#nyhaad

Yesterday was National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day (NYHAAD). It is a day to educate our communities about the impact of HIV and AIDS on young people. We are honoring Victoria Arellano, a Mexican trans woman living with AIDS, who died at the age of 23 years-old while in ICE custody on July 20, 2007.

Victoria Arellano came to the US when she was young. By many accounts, she was a huge music fan and adored divas like Selena, Celine Dion, Mariah Carey and Gloria Trevi. In May 2007, Victoria was detained by the police and then transferred to an ICE detention center because of her undocumented status. It was there that she endured mental and physical abuse by ICE officers.

Given ICE’s transphobia, she was put in a men’s facility. Victoria, who had been managing her HIV by taking medication, was denied access to life saving treatment while in ICE custody. Instead, ICE agents ignored her pleas for medical help. Other people detained with her took care of her as her health deteriorated, even staging a strike to try to get her medical attention.

Victoria died on June 20, 2007 because of willful ICE negligence. Unfortunately, ICE has continued its transphobia and HIV/AIDS-phobia by denying life saving treatment to trans immigrant women in custody. Most recently, Roxsana Hernandez and Johana Medina are two known trans women living with HIV to have died at the hands of ICE.

Victoria Arellano was just 23 years old. Her story is a reminder that the demand to end trans detention is an HIV/AIDS issue.

So on this #NYHAAD, in honor of Victoria, Roxsana and Johana, we are demanding that ICE end trans detention.

It’s important to understand why you should get tested for HIV and sexually transmitted infections—and to know where you can get those tests. Such information is vital to a person’s health, and it should be made available to everyone. To that end, the team at Kikis with Louie, a popular YouTube series geared toward LGBT youth of color, created a short episode titled “How to #GetTested (ASL)”—and it’s presented in American Sign Language (and subtitles). You can watch the two-minute episode above.

last august, hydeia broadbent celebrated her 35th birthday. this wasn’t just a milestone but a testament to the sheer determination of life and hope. diagnosed with hiv at three years old, hydeia was not expected to survive past age five. and in 1987, years almost a decade before the breakthrough of hiv treatment, this prognosis was pretty accurate for children battling the opportunistic infections brought on by HIV. hydeia’s mother immediately became a fierce advocate and enrolled hydeia into clinical trials with the hopes of prolonging her life. and no easy feet during especially during a time when hiv clinical trials did not include women, young people and people of color.  a chance meeting with the late hiv advocate elizabeth glaser in 1988 at the national institutes of health, where they were both receiving treatment, led to hydeia becoming a public speaker. after telling her story across the world including on a tv special for nickelodeon with magic johnson, 20/20, good morning america and becoming one of the most memorable guests of the oprah winfrey show. at just age 10, hydeia had become the face of not just pediatric aids but the first generation of children born with hiv.

Happy NYHAAD!

i know there are days where the oppression feels like glue. Somewhere, somebody, is melting that glue with sex, with substance, with story, because it’s spring during a pandemic, and there is a body here that makes heat when you rub it. I praise science & brujeria. I was a boy that became a graveyard for a virus that doesn’t die. Welcome to our homecoming, there is no word for cure here, now that we are medicine.

José, He/They

Durham, NC

Tuesday, April 10, marks National Youth HIV & AIDS Awareness Day (NYHAAD) 2018. Organized by Advocates for Youth, which promotes sexual health among adolescents, the event offers a chance to educate the public about HIV issues as they pertain to youth.