Saluting Our Sisters For Black History Month 2023 

This Black History Month, I am saluting all my sisters who are living and thriving with HIV. I salute my HIV activist sisters who are fighting HIV stigma.

I went into denial when I got my diagnosis. It wasn’t a conscious decision; I was overwhelmed, and the diagnosis felt like I was drowning. On reflection, I was grieving, and I truly had a lot to understand and come to terms with. 

HIV now is about managing my medication and my life choices. My new reality is that as long as I take my medication, I am well, I can’t pass the virus on. Undetectable Equals Untranssmissable or U=U.

So why the activism?  Well, most people don’t know I can’t pass HIV on thanks to the treatment I take.  Not only do the public not know this but also a lot of people with HIV don’t know it. It blights and shapes lives for all of us.

Stigma and discrimination mean that people live in fear of a positive diagnosis, in fear of the medication, what people will do to them if they know, they live in fear of rejection. Whilst “the truth is out there”, sadly most people struggle to find it as they get lost in information overload.

So, for me activism is about setting the record straight, as best as I can.  Sometimes in the big stuff, like marching to end stigma and discrimination, but often it’s in the small stuff like reminding people that HIV and AIDS are not the same thing. 

My biggest drivers are around changing people’s perception and experience of HIV. Fortunately, as the Women’s Activity Officer at George House Trust, I support women to figure out what living well with HIV means to them. 

Women are offered opportunities to support each other through counselling, peer support, drop-in’s and workshops. 

We can grieve over the diagnosis but also learn how to manage our medication, our relationships and stigma so that we go back into our communities more confidently.

It doesn’t mean the journey is easy but that women are more willing to challenge the choices and beliefs they had about living with HIV.

Yvonne Richards-Cooper 

October 5th 2023