Our September 2021 Shero of the Month is Grissel Granados of Los Angeles, California. Grissel Granados is an HIV advocate, HIV Prevention Program Manager at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, and Positive Women’s Network (PWN) Board member since April 2018. You may remember Grissel as a co-director of the groundbreaking 2015 documentary on young people born with HIV, “We’re Still Here.”
“Grissel is a Shero to me every day,” said PWN co-executive director Naina Khanna. “I so appreciate her brilliant insights, her laughter, and her fierce commitment to justice and equity. As a board member, she asks thoughtful questions and pushes us as an organization. Grissel has been a key contributor in work around addressing anti-Black racism as it shows up in communities of color impacted by HIV as well as PWN’s efforts to integrate language justice. Grissel is one of those people you can count on to have your back when you’re not in the room. She’ll actually kick the door down for you. Grissel is super smart, she’s a warrior and a soldier for the people, and she does it all with the most immense love and humility and while parenting a small revolutionary human. I’m grateful to be in this work with her and to call her a friend.”
The Woman Behind the Movement
“I pretty much have always known [my HIV status], I found out when [my mother] found out.” Grissel shared about her diagnosis of HIV in 1991 when she was 5-years-old. Grissel’s mother contracted HIV from a blood transfusion and transmitted the virus during pregnancy or while breastfeeding. Grissel’s mother inspired her early in life through her openness and advocacy efforts, and Grissel became a public speaker at 11 or 12 years old, continuing to inform and educate her local community on her own story and HIV education.
“After college, I hadn’t immediately thought about working in the HIV field.. but I ended up going to school in central California, which is a little bit more rural. I found coming from a place like Los Angeles that had a lot of resources, that the experience for folk was different. I use these experiences to think outside of myself and think I can work in this field and help other people. I felt I had a good experience growing up and I wanted to make sure I was contributing to providing those types of opportunities, resources, and spaces that I was privileged enough to have growing up. This is how I got in the field., I got my master’s in social work. I knew then I wanted to work in the field, give back to my community and work with other people living with HIV around HIV prevention.”
Using her own experience, Grissel has dedicated her life to helping others living with HIV and preventing new cases of HIV. For Grissel, advocacy is a part of her everyday work, which includes pushing boundaries and centering people living with HIV. Additionally, she separates advocacy from her career through involvement with PWN, global efforts, and her documentary.
“Even though I had never created a film and it wasn’t something I was interested in doing, it is what came to me and the way I wanted to advocate and document my experience. Things came back full circle, I got into the work thinking this is not about me, trying to decenter my own experience, but I did a documentary to re-center and reconnect to my own experience. I feel like that’s been my journey and I go back and forth with these questions: have I been represented? And, also, the sense that this isn’t about me taking up space but creating space for other folks. I go back and forth on that experience and journey.”
We’re Still Here is available free on YouTube for anyone to watch, you can click here to watch the film now! While the documentary doesn’t have much of Grissel’s own story included, it does feature the untold stories of the first generation of children who were born with HIV in the 80s and 90s.
What’s In Store
“We can live in our truth and enjoy our lives with and despite our HIV status. Creating spaces where we can just holistically be, is what I hope for people living with HIV, and also young queer folk, who also hear a lot of stigmatizing, homophobic and transphobic messaging from society. What I want to feel good about at the end of the day in terms of the work that I do, contributing to creating spaces where people can just be, and feel safe and happy.”
Grissel is passionate about reproductive justice, LGTBQ issues, centering people of color, and raising her 2-year old son. Today Grissel enjoys life with her partner, and son that they adopted through foster care. Grissel has had him since just 3 weeks old, and he is now 2.5 years old. Most of her time outside of work is spent making sure her son is safe, happy, and loved.
“He’s priority number one, that’s what my life is right now. Trying to figure out how I can give him the best life I possibly can. How do I make myself a better person to provide a nurturing and positive environment for him? Especially right now, as a two-year-old, the stereotype is terrible twos but I am reframing that. He is perfectly fine and normal, and perfect and it’s a stage where I am introspective into my own patience and views of a parent-child relationship. Trying to reframe and not project the “terrible two’s” unto him.” Just like with HIV, Grissel is committed to creating a space for her son to be loved, feel safe, and happy.
Grissel believes as a woman born with HIV, she’s able to lean on her own childhood to navigate parenthood. The transparency from her mother provided experiences on how to speak to her child in the future about what it means to be adopted. Like HIV, adoption can come with stigma, taboos, and challenges, potential feelings her son may feel about being adopted in the future. Learning from how her mother navigated difficult conversations with her as a child, has given her a good pattern to replicate. Going through the adoption process intersected with her fight for reproductive justice on a personal level. Grissel didn’t want to birth a child of her own, she knew from a young age her choice, and her choice was not a response to her HIV status.
“I know women living with HIV can biologically have HIV-negative children, and I feel people will project their own ideas of childbirth and women living with HIV. But, nope, I think it is beautiful and amazing that women living with HIV can get pregnant and bear children, but I knew I wanted a child but I didn’t want to give birth. My body has been through a lot and the risks of childbirth, this was not something I wanted to do.”
Experiencing the joy of being a parent, and raising a happy and healthy son is what makes Grissel most happy. A champion advocate and now a model for women who decide if and when they want to experience childbirth. Connection to community is a huge part of Grissel’s life and encompasses why she chooses to work in HIV prevention and with PWN, that deal with issues beyond those experienced by cis-gendered women but work on issues regarding trans/queer folk, criminalization, healthcare for all, and reproductive justice. For any woman looking to become an advocate, or work with PWN, Grissel says, “make time to connect and foster relationships, PWN can help to build your network while you impact change.”