Rooted, Rising, and (Still) Resisting: PWN’s Impact Report 2019-2020

July 14, 2021: For some of us, the last time we were together in person was at PWN’s 2019 Organizing for Power Bootcamp. We gathered together to learn about electoral organizing, to perfect our voter engagement and grassroots organizing skills, and to coordinate our strategy for 2020.

But let’s be honest: the best part was sharing space together. Plotting together. Eating together. Dancing together.

Mere months later, everything changed. We experienced a global pandemic with huge impacts on economic security, increased white supremacist terror; a continued onslaught of anti-Black, state-sanctioned violence; uprisings for Black lives; climate emergency; and so much more. Our people experienced times of extraordinary loss, grief, rage, and crisis. We could not continue on with “business as usual.”

In 2019 and 2020, PWN moved beyond advocacy to support the urgent and emergent social, physical, and financial needs of our members and communities. We deepened and elevated our commitment to racial justice and trans liberation.

At the same time, we prioritized building long-term power in communities of women and trans people most impacted by the HIV epidemic. We nurtured and supported leadership development among women and trans people living with HIV; built powerful, ongoing integrated voter engagement campaigns in Colorado, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Texas; and advanced policy solutions grounded in the lived experience of our members and communities.

Through the caring and tenacity of our members and allies across the nation, we mobilized and won on health care access, expanded paid family medical leave, police accountability, sexual health education, LGBTQ rights, and more.

We defeated attacks on voting rights, medication and housing for people living with HIV, rights and safety for trans people, and reproductive freedom.

Here’s a quick look at what we did in 2019-2020:

We are so grateful for our members and allies who have made this work possible. You have changed state and local policies, federal advocacy spaces, and the HIV movement in general by consistently showing up and throwing down for human rights and reproductive justice.

We are brimming with pride for all that we’ve accomplished together. Find out more by reading Rooted and Rising: PWN’s 2019-2020 Impact Report.

We are stronger and more powerful because of you.