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SAVE HIV FUNDING LAUNCHES PRIDE MONTH MOBILIZATION DEFENDING HIV CARE, PUBLIC HEALTH, AND LGBTQ COMMUNITIES
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – MONDAY, JUNE 1, 2026 — As Pride Month begins amid escalating political attacks targeting LGBTQ communities, transgender healthcare access, federal HIV program funding, HIV prevention programs, public health systems, and scientific infrastructure, Save HIV Funding (SHF) today announced a nationwide Pride Month mobilization calling on lawmakers to increase federal HIV funding and protect the healthcare systems millions rely on to survive.
The campaign is urging Congress to pass Fiscal Year 2027 (FY27) spending bills that increase funding for domestic and global HIV programs while rejecting proposed cuts to HIV prevention infrastructure, related public health programs, and scientific research. Without additional resources, advocates fear losing decades of progress in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
At the center of the campaign is a national action alert encouraging individuals to directly contact their members of Congress to demand increased funding for HIV prevention, treatment, care, and research.
The action alert can be accessed here:
Statement from Jeremiah Johnson, Save HIV Funding campaign co-founder and Executive Director of PrEP4All:
“Pride has never simply been a celebration. Pride has always been about survival, collective action, healthcare justice, and protecting one another — especially in moments of political hostility and fear. As LGBTQ communities, transgender people, healthcare workers, and people living with HIV face mounting attacks, we are calling on communities across the country to organize, mobilize, and fight for the systems that keep people alive.”
THE POLITICAL MOMENT FACING LGBTQ COMMUNITIES AND HIV CARE
The coalition enters Pride Month amid growing national concern surrounding attacks on health care access for LGBTQ communities, including people living with and vulnerable to HIV. Such attacks include proposed funding cuts and restructuring efforts impacting federal health programs, HIV prevention systems and care providers, LGBTQ-focused health initiatives, Medicaid and insurance access, scientific research, and public health agencies.
Advocates and healthcare experts have warned that reductions to funding for HIV programs and attacks on evidence-based healthcare systems could have devastating impacts on vulnerable communities — particularly LGBTQ people, transgender communities, Black and Latine communities, low-income individuals, immigrants, and people living with HIV.
Save HIV Funding is positioning itself this Pride Month as a trusted national resource for journalists, advocates, healthcare workers, organizers, and communities seeking information, expert analysis, fast facts, and public-facing education surrounding the evolving threats to HIV care and healthcare infrastructure in the United States and globally.
The coalition will continue offering media access to healthcare experts, policy advocates, organizers, people living with HIV, and community leaders capable of speaking to the rapidly shifting healthcare and political landscape.
COLLABORATION WITH “SEVEN DAYS IN JUNE” + NATIONAL WEEK OF ACTION
As part of the Pride Month mobilization, Save HIV Funding is partnering with Seven Days in June, a growing national initiative focused on remembrance, activism, storytelling, healthcare advocacy, and collective action promoting health justice. Save HIV Funding Campaign will use this week of action to increase awareness of threats to life-saving services for people living with and vulnerable to HIV, and the need for Congress to increase, not cut, these critical resources that produce outstanding health outcomes while reducing costs.
The collaboration between Seven Days in June and Save HIV Funding Campaign encourages communities to participate in local and virtual events throughout the first week of June that center HIV advocacy, long-term survivors, healthcare workers, public health systems, remembrance, and community solidarity while mobilizing communities around current threats to healthcare infrastructure and HIV funding.
Communities can find local and virtual events here:
“Collective action is how we survive these moments and build power toward a better future,” said Maxx Boykin, Manager of the Save HIV Funding Campaign. “This week of action gives us space to organize, remember, support healthcare workers, uplift transgender communities, honor long-term survivors, and fight for the future of HIV care.”
