your advocacy and uplifting the voices of the community!