On a crisp 41-degree morning, more than a hundred people gathered beneath the AIDS Memorial in Greenwich Village to mark World AIDS Day, observed every Dec. 1 since 1988. The memorial — an 18-foot white steel canopy built in 2016 beside the former hospital that housed New York City’s first and largest AIDS ward — honors more than 100,000 New Yorkers lost to the disease.
But this year’s gathering felt different. For the first time since World AIDS Day began, the U.S. State Department declined to officially recognize it — a silence that speaks volumes. A silence that, for many, still equals death.
Speaker after speaker took the microphone. Brad Hoylman-Sigal, Manhattan Borough president-elect, joined by Assemblymembers Linda Rosenthal and Tony Simone, condemned the Trump administration for ignoring a day that honors millions lost and millions still living with HIV.
“It’s a shame that in 2025 this administration won’t even recognize today. That is shameful!” Hoylman-Sigal declared, his words met with chants of “Shame! Shame!”
Rosenthal added, “We mark World Intellectual Property Day —and not this! Meanwhile, we have someone like RFK Jr. blocking the research needed to find a vaccine.”
US President George W. Bush makes a statement on World AIDS Day as First Lady Laura Bush looks on December 1, 2008, on the North Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C. Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images)
Then came the voices that mattered most. Longtime survivors Reginald Brown and Valerie Reyes-Jimenez spoke of how they turned their death sentences into advocacy. Reyes-Jimenez — living with HIV since 1989 and widowed by the disease — recalled how women and minorities were treated as “collateral damage” in the early years of the epidemic. She paused, scanning the crowd. “I wonder,” she said softly, “if the same is happening again today.”
In a city that lost more lives to AIDS than any other in America, her words lingered — a reminder that the fight against HIV isn’t just about remembrance, but survival.
In January 2025, decades of progress began to unravel when the U.S. government froze most foreign aid, which some international development experts estimated has gutted more than 80% of global health and development programs. The dismantling of USAID followed, and clinics and outreach programs supported by PEPFAR reduced staff and cut back testing and lab services, causing mass treatment interruptions. PEPFAR — the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief — was the cornerstone of the global AIDS response for more than two decades. Because of the U.S. government’s actions, many PEPFAR partners were forced to close entirely.
According to the Center for Global Development, 2.3 million people on “lifesaving treatment” for HIV were directly affected, and the timing couldn’t have been worse. A new injectable treatment called lenacapavir, a breakthrough that promised to transform HIV prevention by offering protection against the virus for up to six months, had just been developed. But without the ability to distribute the drug widely in Africa and other global markets, the advance became a painful symbol of a breakthrough that seems just out of reach for many of the world’s populations who have suffered the most from AIDS.
Students taking out Red Ribbon Walk on the occasion of World AIDS Day at Eco Park organized by Bihar State AIDS Control Society on December 1, 2025 in Patna, India. (Photo by Santosh Kumar/Hindustan Times via Getty Images)
And damage to HIV research and treatment has not been limited to international aid. Federal government actions have wiped out nearly 200 HIV-focused grants — totaling more than $200 million — at U.S. institutions in the past year. The loss of a $2 million HIV grant at Meharry Medical College in Nashville illustrates how programs with decades of proven impact could vanish overnight.
“AIDS-related deaths could rise by 4.2 million, and 3 million more children could be orphaned.”
Meanwhile, many of the leaders at the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases — the very agencies that helped transform HIV from a fatal disease into a manageable condition — have been fired or reassigned. The departures of veteran researchers such as Clifford Lane, who had devoted 45 years of his life to HIV research, represent not just lost expertise but the erosion of a legacy built on compassion and perseverance.
UNAIDS warns that permanent cuts to PEPFAR funding could result in 6.6 million additional HIV infections by 2029, including 660,000 among children. AIDS-related deaths could rise by 4.2 million, and 3 million more children could be orphaned.
World AIDS Day reminds us the epidemic is far from over. In 2024, 630,000 people died from AIDS-related illnesses, while 1.3 million became newly infected. This year’s theme, “Overcoming Disruption, Transforming the AIDS Response,” captures both the urgency of the moment and the need for renewed advocacy.
This year, the fight against AIDS grew even more complicated.
The U.S. State Department barred employees from promoting or commemorating World AIDS Day, citing a new policy against messaging on “commemorative observances.” A government spokesman defended the move, saying an “awareness day” is ineffective and that “President Trump is working directly with foreign governments to save lives.”
But the irony runs deep. World AIDS Day was established by the World Health Organization — an institution the United States withdrew from under one of Trump’s first executive orders. Now, the nation that once led the global fight against AIDS has stepped back from even acknowledging it.
“The nation that once led the global fight against AIDS has stepped back from even acknowledging it.”
For a disease that still afflicts more than 40 million people worldwide and has claimed more than 44 million lives, silence isn’t neutrality. Silence is death — a truth echoed again and again at today’s World AIDS Day gatherings.
After the speeches ended, the crowd marched to Stonewall Inn, a site that in 1969 served as a major catalyst for the modern LGBTQ civil rights movement. In the evening, St. John’s Lutheran Church hosted a concert and candlelight vigil — reminders that remembrance is itself an act of resistance.
The church’s response to AIDS in the 1980s remains one of Christianity’s darkest chapters. As thousands died without treatment or hope, those most affected — gay men, drug users and the marginalized — often were shunned instead of comforted. Preachers like Jerry Falwell called AIDS “the wrath of a just God against homosexuals,” warning that anyone showing compassion was under judgment too. Pat Robertson, another powerful voice of the era, went further — claiming that gay men in San Francisco used “special rings” to deliberately spread AIDS, a grotesque fiction that deepened stigma and fear.
Yet while the church failed to show Christ’s love then, we still have time to show it now.
We can write, speak and act — contact elected officials about restoring global AIDS funding, support front-line organizations providing testing, treatment and outreach, and stand against stigma wherever it appears. In the U.S., the HIV/AIDS Bureau (which administers the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program), and New York’s Housing Works remain lifelines for the millions of Americans who are living with HIV/AIDS. Globally, the Global Fund, AVAC, and the World Health Organization continue the vital work of prevention and care.
And we can honor this day ourselves — in our churches, our small groups, or our homes — refusing to let remembrance fade into silence.
The World Health Organization still insists that ending AIDS by 2030 is possible. But it will take recommitment, courage and compassion — from governments, from churches, from us.
The progress we’ve made is real. So is the risk we’ll lose it. It will take all of us — standing in the gap — to make sure we don’t.
Christina Ray Stanton wrote an award-winning book about surviving the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Out of the Shadow of 9-11: An Inspiring Tale of Escape and Transformation. Her faith articles have appeared in numerous publications all over the world. She also is the author of Faith in the Face of COVID-19: A Survivor’s Tale.
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