I was invited to attend the Saving Ourselves Symposium in Memphis, Tennessee this past weekend from June 4-7. I made a promise to myself that before I wrote about the experience, I would calm down first.
HIV has opened me up to so many people, places, prejudices, and misconceptions while completely shutting me off from the rest of the world. HIV had me convinced that no one would love or care about me. I would always be stuck in poverty, lack, doubt and hatred. I was a victim of self-induced stigma.
The Well Project interviews Vickie Lynn, Community Advisory Board member and A Girl Like Me blogger, for our "Spotlight: Women Making a Difference" series.
In many ways, one of our greatest success stories in the fight against HIV/AIDS to date has been our ability to reduce dramatically the rate of new HIV infections being passed from mother to child.
Tiommi Jenae (formerly Tommy) Luckett is a transgender woman of color living with HIV since September 2012. Luckett began advocating in February 2014 by speaking at the Presidential Advisory Council...
My name is Nancy Duncan. I'm 57 years young and I was born and raised and still live on Long Island, NY. My son Jason, now 35 has been my inspiration to survive living with HIV and an AIDS diagnosis...
"Why do you make such a publicity stunt of yourself?", chided one person. "Why can't you just be happy, shut up and enjoy your marital bliss? After all you have got a loving home and a loving family...
I know so many of us have many ideas and feelings about stigma or just the word itself....perhaps I am naive because I have never really experienced it firsthand. I want to believe it's because of my positive attitude and outlook and a feeling of confidence that nothing anyone says would hurt me.
This photograph was taken the summer of 1989. I had traveled from Florida to NY with my boyfriend for a mini vacation. As you can see, I was excited to have caught this little fish. We were in a small rowboat enjoying the warm day and I had no cares or concerns. Except that it had taken me a long time to reel that fish in.
It was a great honor to represent the state of Florida as a woman, a Latina and a Lesbian! It surprised me not to see more Latinas coming from Miami! I was the only one! It was like a Facebook reunion...