June 3, 2024 - The Desert Sun.
by Ema Sasic
A new conference dedicated to women living with HIV will make its debut June 8 in Palm Springs, providing a space for women to share their experiences, learn more about their diagnoses and connect to resources.
The "SHE is" Women's Conference, organized by the HIV+ Aging Research Project Palm Springs and The Well Project, will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, June 8, both in person at the Mizell Center in Palm Springs and virtually on Zoom.
What is the 'SHE is' Women's Conference?
The "SHE is" Women's Conference is open to women living with HIV across the gender spectrum, those affected by HIV and caregivers and providers of HIV services. "SHE" is an acronym that stands for "Shifting the narrative, Healing her spirit and Embracing the future."
Bridgette Picou, stakeholder liaison for The Well Project and a licensed vocational nurse who has a certification in AIDS care, has worked on organizing a women-centric conference for years and knows how critical an event such as this can be.
Picou was diagnosed with HIV around 11 years ago. HIV, or human immunodeficiency virus, is a virus that attacks cells that help the body fight infection. If left untreated, it can lead to AIDS, or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. Approximately 39 million people globally were living with HIV in 2022, and 85.6 million have been infected by HIV since the start of the epidemic in the 1980s.
Since her diagnosis, Picou, who lived and worked in Palm Springs for most of that time, was able to get the health care access she needed, but lacked a community of women she could turn to to discuss navigating life with HIV. In 2018, she came across The Well Project, an online global resource that serves girls and women living with and vulnerable to HIV, and she felt like "so much opened up" for her.
"My personal view on HIV opened up a lot more because there was finally a space where I could see voices and faces who were like mine because Palm Springs is a predominately male-centric space, and while I was able to get health care in Palm Springs, there weren't many women that were living out loud with HIV, and then the ones who were that I met were older. None of them were Black," Picou said. "Being able to find a large, diverse community of women was incredible."
Through her own journey, she noticed that women with HIV often don't feel seen, or feel that they can't openly discuss their health. There's also a lot of nuisances and intersections that these women face, including intimate partner violence, sharing their status with their children, pregnancy and breastfeeding. That's why a women-focused conference is so necessary, she said.
"Oftentimes, an HIV diagnosis is devastating. But once you learn to navigate it as a woman, it's not always the first thing you think about first thing in the morning," Picou said. "Being able to be around other women and talk about things like dating and disclosure and raising children and not having to be faced with the ignorance and stigma that people often put on folks that are living with HIV is amazing."
