Upon issuing his fourth and final World AIDS Day statement as president, Donald Trump continued his annual tradition on Tuesday of ignoring the impact of HIV/AIDS on LGBTQ+ community.
In a presidential proclamation, Trump referred to HIV/AIDS as a “deadly disease” which has “disproportionately [affected] racial and ethnic minorities” in the 39 years since the New York Times first reported of a “rare cancer seen in 41 homosexuals” in June 1981. His statement, however, erases the epidemic’s specific toll on LGBTQ+ people: According to the Centers for Disease Control, more than half of people living with HIV in the United States are gay and bisexual men.
Although HIV rates have been relatively steady in recent years, those who remain among the most affected in the U.S. are those from marginalized communities. In 2016, the CDC reported that “if current HIV diagnoses rates persist,” then 1 out of every 2 Black MSMs and 1 in 4 Latino MSMs would become HIV positive in their lifetimes.
Looking at international numbers, a study of 15 countries conducted by the World Health Organization finds that trans women are 49 times more likely than members of the general population to be diagnosed with HIV.
Trump, of course, does not mention any of that. A press release issued by the White House promises to “have eliminated this scourge from our country and released much of the rest of world [sic] from its deadly grip” by 2030, despite the fact that he will no longer be in the Oval Office after January. He goes onto laud his administration’s efforts in increasing access to Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) and needle exchange programs and its investment in the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the latter of which he calls “the most successful health initiative in American history.”
These claims clash with Trump’s actual record on the issues. During his first year in office, the president proposed a $1.2 billion cut to PEPFAR, a Bush-era program focused on treatment and prevention abroad. The proposed budget reduction was blocked by Congress after critics warned it would result in “millions” of deaths.
Meanwhile, Trump’s second-in-command, Vice President Mike Pence, infamously presided over an HIV outbreak as governor of Indiana after he hesitated in authorizing a needle exchange program in 2015.
While Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar repeated many of the same gaffes in a vaguely worded World AIDS Day release referring to the “HIV community,” the administration’s failure to recognize its own shortcomings on HIV/AIDS shouldn’t be all that surprising. Trump has never noted the LGBTQ+ community in any presidential proclamation on HIV/AIDS issued over the past four years, even despite his daughter, Tiffany Trump, promising a “cure for AIDS” at a Trump Pride rally held during the 2020 election.
His administration also fought to eject HIV-positive service members from the military and to allow hospitals to turn away patients living with HIV if they cite religious reasons for doing so.
A statement issued by President-elect Joe Biden on World AIDS Day draws a strong contrast to the half-hearted sentiments from the outgoing incumbent’s team. Biden said that his administration “will redouble our efforts to tackle health inequities that impact communities of color, LGBTQ+ people, and other marginalized groups, including women and children.”
“We will pursue bold solutions and increase our collaboration with affected communities around the globe,” Biden said, per the Washington Blade.
In a sweeping plan on LGBTQ+ equality released last year, the president-elect laid out his plan to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS globally. His proposals include increasing funding to programs like the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program and Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS. He also vowed to relaunch the Comprehensive National HIV/AIDS Strategy rolled out during the Obama presidency and to fight for the repeal of discriminatory laws criminalizing HIV transmission.
On Tuesday, Biden also told the Blade that he plans to restaff the Office of National AIDS Policy, which was left vacant under Trump. In 2017, six members of the Presidential Advisory Council of HIV/AIDS resigned in protest over the incumbent’s refusal to fill those roles. The remaining members, all holdovers from the Obama White House, were later fired.
Get the best of what’s queer. Sign up for them.’s weekly newsletter here.
