HIV-positive men hold kiss-in next to Trump’s border wall for World AIDS Day

HIV-postive men have held a kiss-in next to Trump’s Mexico border wall in honour of World AIDS Day.

World AIDS Day has been commemorated on 1 December every year since 1988. The day is dedicated to raising awareness about HIV/AIDS, prevention and treatment, and is also a moment to mourn those whose lives have been lost to the illnesses.

This year, the Trump administration chose not to mark the event as part of the government’s wider policy to “to refrain from messaging on any commemorative days, including World AIDS Day”. 

But despite the administration’s stance, celebrations of the day still went ahead, with MPact Global, a leading global organisation for advancing queer health and human rights, hosting an international HIV Kiss-In at Friendship Park on the US–Mexico border. 

As noted by the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, over half of all HIV diagnoses in Europe in 2024 were made at a late stage. This high rate of late diagnosis, combined with a growing number of people living with undiagnosed HIV, threatens to derail progress toward the 2030 goal of ending AIDS as a public health threat, meaning it remains a public health priority.

UNAIDS reports that around 40.8 million people globally were living with HIV in 2024.

The cross-border community demonstration celebrated the sexuality, visibility and rights of queer people living with HIV and queer migrants on the border. 

Images show participants kissing and embracing each other in a display of love, representing that HIV is not the end of a good life. 

On Tuesday (2 December), RuPaul’s Drag Race UK star Asttina Mandella will host HIV The Naked Truth’s World AIDS Day Gala at London’s Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church.

This year marks 10 years since Joshua Royal, who launched HIV The Naked Truth, was diagnosed with HIV himself and 20 years since Positive East, which provides counselling and peer support for people living with HIV, was formed through the merging of The Globe Centre and the London East AIDS Network.

Royal told PinkNews: “[People with HIV] just take a tablet, just like we take a tablet when we’ve got a headache. Let’s just celebrate that in 2025 we have medication for all of these things that we didn’t have long ago and now we do, so we’re OK. We’re actually the safest we’ve ever been. 

“All the stigma that’s still there from those people, it doesn’t mean anything. It’s just from uneducated ignorance,” she adds. “We have to understand and educate ourselves that it’s OK. It’s fine. It’s just HIV, babes.”

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