Activists at this year’s AIDSWatch kicked off the annual advocacy event on Monday with a mock funeral protesting threats to federal funding for HIV/AIDS-related programs under the Trump administration.

The centerpiece of the “living funeral” at the Renaissance Arlington Capital View Hotel in Arlington, Virginia, was a series of readings in which people living with HIV delivered eulogies they’d written for themselves highlighting what’s at stake if the administration succeeds in efforts to cuts federal HIV/AIDS funding.

Related

17 states consider cutting assistance for HIV meds as prices increase

Last year, Uncloseted Media estimated that Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cuts resulted in the termination of more than $1 billion worth of HIV-related research grants, 71% of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) HIV grants, and the temporary suspension of the massively successful President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

In July, following a U.S. district court ruling, the administration was forced to restore $6.2 million in grant funding to LGBTQ+ and HIV organizations that would have been eliminated through implementation of the president’s anti-DEI and anti-trans executive orders. House Republicans’ initial fiscal year 2026 spending bill would have also cut $1.7 billion in funding for domestic HIV prevention, treatment, and care programs, had lawmakers not ultimately rejected the cuts in the final version of the bill, maintaining funding at roughly the same levels as the previous fiscal year.

Never Miss a Beat

Subscribe to our newsletter to stay ahead of the latest LGBTQ+ political news and insights.
Subscribe to our Newsletter today

But as Christy Perez noted for LGBTQ Nation last month, rising operational costs, staffing, and service demands mean that maintaining the same funding levels effectively functions as a real-dollar reduction in program power. Data published earlier this month by the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors (NASTAD) shows that more than a dozen states across the U.S. have either already implemented or are considering cost-cutting measures that will limit access to life-saving medications for tens of thousands of low-income people living with HIV.

“The cuts to HIV funding are not just numbers,” Vincent Crisostomo, director of aging services for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, said in his own “pre-obituary” at Monday’s event, according to The Advocate. “They represent lives at stake and potential to undo decades of progress.”

Crisostomo added that his own long-time advocacy had been “reinvigorated” last year “when confronted by alarming cuts to crucial funding that provided life-sustaining health benefits to his community and programs like PEPFAR.” Writing about himself in the third person, Crisostomo said, “He felt compelled to rise again and raise his voice.”

Kamaria Laffrey, a Florida-based advocate living with HIV, also spoke at the event. Last month, Laffrey published her own pre-obit in Positively Aware in response to the announcement of a drastic change to the state’s income eligibility requirement for its AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP). The change will cause an estimated 16,000 Floridians living with HIV to lose access to HIV/AIDS medications.

“The woman described in this obituary is still alive before you today,” Laffrey told the crowd at the AIDSWatch event, according to The Advocate. “She’s still taking her medication. She’s on a mission, doing it despite the evil and inhumane treatment of people living with HIV, despite the cuts of public health, and in spite of anyone who thinks that this Black woman living with HIV is going to go quietly, politely, or willingly — not today, not ever.”

U.S. People Living with HIV Caucus co-chair Malcolm Reid used part of his time at the lectern to highlight the rising cost of HIV medication and the crisis it represents for those living with the virus.

“Malcolm did not die because HIV outsmarted science,” Reid said in his pre-obituary. “He died because the medicine became harder to reach.”

“This is about dignity, and together, we are here not to mourn, but to warn,” Rev. Elder Carmarion D. Anderson, a transgender religious leader who led the faux funeral, said. “When HIV funding is cut, lives are being lost.”

PrEP for All executive director Jeremiah Johnson echoed AIDSWatch’s goal of bringing the concerns and priorities of people living with HIV directly to federal lawmakers.

“We’re going to make sure that our policy makers hear us loud and clear,” Johnson said. “Do we invest in life, or do we invest in death? Do we invest in care or do we invest in bombs? I know my answer, and I believe you share it with me.”

Subscribe to the LGBTQ Nation newsletter and be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.