‘How do we build this umbrella campaign?’ Two leading advocates discuss the agenda as activists convene in Baltimore
As concern grows that the Trump administration plans to announce elimination of the HIV prevention division and other changes to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as soon as this week, HIV activists from across the country are meeting in Baltimore this Friday (March 21) to map out strategy for an uncertain future.
More than 50 advocates and activists from local, state and national organizations are expected to attend the day-long convening, as it’s being called. The meeting expands on the Save HIV Funding campaign and has been organized by PrEP4All, AVAC and HIVMA in partnership with the Johns Hopkins Center on Public Health and Human Rights with support from Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.
“One of the things that we want to do is let the community know that HIV leaders are coming together to see how we can save HIV funding,” says Maximillian “Maxx” M. Boykin, campaign manager of Save HIV Funding. “We’re going to hold ourselves accountable, making sure that there is a report coming out from this meeting with action steps to address the attacks on HIV funding.
Boykin
How do we build this umbrella campaign through this inside game of engaging with legislators on the Hill in D.C., but also at local and district meetings?” Boykin adds, outlining the meeting’s agenda. “I think another big thing is engaging an outside game—what types of actions do folks want to be able to take? There is a history of that within the HIV movement.”
“It's important for us to think about the long game,” said John Peller, president and CEO of AIDS Foundation Chicago (AFC) and one of the organizers of the meeting. Peller and Boykin spoke with POSITIVELY AWARE March 18 via Zoom. (Note: This conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.)
“Here we are in the second month of the Trump administration, and we are seeing before our eyes the destruction that’s being done to communities, not just here at home, but globally, through the destruction of USAID and possibly the threat to HIV prevention here in the U.S.,” Peller said, alluding to the impending news about the CDC. “We need to think about what we’re going to be doing over the next two years and four years to fight back against the Trump administration. Max talked about playing an inside and outside game. I think we are really good at having conversations with [U.S.] House staff, the Senate staff and the folks we know in the administration and state officials, too. But when it comes to direct action, we’ve got to be creative about how we use that direct action muscle to get media attention in the current landscape.
“We have to share tactics across the country, recognizing that what may work in L.A. isn't going to work in Louisiana, but the folks from Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, they’ve been dealing with the right wing and right-wing policies for longer than folks on the national scene. We need to learn from them, what messages are effective, what arguments work to get through to Republicans, because the same talking points that we use with Democrats are not effective with Republicans. We have to acknowledge that and adapt.”
Boykin adds, “And then there’s a third piece for me—educating our community around this. We're going to have an intermingling of folks who work in different spaces to come together, to talk about how these strategies can come together—the inside, the outside, the community engagement—and how we move in a way that knows what’s working and what could work with resource-driven or more calculated responses.
“We are dealing with an administration that is cutting the ability for people to get access to HIV medication, cutting the ability for folks to get access to PrEP, for folks being able to walk into a clinic and just get an HIV test,” Boykin continues. “All of that will be made much harder with the cuts that the administration and Congress are approving. What does this mean for the person who is working at your local clinic, health department, your local nonprofit, that they could no longer have a job? They now have the same worries as the workers at federal agencies that have been closed in recent weeks. What we are trying to do is to fight to preserve the current infrastructure that we have around HIV and build on what the current president’s first administration talked about with his Ending the HIV Epidemic [Trump’s 2019 initiative known as EHE]. The way to do that is not by cutting large amounts of HIV funding. We know we do not do that by attacking some of the communities that are most impacted. We understand that we cannot do that if we’re not communicating with each other, and that is one of the key reasons for having this meeting.”
The Friday before this conversation, March 14, the Senate passed the temporary spending plan that the House had approved, a continuing resolution (known as a CR) that keeps the government running through the 2025 fiscal year, ending on September 30.
“Now that there’s a continuing resolution through September, one of the next big things that Congress will be debating is fiscal year ’26 spending, and that is something we will want to engage our legislators about,” Boykin says. “We also know they have other federal agencies they want to phase out and no longer fund, based on their Project 2025 plan for government. We need to make sure that we are engaging with our legislators, but also with our community members, so that they understand the importance of this. I would also say that when they’re doing state or local advocacy they need to push for increasing HIV funding to help make up what could be potentially massive cuts to federal HIV funding.”
Peller
Adds Peller, “A really important time that's coming up is going to be the congressional recess in mid-April, around Easter and Passover—the weeks of April 14 and April 21. Members of Congress are going to be in their districts, and so there's going to be an opportunity for folks to show up at town halls—if the Republicans are brave enough to hold town halls [some Republican lawmakers have been shouted down and heckled by their own constituents at local meetings]—to show up and and ask hard questions—Why does the administration want to shut down the CDC Division of HIV Prevention? What does eliminating the Division of HIV Prevention in CDC mean for the local community, and how is it going to harm our work to end the HIV epidemic?
“As Maxx mentioned,” Peller says, “we’re focused right now on appropriations for the next fiscal year. There's going to be a major push for an actual budget instead of just a continuing resolution, and that could include harmful policy provisions that could contain certain requirements such as funding can’t be used to distribute condoms. They might put restrictions on serving trans people in a gender-affirming way. We’ve got to be vigilant against that.
“We also need to talk about Medicaid and budget reconciliation,” he adds. “We're concerned that the budget goals that Republicans have put out are going to result in cuts to Medicaid, which would be devastating for people living with HIV. So we’re also asking folks to tell their legislators about the importance of the Medicaid program to them.”
When the House of Representatives passed its CR on February 25, it set in motion a process for setting federal budget levels through 2034. The House’s Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees spending on federal health and medical programs, was directed to identify $880 billion in cuts over the next decade to help to help pay for extending Trump’s $4.6 trillion in 2017 tax cuts and for other budget items. Though the CR does not specify cuts to Medicaid, cuts that large are expected to affect Medicaid and/or Medicare, despite Republican promises.
“Many Republicans say there will be no cuts to Medicaid,” Boykin says. “But the way that the numbers work, we just don't see that there’s a way to do that. There are too many people living with HIV and communities that are most impacted by HIV, that are in need of Medicaid that would be affected. We cannot deal with any major cuts that would impact access to care. You can just look at any states in the South that have not expanded Medicaid, where their HIV rates are higher.”
“The good news is that there is a continuing resolution in place through the end of September for federal funding,” Peller says. “We don't expect that there will be major impacts on Ryan White funding the rest of this fiscal year. Now, having said that, this administration has certainly done things that we never thought possible or likely, so I think everything has an asterisk right now. But that’s why we have to stay tuned in. We have to be really vigilant and make sure that [the U.S. Department of Health and Health Services] allocates the correct funding amounts for the Ryan White program, including ADAP. We have to find a balance between between telling folks, Oh, everything’s going to be fine, and also encouraging people to pay very, very close attention to what might happen.”
How to get involved. Both Boykin and Peller urge people, especially anyone living with or affected by HIV to get involved in advocacy. For more information about the Save HIV Funding campaign, email michael@prep4all.org or follow the hashtag #SaveHIVFounding. AFC maintains a mobile-based Action Network for issues in Illinois and beyond. AIDS United is a Washington, D.C.-based HIV policy and legislative organization that organizes its annual AIDSWatch lobby day on Capitol Hill for people with HIV and other HIV advocates, which will be held this year March 31–April 2. For more information and to sign up for AIDS United’s Action Alerts, go to aidsunited.org/action.
To call your senators and representatives, find them by calling the U.S. Capitol Switchboard—for the Senate, 202-224-3121; for the House, 202-225-3121. You can also go online to find your senator or representative.