CHLP

CHLP is closed and all staff are on a well-deserved winter break. We will be back to work on Monday, January 6, 2025. Wishing you a joyful and restorative New Year! #WinterBreak

As 2024 draws to a close, the CHLP #Team2Dream wishes you a happy, healthy, and safe holiday season. As a follower you’ve kept up with all of the hard work and good trouble that we’ve been up to in 2024 including: – 16 conferences across the country including On Aging in San Francisco, U.S. Conference on HIV/AIDS in New Orleans, and SYNC in Washington, DC. – 13 states where CHLP’s Positive Justice Project is working side-by-side with state partners to decriminalize HIV through the legislative and policy process. – 12 resources including our new Aging & HIV primer, Molecular HIV Surveillance explainer, and Model Policy on Data Privacy. Your support makes this liberatory work for people living with HIV and all of our communities possible — and as you can see, we enjoy doing this work with each other. With the challenges that await us in 2025, we’d love to count on your continued support as we navigate the future together. Visit hivlawandpolicy.org/donate to make a year-end gift today. #Team2Dream #YearEndGiving

Last Friday, CHLP Policy & Advocacy Manager Amir Sadeghi represented our #Team2Dream at United for Justice: Advancing the Movement for HIV Criminalization Reform and Decriminalization at the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual & Transgender Community Center in New York City. Hosted by Ladies First on the Frontlines for Justice, the event gathered advocates and experts with lived experience to unpack the impact of HIV criminalization on people and their communities. There were presentations on the lived experiences of criminalization, legal perspectives on HIV criminalization, and the advocacy and activism to dismantle it. Speakers included activist Robert Suttle, PWN’s Sallie Thomas, and Transgender Law Center’s Milo Inglehart. #Team2Dream #HIVAdvocates Photo 1 (l-r): Brenna Burke Weber and Katherine Chen of Iris House, Amir, and Yolanda Diaz, founder of Ladies First on the Frontlines for Justice, organizer of the conference, and steering committee member of the US People Living with HIV Caucus. Photo 2 (l-r): Elder Antionettea Etienne of Positive Women’s Network - New York and Amir.

On December 5, the White House Office of National AIDS Policy (ONAP) convened Enhancing the Lives of People with HIV—A Quality of Life Symposium. The event was held during the week of World AIDS Day and addressed core aspects of quality of life—including mental health, housing, nutrition, and employment. CHLP Senior PJP Attorney Jada Hicks attended the event and is pictured here with ONAP Director Franciso Ruiz. The meeting included panel discussions on understanding and defining quality of life for people living with HIV, HIV and aging, and federal partnerships to achieve enhanced quality of life for people with HIV. #Team2Dream #HIVAdvocates #WorldAIDSDay

Today CHLP Executive Director S. Mandisa Moore-O'Neal will speak on a panel entitled “History of the Civil Rights Movement in the South and How it Impacts HIV Disparities Today” at PACHA's 83rd full council meeting in Montgomery, Alabama. Watch the live stream: https://www.hhs.gov/live The two-day meeting will focus on civil rights and the connection to health justice and HIV disparities, particularly in the South. #PACHA #EndHIV #HIVAdvocates

This Friday join CHLP Senior PJP Attorney Jada Hicks for an AIDS United Community Learning and Listening Session: Understanding Project 2025, Assessing the Threats, and Empowering Action Moderated by Christina Adeleke, Senior Policy Manager for Community Mobilization and Health Equity at AIDS United, the panel features: -- Matthew Rose, Human Rights Campaign -- Jose Abrigo, Lambda Legal -- Jada Hicks, Center for HIV Law and Policy What you’ll learn and get a chance to discuss: -- What is Project 2025? Get the scoop on its focus areas like healthcare, LGBTQ+ issues, civil rights, reproductive health, and immigration. -- Assessing the Threats: Hear an honest assessment of the challenges facing the HIV/AIDS community. -- Empowering Action: Discover actionable strategies to mobilize and protect our rights. Your voice matters! Register now to secure your spot and be part of this essential conversation. #AIDSUnited #Project2025 #HIVAdvocacy #CommunityEmpowerment #hivAdvocates