VIGILS, RALLIES, AND NATIONAL ACTIONS
Save HIV Funding is specifically uplifting the June 5 AIDS Memorial Vigil, rally, march, and die-in taking place in New York City as part of HIV Long-Term Survivors Awareness Day observances.
The actions will honor lives lost to HIV/AIDS while drawing attention to current threats facing HIV prevention, care, and treatment; related health programs; Medicaid and insurance access; and scientific research.
The coalition is additionally supporting and amplifying the following events nationwide throughout the Seven Days in June initiative:
JUNE 1
• Take Pride In Our Health: A Community Townhall — St. Louis, MO
• Vivent Community Empowerment Townhall — Austin, TX
JUNE 2
• PWN: What Is In District Organizing? — Virtual
• Vivent Town Hall — Highland Park, MI
• Defend Public Health: 45 Years of HIV/AIDS — Virtual
JUNE 3
• Texas Strike Force Speaks — Austin, TX
• AIDS United: Cost of Survival Rally — U.S. Capitol Grounds, Washington, DC
JUNE 4
• Vivent Health + TPAN Townhall — Chicago, IL
• NMAC Long Term Survivors Reception – Washington, DC
JUNE 5
• Project of the Quad Cities: RENT Screening — Davenport, IA
• New York City AIDS Memorial Vigil — New York, NY
• ACT UP Cleveland Vigil — Cleveland, OH
• Save HIV Funding Atlanta Vigil — Atlanta, GA
• Vivent Vigil — St. Louis, MO
• The Sero Project Virtual Vigil — Virtual
• Las Memorias AIDS Monument Vigil — Los Angeles, CA
JUNE 6
• FL HIV Justice Coalition Movie Night — Lakeland, FL
• Vivent Social Gathering Poetry Reading — Highland Park, MI
• CORA Rally — Denver, CO
• AIDS Foundation Chicago 30 Under 30 — Chicago, IL
The full schedule of events was released as part of Save HIV Funding’s collaboration with Seven Days in June Week of Action programming.
GLOBAL HIV FUNDING AND THE INTERCONNECTED FIGHT FOR HEALTHCARE JUSTICE
The SHF coalition is also using Pride Month to emphasize the deep connection between domestic HIV advocacy and global HIV justice efforts. The latest and much delayed release of PEPFAR FY25 Q4 data in May 2026 by the State Department illustrates the administration’s intention to obscure and make invisible the key populations most impacted by HIV - including gay and bisexual men, people of trans experience, people who use drugs, and sex workers. The invisibility marginalizes and further neglects the rights of communities that rely on PEPFAR-funded treatment and prevention programs to live as their full selves. This has provided fuel for the alarming number of anti-LGBTQ laws being passed by countries that can further drive our communities underground. Advocates warn that the destruction of USAID last year and current threats to CDC global health programs are undermining impactful, bipartisan-supported initiatives such as PEPFAR at a moment when they are most needed to achieve a sustainable, durable end to the epidemic. Further proposed reductions and delays to transferring international HIV funding, fracturing long-standing public health partnerships, limiting scientific collaboration, and a premature wind-down of global HIV infrastructure could reverse decades of progress in treatment access, prevention efforts, and healthcare delivery systems worldwide.
Statement from Suraj Madoori, Director of Policy at AVAC:
“The fight for HIV funding does not stop at borders. The same political forces attacking transgender communities, scientific expertise, healthcare access, and public health systems here in the United States are threatening HIV progress globally. Pride must remind us that healthcare justice is collective.”
