By Cecilia Chung, Senior Director of Strategic Projects
You might have seen news since last week that, once again, the Trump administration is attacking health care – this time, specifically trying to undermine protections for transgender people.
What you probably haven’t seen? The stories of people like me, transgender people of color living with HIV, who will be among the hardest hit by these attacks.
Today, TLC’s Positively Trans project is launching the #ACApositive campaign to shift the conversation about health care towards a focus on the life or death stakes for my community, and to demand that the voices of trans people living with HIV be heard.
We believe that nobody should be turned away from care, with their health and lives put at risk, because of who they are. Yet 44 percent of transgender people living with HIV surveyed by Positively Trans have faced discrimination in health care because of their gender identity. 41 percent have gone six months or more without medical care at some point since their HIV diagnosis.
For many of us, the Affordable Care Act has been essential in putting reliable health care – and with it, survival – within our reach for the first time. By sabotaging the Affordable Care Act, the Trump administration is undermining the futures of transgender people of color living with HIV. Yet the current discussions of health care policy often leave us behind, and that could cost us our lives.
With the #ACApositive campaign, we, transgender people living with HIV, are taking back our share of the conversation around health care.
Join us by using the #ACApositive hashtag to amplify our voices and share what health care means to you. And on May 7th, join our Twitter town hall at 11am PT/2pm ET to engage directly with Positively Trans leaders and partners on being #ACApositive.