While the past year has seen remarkable advances in HIV from prevention to policy, the challenges with HIV remain burdened and entrenched among the most vulnerable communities across the United States.
Here at Women With a Vision we see this first hand in Louisiana and across the Deep South. As we’ve written about, the South is at the heart of the current HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States, with more people living with HIV and dying of AIDS than in any region in the country. Louisiana ranks third in the nation for estimated HIV case rates, and Louisiana’s two largest cities, Baton Rouge and New Orleans, have the second and third-highest rates of new HIV infections for metropolitan areas in the nation. In New Orleans, 40 percent of people with HIV are not receiving treatment. This has had a devastating impact on communities of color, and other vulnerable and marginalized communities we work with locally.
At this moment in our regional, national, and global movement, we must rethink, reevaluate, and reconsider what it takes to truly achieve “getting to zero,” which has traditionally meant zero new HIV infections, zero discrimination, and zero AIDS-related deaths.
Today on World AIDS Day, the Counter Narrative Project, Positive Women’s Network USA, Transgender Law Center, Women With A Vision, and the HIV Prevention Justice Alliance have come together in a joint statement on Intersectionality, HIV Justice, and the Future of Our Movement. We aim to provide a bold new perspective in creating a more inclusive and transformative movement to address structural injustice and inequities that persist among the communities we serve.
The World AIDS Day statement will provide an introduction to intersectionality and its value to our movement. We invite you to read and share this statement, as well as engage and discuss with us on the ways intersectionality can transform your local work and efforts.

Read the statement here.