National Minority AIDS Council CEO Harold Phillips speaks outside of the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, Sept. 3. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Advocates for HIV treatment and prevention gathered on Capitol Hill Sept. 3 for a rally following meetings with lawmakers. Speakers at the rally included U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), the entertainers Peppermint and Javier Muñoz, as well as several movement leaders. The rally was held as the National Minority AIDS Council hosts the U.S. Conference on HIV/AIDS in Washington, D.C. this week.
“As thousands of HIV advocates from across the world gather in D.C. this week to share scientific breakthroughs, build up capacity training and surround ourselves with community, we recognize that this particular moment demands a fight for our very existence,” said Harold Phillips, incoming CEO of the National Minority AIDS Council to the crowd. “We are here today not just to raise our voices, but to demand and defend our future.”
“At a time when public health structures are under attack, and when science is politicized, and when the most vulnerable among us is being pushed further to the margins, we stand united to say, ‘funding for HIV testing, prevention, treatment, housing and research must be protected,’” Phillips continued.
Peppermint, advocate and entertainer of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” fame, gave remarks at the rally.
“The cuts being proposed will completely erase all of our progress, all of the progress we’ve made since the 1980s. Not just in programs, but in science and in lives saved. These cuts will kill,” Peppermint said.
“I stand here today a proud actress, a proud performer, a proud advocate, and a very proud Black, trans woman,” Peppermint continued. “My very existence is the American dream: free to love, and live and express myself. This American dream is, once again, under threat. But from the inside. And I am calling on Congress to see us. Because we are not disposable, we are not invisible and we will not be silent.”
In the remarks Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) gave at the rally, the congresswoman spoke about U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Secretary Kennedy faced a grilling on Capitol Hill Thursday in the U.S. Senate.
“My staff was trying to remind me of the letter that I sent to Kennedy asking him, first of all, not to fire everybody, and secondly to make sure that he supported the funding,” Waters told the crowd at the rally. “Well, I knew that was going to be a useless thing to do because of who he is, how he has defined himself, how he cannot be trusted and he doesn’t know what the hell he is doing. I sent it anyway, because we learned that you have to do everything that you possibly can from the first time we first realized what needed to be done in order to save lives and to provide the kind of care that was needed for those who were HIV+. “
“Let’s not feel like we are so intimidated by what is going on with the president and all of the sycophants he has appointed to his Cabinet,” Waters continued. “Let’s not be intimidated. Let’s say, it’s time to fight like hell, maybe in ways we’ve never had to do before.”
Hamilton star Javier Muñoz gave a personal account of his experience living with HIV.
“Throughout my 23 years of living with HIV, there have been times when my employment as an artist has waned,” Muñoz recounted. “And with that came the inevitable loss of my health insurance coverage. It has been in these moments that were it not for the financial support from partially federally funded programs and organizations like ADAP [AIDS Drug Assistance Program], I would not have been able to afford the costs of my life-saving and life-sustaining medications.”
“Back when this epidemic first began, without any treatment options, we watched it ravage an entire generation,” Muñoz continued. “Killing our friends, our neighbors, our brothers, our sisters, our mothers and fathers. Personally robbing me of a future with the love of my life who died in my arms in what was St. Vincent’s Hospital. These cuts threaten to take us back to those times. Back to that grief and that suffering and that violent neglect, which needlessly took thousands of lives. Cuts to HIV funding kill. Period. Cuts to HIV funding increases the need for lifelong healthcare, costing all of us billions of dollars and countless lives in what could be saved right now by preventing these cuts from passing.”
“No matter where you live, no matter who you are, everyone deserves the integrity, the dignity and humanity that only access to healthcare can bring,” Muñoz said. “Access to treatment, access to services: that’s why we keep fighting. Whether we are fighting for ourselves, for someone we love, for the ways this intersects with so many other causes, or for the overall good of the fight — we stand together, now, tomorrow, always. To all living with HIV like me, do not give up and do not be silent.”
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