Jordan Edwards and Titan Capri are committed to connecting people living with HIV and AIDS to resources, support and community advocacy.

Both are living with HIV. Each remembers a time after diagnosis when he felt isolated and hopeless about his future. Today, both are empowered.

They are in Atlanta for the Saving Ourselves Symposium, an annual conference hosted by the Southern AIDS Coalition that brings together researchers, healthcare providers, advocates and people living with HIV, with a focus on the Black LGBTQ+ community in the South.

The symposium begins Thursday, Aug. 20, which is Southern HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, and continues through Aug. 23. The event will take place at the Atlanta Marriott Northwest at Galleria.

Edwards and Capri work with The Normal Anomaly Initiative in Houston, Texas, an organization that advocates for underserved communities. Edwards described the people the nonprofit serves as “mostly Black and queer” and “living on the margins.”

He said the symposium creates a two-way exchange in which experts and advocates share resources and strategies. At the same time, community members identify the challenges they face and what would better serve them.

According to Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health and Gilead Sciences, the Deep South accounted for 52 percent of all new HIV diagnoses in 2022. Research also found that Black individuals represented 48 percent of new HIV diagnoses in the South in 2024 but accounted for only 23 percent of people using medication taken to prevent the virus.

Edwards and Capri said those disparities reflect what they see through their work. For people struggling with poverty, unemployment or homelessness, access to HIV prevention and treatment can be less important than their other basic needs.

“…If we can take care of the South, then we can… take care of the world,” said Edwards, deputy director of The Normal Anomaly Initiative.

Capri, 55, a program manager with the initiative, said stigma surrounding HIV and AIDS can prevent people from seeing those living with the disease as human beings.

He was diagnosed with AIDS nearly 21 years ago with a T-cell count of four, he said. Capri recalled a doctor entering the room, telling him he had AIDS and then walking out. He thought his life was over.

“The trauma and stigma around AIDS at the time was something that had a lot of fuel behind it,” Capri said. “I didn’t understand that I could survive, I could thrive, I could live.”

Capri, who identifies as a Black gay man, said he carried shame about his diagnosis and at one point asked God to let him go. His outlook began to change under the care of Houston infectious disease specialist Dr. Joseph Gathe and his medical team.

“The team led me to believe that my life mattered when I thought my life didn’t matter and that death was my only option,” Capri said. “…Now I’m here. I’m sitting here talking about HIV Awareness Day and the Saving Ourselves Symposium.”

Capri’s AIDS diagnosis remains part of his medical history, but his health has improved dramatically with treatment. He now describes himself as living with HIV with an undetectable viral load.

Edwards, 35, experienced his own transformation after learning he was HIV-positive 13 years ago, a few days after his 22nd birthday.

Edwards said he struggled with the belief that he was being punished for relationships with men. His HIV diagnosis initially felt like a death sentence.

While sick with a fever, Edwards said he dreamed about his great-grandmother, who died before he was born. In the dream, she touched his forehead, and when he awoke, his fever was gone, he said.

“I knew then if you, [God], can send one of the ancestors to me, then you have a plan for me,” Edwards said.

He wanted to find work that would allow him to use his experiences to help others and now sees his work with The Normal Anomaly Initiative as part of that purpose. He is also participating in an HIV clinical trial that he hopes will contribute to efforts toward a cure.

Like Capri, Edwards said treatment has reduced the virus in his blood to an undetectable level. According to HIV.gov, people living with HIV who take medication as prescribed and maintain an undetectable viral load can “live long and healthy lives and will not transmit HIV to their HIV-negative partners through sex.”

For Edwards, reducing the stigma surrounding HIV remains as important as educating people about treatment.

“I think if we can eliminate the stigma behind HIV, then it will be the same as diabetes, high blood pressure … take your medicine or watch what you eat, everyone understands,” he said.

The post Two men living with HIV bring message of hope, awareness to Atlanta symposium appeared first on SaportaReport.