Activists stage mock funeral in protest of Trump’s HIV funding cuts
Pallbearers proceed with symbolic coffins at the Save HIV Funding Campaign’s Funeral Protest and Celebration of Life. (Shannon Finney/Getty Images for Save HIV Funding Campaign)
Activists in the US have staged a mock funeral to protest Donald Trump’s HIV funding cuts.
Organised by the Save HIV Funding campaign, the protest took place at the Renaissance Arlington Capital View Hotel – the venue hosting AIDSWatch – on Monday (16 March).
AIDSWatch is an annual event in Washington, D.C. that brings awareness to policy conversations about HIV funding.
As per the Advocate, activists, all living with HIV, read their own eulogies from a makeshift pulpit in a bid to warn of the devastating impact of cuts to efforts such as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).
One of the speakers, Crisostomo, a 65-year-old queer San Franciscan, retold his own life in third-person: “His advocacy was being reinvigorated in 2025 when confronted by alarming cuts to crucial funding that provided life-sustaining health benefits to his community and programs like PEPFAR, knowing these cuts threatened not only his health but the well-being of countless individuals relying on these vital resources.
“He felt compelled to rise again and raise his voice.”
Groups participating in AIDSWatch said the funeral illustrated the stakes at risk as a result of the Trump administration dismantling budgets for HIV and AIDs patients.
The event was inspired by a living obituary from Kamaria Laffrey, a Black Floridian woman who was diagnosed in 2003.
Experts and HIV charities have warned that cuts to prevention initiatives could have devastating effects on infection rates around the world.
A report by the United Nations AIDS agency said the withdrawal of US funding for the global HIV fight had caused a “systemic shock”, which could lead to more than four million AIDS-related deaths and six million new HIV infections by 2029.
In March, Black LGBTQ+ leader Kelley Robinson took the opportunity to hit out at Trump’s cuts to HIV funding at the State of the Union address.
Robinson highlighted the cuts Trump has made to HIV funding, including a $258 million reduction to the Department of Health and Human Services, which funded researchers working on creating an HIV vaccine. The cuts also eliminated federal funding for HIV prevention programs, putting hundreds of thousands of lives at risk and potentially causing infection rates to skyrocket.
Last year, a similar protest took place, sending an unmissable message to the US government: people will die without the PEPFAR.
