US: Positively Trans: A Community of Transgender People With HIV Standing in Their Truth - HIV Resource Center for Trans People

When Tiommi Luckett went to her first Positively Trans' national advisory board meeting in 2015, she was nervous. "Out of her mind" nervous, she said.

As a black transgender woman living with HIV, Luckett has faced a fair amount of adversity. Most of her life had been a fight against stigma, discrimination, trauma and violence. Determined to change this tide, she began to do advocacy work within her community. But joining the board of Positively Trans was a step in her career Luckett didn't imagine at the time.

"I was like, 'How did I even end up here,'" she told TheBody.com. 

Luckett found herself at that meeting because of Cecilia Chung, the founder and director of Positively Trans, the Transgender Law Center's (TLC) groundbreaking project serving the needs of transgender people living with HIV. Chung, she said, approached her "the very first time I opened my mouth into a public place about being a trans women living with HIV."

Chung, who serves as TLC's senior strategist, developed Positively Trans to address the stigma and systemic disparities that continue to drive high HIV rates and poor health outcomes among transgender people. The constituent-led project, supported by a grant from the Elton John AIDS Foundation, focuses on research, policy and legal advocacy, education and leadership building to help empower transgender women of color and other trans people living with HIV. Read more via The Body