HIV Leaders of Color Announce Their Declaration of Liberation

The Framework to Build a Racially Just and Strategic HIV Movement Addresses Root Causes of the Epidemic and Lights a New Way Forward

**FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE**

Contacts: Naina Khanna, (510) 681-1169; nkhanna@pwn-usa.org
Charles Stephens, (404) 550-4697; charles.stephens@counternarrative.org

November 9, 2017: What could radical leadership look like from an aligned, collaborative group of people of color under current conditions in HIV community work, and in the HIV movement? A group of leaders in the United States HIV movement has attempted to answer that question, among others, in the framework: A Declaration of Liberation: Building a Racially Just and Strategic HIV Movement.

SERO Project and Positive Women’s Network-USA Announce Scholarships for HIV Is Not A Crime III

**FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE**

Contact: Ken Pinkela, ken.pinkela@seroproject.com or
Jennie Smith-Camejo jsmithcamejo@pwn-usa.org

November 1, 2017: Sero Project and Positive Women’s Network-USA are thrilled to announce the opening of scholarship applications for HIV Is Not A Crime III National Training Academy, being held June 3-6, 2018, in Indianapolis. The scholarship application will open two hours after the webinar ends on Nov. 30, and applications will due by the end of the business day on January 12, 2018. We will hold a webinar on November 30, 2017, at 3 pm ET/2 pm CT/1 pm MT/12 pm PT to offer tips and answer questions.

Today Is Our 4th Annual Day of Action to End Violence Against Women Living with HIV. Here’s What You Can Do.

October 23, 2017

Did you know?

• Women living with HIV are twice as likely to experience intimate partner violence (IPV) and five times as likely to experience lifetime sexual assault as the general population of women.
• Data also shows that women of trans experience, who are the population most affected by HIV in the U.S., are at elevated risk for violent hate crimes, which all too often are deadly.
• Disclosure of HIV status can increase vulnerability to violence, including tragic situations where women with HIV have been murdered following disclosure of their HIV status.

Positive Women’s Network – USA Launches #PWNCares, an Interactive New Multimedia Series Connecting Women with HIV and Addressing Their Biggest Challenges

**FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE**
October 13, 2017

Contact: Jennie Smith-Camejo, jsmithcamejo@pwn-usa.org, 347.553.5174

The new initiative, featuring a series of short videos in which real women living with HIV address important topics, followed by virtual coffee table chats offering real-time conversation and Q&A, will launch Oct. 23

Who should I tell?  How is my life going to change? Can I still have children? What does this mean for dating? An HIV diagnosis leads to hundreds of questions that cannot be answered by a prescription alone. With a generous Positive Action for Women grant from ViiV Healthcare, Positive Women’s Network – USA, the premiere membership organization of women living with HIV in the U.S., is combining the wisdom and expertise that come from lived experience with multimedia technology to connect and support recently diagnosed and/or isolated women living with HIV as they seek answers through our new project, #PWNCares.

Governor Signs Bill Modernizing California HIV Laws

**FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE**
October 6, 2017

CONTACT: Naina Khanna, naina.khanna.work@gmail.com, 510.681.1169
or Jennie Smith-Camejo, jsmithcamejo@pwn-usa.org, 347.553.5174

Sacramento, Calif.— Governor Jerry Brown today signed into law landmark legislation to reform outdated laws that unfairly criminalized and stigmatized people living with HIV. Senate Bill (SB) 239 was authored by Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and Asm. Todd Gloria (D-San Diego) and cosponsored by Equality California, the ACLU of California, APLA Health, Black AIDS Institute, Lambda Legal and Positive Women’s Network – USA. These organizations are part of Californians for HIV Criminalization Reform (CHCR), a broad coalition of people living with HIV, HIV and health service providers, civil rights organizations and public health professionals dedicated to ending the criminalization of people living with HIV in California.

PWNers Organize, Mobilize, Lead and WIN on Health Care!

