June, which is Pride Month, comes as advocates warn that federal cuts to key programs are impacting health care access and vital medication for thousands – as infection rates rise.
Terry Dudley spent nearly a decade working in HIV prevention and care in Chicago.
These days he’s consumed with worry about his future.
“I’m getting evicted, and I don’t have a job,” said Dudley. “People think that in 2026 that people aren’t dying from HIV or things like that, but I’m not surviving with HIV. I am literally dying with HIV because the resources and institutions that are supposed to be in place, that are supposed to help, they can’t. I am a somebody who is speaking from both sides. Somebody who’s done the work, and somebody who’s now on the other side trying to survive.”
Advocates said federal funding cuts to HIV and AIDS services are hitting an already strained system.
An $18 million grant focused on HIV research in adolescents and young adults was eliminated by the Trump administration. Another $600 million in grants for HIV and STD prevention was also halted after a federal judge temporarily blocked the cuts amid an ongoing lawsuit. Trump’s proposed 2027 budget calls for more reductions and drastic changes.
A spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services shared the following statement:
“These grants are being terminated because they do not reflect agency priorities.
Additionally, HHS is committed to ensuring Americans’ taxpayer dollars support gold-standard science that benefits all Americans. The Department is strengthening efforts to end the HIV epidemic by expanding access to prevention, treatment, and care through investments in next-generation therapies, support for viral suppression programs, emergency preparedness efforts, and public access to trusted HIV information and local services.”
Timothy Jackson, senior director of policy and advocacy at the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, said there is an intentional effort to dehumanize the people in communities impacted by HIV.
“And those are Black and Latinx individuals and communities,” he said. “We’re talking about LGBTQ folks. Every day, every week seems like an additional attack…so it’s kind of like you wake up wondering what is it going to be today? Is there going to an executive order, or is there going be a new appropriations bill that passes or is introduced or some other rhetoric?
Jackson said individuals receiving regular treatment for HIV can live a healthy life.
“Any interruption in that, it could progress to an AIDS diagnosis,” he said. “Death is the ultimate end, and we don’t want to see that here in Illinois, anywhere actually. We’re not going back to the early 80s. We are going to do everything within our power to push back. Giving up is not an option.”
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