AVAILABLE EXPERTS
Mitchell Warren, AVAC
Michael Ighdaro, GBGMC
Andy Spieldenner, MPACT
Juan Michael Porter, PWN-USA
Jenny Collier & Bill McColl, Collier Collective (re: federal funding issues)
POTENTIAL INTERVIEW ANGLES:
• Proposed FY27 HIV funding fights
• LGBTQ and transgender healthcare access
• HIV prevention and PrEP access
• Medicaid and Ryan White Program impacts
• Public health infrastructure cuts
• Scientific research funding threats
• Long-term survivor advocacy
• HIV stigma during a shifting political climate
• Global HIV funding and healthcare equity
• The intersection of attacks on trans communities and public health systems
HIV FUNDING FAST FACTS
To support reporters covering the urgent policy landscape, the campaign is releasing the following Fact Sheet outlining the impact, scale, and human stakes of ongoing funding threats:
- Global HIV/AIDS Funding Under Attack: Advocates successfully turned back $400M in proposed cuts to PEPFAR as part of a larger attack on international assistance programs in the recissions bill passed by Congress in July 2025. Despite this success, changes implemented unilaterally by the Administration have severely compromised the program, including the elimination of HIV prevention funding for several key populations and replacing existing transparent and highly effective country and regional operations planning with clandestine bilateral contractual negotiations that undermine lifesaving implementation strategies for people living with HIV and seek to extract trade, data, and other unrelated concessions from member countries.
- AIDS Drug Assistance Programs in Crisis: After years of flat federal funding in the midst of rapidly increasing healthcare costs, ten state ADAP programs recently reported deficits in the current fiscal year, and 19 ADAPs forecast deficits for the upcoming year– threatening medication access for thousands of Americans.
- Federal HIV programs have more than 35 years of bipartisan support: In 2003, President George W. Bush created PEPFAR (the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), which has saved 25 million lives worldwide. Domestically, Bush signed reauthorizations of the Ryan White CARE Act, expanding federal support for HIV care. Protecting HIV funding has historically been a bipartisan commitment to public health and stability.
- Federal HIV programs are cost-effective: Every $1 invested in HIV prevention saves the health care system $3 to $7 in future treatment costs. Cuts would increase long-term spending.
- Medicaid is the largest source of coverage for people with HIV in the U.S., covering roughly 40% of people living with HIV. Medicaid expansion has been associated with a 33% increase in PrEP prescriptions. Cuts to HIV funding would have ripple effects across the entire Medicaid system, limiting access to care for millions of low-income Americans.
- HIV care is part of the U.S. health care system: Federal HIV funding supports access to preventive care, primary care, mental health services, housing, and medications. Cutting these funds would destabilize programs millions of Americans depend on — including those living with chronic conditions, low-income families, and uninsured people.
- Over 1.2 million Americans are living with HIV, and over 500,000 rely on federal programs like the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program for lifesaving medication and care.
- HIV prevention funding protects everyone: The federal government funds access to PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis), a daily medication that reduces the vulnerability of HIV by 99%. Rolling back funding would increase new HIV cases and long-term costs to the health care system.
- HIV funding is about more than one disease: These programs create a blueprint for coordinated, federally funded responses to health crises — from the opioid epidemic to COVID-19. Gutting HIV funding would weaken America’s preparedness for future public health threats.
- HIV funding protects vulnerable communities: Black and Latine communities account for more than 65% of new HIV diagnoses. Protecting these funds is about protecting racial and health equity.
Additional State-by-State Resources & Fact Sheets
Press Contact:
Tony Morrison
About the Save HIV Funding Campaign:
Launched in 2023 by PrEP4All, AVAC, and the HIV Medicine Association in partnership with the Federal AIDS Policy Partnership, the Save HIV Funding Campaign is a national coalition supported by more than 150 organizations representing advocates, healthcare providers, researchers, and community leaders. The campaign was formed in response to proposed Congressional cuts to federal HIV programs and has since helped avert more than $3.5 billion in domestic HIV funding cuts. Through coordinated advocacy, media engagement, and community mobilization, Save HIV Funding works to place the future of HIV prevention and care squarely in the national conversation. The campaign convenes community health providers and advocates across the country, organizes bipartisan congressional engagement, and mobilizes public voices to ensure that lifesaving HIV programs remain strong, accessible, and fully funded for the communities that rely on them.
