Our vision is a world where all self-identified women living with HIV (WLHIV) can live long, healthy, and dignified lives, free from stigma and discrimination. Because the HIV pandemic globally and domestically has been propelled by racism, poverty, misogyny and intersectional stigma, we understand that achieving our vision requires an approach to policy advocacy that takes these factors into account while centering the thought leadership, representation and voices of communities that are directly and disproportionately impacted. 

We recognize and appreciate that significant advocacy is already underway on behalf of people living with HIV. Our policy priorities are strategically chosen to fill gaps that we perceive in the landscape, including places we perceive opportunities to uplift the voices of people living with HIV (PLHIV) and/or racial, gender, and economic justice for PLHIV. In particular, we seek to elevate the analysis of potential impacts of particular policies holistically, especially as they will be experienced by women of color, women of trans experience, low-income women and women from the U.S. South and territories – in our own policy agenda and in the broader field.

In this political moment, we are facing grave challenges to the health, human rights, security, and bodily autonomy of our community. We commit to respond to those challenges with all our political and personal capital. But despite this need for reactive advocacy, our vision also demands that we push the edges of what is broadly considered politically possible. Thus, we seek to uplift, support and, where necessary, create transformative campaigns that redistribute power away from the systems that have not served us and which actively harm our communities.  

In the process, we are committed to building long term and sustainable political power for our people. As a result, our policy agenda reflects:

1. Defensive campaigns to maintain the programs, services and policies on which women living with HIV rely for survival.
2. Long-term investment in interrogating, disrupting and eventually dismantling oppressive systems — holding them to account for decades of neglect and even exploitation.
3. Visioning and creating alternative systems, institutions and processes that serve our communities better.

Our agenda contemplates a world where all WLHIV can control our own bodies, sexuality and reproductive possibilities; where access to non-stigmatizing, trauma-informed, comprehensive health care is available regardless of gender expression, country of origin or immigration status; and where all WLHIV have economic security, safety and self-determination. Our vision demands that our communities are free from interpersonal, structural and state-sanctioned violence and that we are free from surveillance, confinement and the carceral state – regardless of race, HIV status, immigration status, how we earn money and which substances we use.  

Outlined on these pages are our policy priorities to achieve this vision.

Click below each graphic above to learn more about our policy priorities.

Artwork by Megan Smith/Repeal Hyde Art Project.