This World AIDS Day, as with many in the past, I am hopeful. More cautiously optimistic than equally hopeful, however. Thirty years ago, the first World AIDS Day passed, allowing us to collectively raise our voices to raise awareness of HIV. Globally and locally.

This morning, as I scrolled through my news feed, in addition to the traditional AIDS red ribbon tree of life I’ve posted for years on this day, another image gut-punched me, just as it did the first time I saw it and every time since.

This image of the San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus reminds me why this day isn’t so much a simple celebration of how far we’ve come, but of how vigilant we must remain in our resolve to continue to respond to this most pernicious virus. But, more so, we must resist and overcome the various prejudices and judgements attached to HIV. Far, far too many have died senseless, needless and agonising deaths only because we refused to act to prevent further infections, because we isolated and demonised those living with HIV, and because we refused access to live-saving and life-preserving treatment for those who desperately needed it. 

Why? 

Fight AIDS, not people affected or living with HIV. Fight the damn virus and the cultural, social, political and economic institutions which continue to allow it to spread and allow people to die when, today, they don’t need to. Fight the injustices borne through stigma and fear that allow the virus to flourish.

Do not fight the individuals most affected and least wanted by society.

HIV doesn’t care where you live, what you look like, what you do for a living to simply survive. Nor does it care who or how you love.

Today, and every day, we must collectively remember what inaction and isolation do to those affected when society shuns them and deems them unworthy and undesirable. Every. Single. Day.

So, on this World AIDS Day, here’s to all those affected and living with HIV, and here’s to all those who continue working damn hard and often thanklessly to ensure no one is left behind and that we can all live in a world more just and more equitable. For all. 

And, here’s to those we failed. Your memory lives on and you will not be forgotten.