You know CHLP’s #Team2Dream, but do you know what inspires us to do this abolitionist, liberatory work for people living with HIV and all of our communities? Kae Greenberg (he/him), Staff Attorney, offered this quote by Octavia Butler from Parable of the Talents. “In order to rise From its own ashes A phoenix First Must Burn.” For Kae, this signifies that we cannot meekly and incrementally “reform” our way into the future society we dream of and our children deserve. We have to be brave enough to raze our inequitable systems to the ground, to do the hard work of stoking the flames, and accept the risk of uncertain rebirth, in order for something truly new and glorious to arise.   CHLP is an abolitionist legal and policy organization. Our #Team2Dream envisions and works for a world where HIV and other stigmatized health conditions are no longer criminalized but met with compassion and the resources to thrive. #Team2Dream #HIVAdvocates

For World AIDS Day, CHLP has released a new blog and two resources. First, this blog by Kytara Epps, CHLP's Public Health and Advocacy Strategist, calls for collective action between the HIV advocacy and disability justice movements to build power and solidarity. -- See Collective Action Through Solidarity: A call to HIV advocacy and disability justice movements at https://lnkd.in/eHHShw6g or link in bio. Second, two new resources explain the issues related to Molecular HIV Surveillance and provide a model policy path to protect data privacy as a means to improve access to healthcare. -- See What is Molecular HIV Surveillance and does it put me at risk? CHLP (2024) and Model Policy on Data Privacy, CHLP (2024) at https://lnkd.in/ea7nTR3B or link in bio. Please read and share as we continue our work to reduce HIV stigma and end the criminalization of people living with HIV on World AIDS Day and every day. #EndMHS #MyBodyMyData #HIVAdvocates #WorldAIDSDay #TeamATAC #SexWorkDecrim #HIVAdvocates #DisabilityJustice

Today is World AIDS Day and the UNAID theme of “Take the Rights Path” emphasizes the importance of upholding human rights as central to an effective HIV response. It’s a call to action to protect everyone’s health by protecting everyone’s rights. In the U.S., where access to healthcare is increasingly limited and criminalized, countering those trends is central to improving public health and ending the HIV epidemic. To that end, CHLP is releasing two resources this World AIDS Day focused on both explaining the issues related to Molecular HIV Surveillance and providing a policy path to protect data privacy as a means to improve access to healthcare. Promoting the equitable accessibility of health services is part of the work to reduce the stigma associated with HIV as well as the criminalization of PLHIV. Download our publication “What is molecular HIV surveillance and does it put me at risk?” which explains the danger of using patient HIV data without notice or consent and why the practice has generated concerns among HIV advocates, healthcare stakeholders, and people living with HIV. Our Model Policy on Data Privacy then provides healthcare stakeholders at health departments and healthcare facilities with an adoptable blueprint for protecting the private health information of their patients. Find the publications at https://lnkd.in/ea7nTR3B OR https://lnkd.in/eYgYx8Eg. #EndMHS #MyBodyMyData #HIVAdvocates #WorldAIDSDay

Calling for collective action and solidarity between the disability justice and HIV advocacy movements, a World AIDS Day blog by CHLP's Public Health and Advocacy Strategist Kytara Epps, MPH. Looking at recent victories against HIV criminalization in Tennessee as well as results of the presidential election, Kytara puts forth that we in the HIV advocacy movement must join together with our sibling movements such as sex work decriminalization and disability justice to build power to fight against rollbacks of our rights in the next four years. Read the full blog at https://lnkd.in/eHHShw6g. #hivadvocates #disabilityjustice #sexworkdecriminalization #worldaidsday