November 10, 2016
For the past 21 years, AVAC has advocated for a comprehensive, rights-based response to the HIV epidemic that respects the choices and the dignity of all people. In recent years, science, activism and political will have brought us within striking distance of ending HIV in our lifetime.
The results of this week’s US election could imperil this progress. Racism, xenophobia, sexism and homophobia place all people at risk. Hatred is devastating and dangerous for personal and public health. Love and action are the antidote to hate and the ammunition for a response that protects human rights and continues the progress that has been made towards securing health for all people.
AVAC is committed to action, and we will remain vigilant in our efforts to protect those rights and advance an agenda for global health and HIV prevention. We are committed to fighting for and with allies within the US and around the world who are understandably deeply concerned about the implications of a Trump presidency. We are committed to working together to define a truly inclusive and intersectional movement that protects open borders, women’s right to choose, the rights of all people to love and live as they choose without fear of violence, and that dismantles racism and xenophobia every day.
AVAC embraces the freedom and accountability all citizens have under a democracy. We will seek to work constructively with the new administration. But on no account will we compromise on the hard-won rights that form the basis of a vibrant, inclusive and just society.
We are proud to be part of the lineage and living movement of AIDS activists and advocates who used every conceivable strategy to secure access to medications and save lives. Today these issues include continuing US funding and leadership for the global AIDS response, protection of the Affordable Care Act in the United States, funding for the National Institutes of Health—and much more. These health-related issues sit within a larger social justice agenda that we embrace and support. The tools are as powerful as ever. We are as powerful as ever. We will not give up.