September 28, 2017: In Washington, D.C., and in states across the country, PWN-USA members stood up and fought hard to protect the promise of the Affordable Care Act from the latest attack, the Graham-Cassidy bill. It was the worst of a series of terrible bills that would have stripped health care coverage from millions, gutted protections for preexisting conditions, dismantled Medicaid, defunded Planned Parenthood and eliminated the guarantee of essential health benefits like prescription drugs, hospitalization, mental health and substance abuse, maternity care and more.

PWN-USA Pennsylvania in action Tuesday

The very day the bill was officially pulled for lack of votes–Tuesday, Sept. 26–members of PWN-USA Pennsylvania held a die-in outside Sen. Pat Toomey’s office in Philadelphia, complete with tombstones and body bags (see above and right). “Repealing essential health benefits will have a devastating effect on  my health outcomes as a woman living HIV and preexisting conditions,” said Teresa Sullivan, PWN-USA board member and PWN-USA Pennsylvania senior member, who participated in Tuesday’s action. “My family and friends I care about will lose valuable, lifesaving health care if  Graham and Cassidy health bill is passed.”

TrumpCare 2.0 Is Dead Because of You

September 26: It’s been a long, hard few months. You deserve kudos–and a break.

We thought we had killed the ACA repeal bill in the House in March, only to have it resurface in April and pass the House in May. That meant we had to fight it in the Senate with everything we had–and we did. We defeated not one, not two, but three Senate versions of repeal by a one-vote margin in late July. That seemed to settle it–until Sens. Lindsey Graham and Bill Cassidy brought it back from the dead just a couple of weeks ago, uglier and more detrimental to our communities than ever.

We Need One More “No” Vote to Save the ACA. ALL HANDS ON DECK!

Thursday, Sept. 21

ISSUE: It’s now or never. Senate Republicans have just over a week to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and the devastating Graham-Cassidy proposal is gaining steam, even though it will do exactly what previous repeal bills would have done: strip health care from millions; end protections for pre-existing conditions; allow insurers to refuse coverage for essential health benefits like prescription drugs, hospitalization, lab work, contraceptives, and reproductive health; and decimate Medicaid, on which over 40% of people living with HIV rely to stay healthy.

Disparities in Health Outcomes, Barriers to Care Are About More Than Just Access

 

Updated Sept. 10

September 8, United States Conference on AIDS, 2017. Washington, D.C.: Black men wait 32% longer to cross the street than white men, according to a study from Portland, Oregon. Males in their 20s, identically dressed, had very distinct experiences: While the white men waited only 7.4 seconds to cross, Black men waited an average of 9.79 seconds for a driver to yield after signaling their intention to cross.

Such an anecdote, at first glance, seems to have little to do with health care. Yet—as Dr. David Williams of Harvard University, the keynote speaker at the opening plenary of the 2017 U.S. Conference on AIDS (USCA), illustrated with diverse statistics—the overlap between structural racism that people of color, particularly Black people, face every day and significantly lower health outcomes is impossible to ignore. Even Black people with a college degree have a shorter life expectancy than white people without a high school diploma. When it comes to health disparities, there are systemic problems that run even deeper than the already very real and widely acknowledged problem of lack of access to poor and working class people.

PWN-USA Announces SPEAK UP! 2018; 10-Year Anniversary Celebration

**For Immediate Release**

Contact: Jennie Smith-Camejo, jsmithcamejo@pwn-usa.org, 347.553.5174

September 8, 2017: Positive Women’s Network – USA (PWN-USA) is proud to announce that we will be celebrating our first decade of sisterhood, solidarity and action by hosting our third National Leadership Summit, which will take place April 12-15, 2018 in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Building on past years of success and responding to the current political moment, SPEAK UP! 2018: A National Leadership Summit for Women will be designed to provide political education, leadership skills, policy advocacy, and voter engagement training to up to 350 women, including women of trans experience, living with HIV.