I was 24 when I found out I was HIV-positive in 2003. I immediately went into a state of shock, and then a period of depression. But I pushed through to live a healthy and stable life, and began building my career as a legal clerk at the Court of Appeal, where I’m from in Louisiana.
But my life was turned upside down again on New Year’s Eve, 2007. That night, I met a man at a gay club, and we ended up dating for three months. I immediately disclosed my HIV status to him, and I was in treatment at the time, which made my viral load low enough that I could not transmit HIV to another person. When the relationship ended badly, and we didn’t see eye to eye on some things, he pressed charges against me, accusing me of not disclosing my status.
I did not transmit the virus to my former partner, but in Louisiana – one of the 33 states across the USA that have outdated HIV legislation first established in the Eighties and Nineties – the legal focus is on exposure. It does not require actual transmission for a conviction to occur.
I was arrested at my place of work in front of my colleagues. Upon the advice of my lawyer, I took a plea deal and was sentenced to six months in prison for the felony of “intentional exposure to the Aids virus”.
Despite the landscape of HIV changing in the mid-Nineties with the development of retroviral treatment, the laws have not caught up with modern science. Medications effectively reduce the risk of transmitting the virus to zero, while the HIV prevention drug PrEP reduces the risk of infection by 99 per cent when taken correctly. Yet I was labelled a criminal for my HIV status. I’m not a criminal. I don’t harm people. I’m not trying to harm people with a disease.
When I was convicted, I realised it didn’t seem right. When I was released from prison, I was a college-educated legal clerk, but I had to step down from my job. Being someone who is Black and gay and living with HIV in the South, these things can work against you in terms of your ability to be hired or accepted, especially now with a criminal record; it’s almost impossible.
The bad news wasn’t over, either. On top of serving six months in prison, I found out after the trial that I was required to be registered as a sex offender for 15 years. This affects many aspects of my life, such as employment and where I choose to live. I have to register with law enforcement when I move. I can’t just apply for an apartment and expect them to give it to me.
There’s a complexity to trying to find stability in my life. There are things that other people don’t have to think about every day.
And all of this is intentional, from the get-go. I am a Black man from the South, and this is another way to control people who are marginalised, considered different or othered. It’s a way to criminalise our bodies, which we have a whole history of – going back to enslavement, and now to mass incarceration. They’re using HIV status as another way to do that.
When I was released, I found a blog about HIV criminalisation – I didn’t even know at the time that it was called HIV criminalisation – which explained everything I had gone through. I called a number, and I was connected with a longtime activist living with HIV. He gave me advice and put me in touch with groups of attorneys, policy people, and public health advocates who were interested in this issue in the US. From there, I began to learn that this is a phenomenon that happens to people who live with HIV, who are Black and who are queer.
I felt I needed to say something. I told my story at high-level policy meetings in Geneva and Oslo. Considering all that I had lost already, how I’ve been publicly shamed, and then what I was going to have to deal with for 15 years of being on the registry, all that I had left was my voice. That’s why I also co-founded the Sero Project, an organisation for and led by people living with HIV to address the issue of criminalisation. I am involved in advocacy across the world. I am also a part of the global advisory panel for the HIV Justice Network and spokesperson for the HIV Is Not a Crime campaign, which is run by The Elizabeth Taylor Aids Foundation. It argues that laws surrounding HIV criminalisation are stuck in the Eighties.
We know that change can happen. Since 2014, 12 states have either modernised or repealed their HIV criminalisation laws. Through our movement, we also have other LGBT+ organisations that are now involved in the fight. We’re all collectively understanding this issue now, and there are coalitions across the country because our movement is building.
Science is the one thing we have on our side. Advancements in treatment have made it even more possible to address this issue and inform people about what HIV is and how it impacts people’s lives in the modern world. I hope that states would choose to go in a way that supports the science and people living with HIV, because the criminalisation laws do not work to deter transmission.
I’m hoping someday it will change, and I can put this behind me and live somewhat of a normal life. In my advocacy, after I tell people my story, I ask them: if this were your life, is this what you want to happen to you?
