DeOnyae-Dior Valentina (she/her/ella) is a nationally recognized trans justice advocate, HIV policy strategist, and emerging legal professional whose work centers the intersection of lived experience, legislative reform, and community-led systems change.
I had the incredible opportunity to participate in AIDSWatch 2026, and I’m still reflecting on everything the experience represented. For me, AIDSWatch was a chance to engage at every level of advocacy, from shaping national conversations and equipping community advocates with tools, to bringing those conversations directly to policymakers on Capitol Hill.
I began the week as a panelist during the opening plenary, “We Keep Us Safe: Impacted Communities in Trump 2.0.” Alongside an incredible group of advocates and leaders, we discussed the realities many of our communities are navigating during a period of increasing attacks on healthcare access, LGBTQ+ rights, immigrant communities, and economic stability.
As a young Black and Brown transgender woman living with HIV from Indiana, I spoke about what it means to experience policy as something that directly impacts our ability to access care, remain housed, feel safe, and plan for the future. I discussed the fear many communities are experiencing, specifically the fear rooted in systems. The fear of losing healthcare coverage. The fear of administrative barriers interrupting care. The fear of engaging with institutions that are supposed to support us.
One of the points I shared was that policy decisions do not remain in legislative chambers or agency offices. Policy doesn’t stay in Washington; it lands in our bodies.
It was truly an honor to share the stage with Ronnie Taylor and Omar Martinez Gonzalez, whose expertise and advocacy continue to strengthen our movements. I am also incredibly thankful to our moderator, Gabriel San Emeterio, for guiding a thoughtful and powerful discussion that centered the realities our communities are facing while keeping us grounded in solutions.
Later in the day, I had the opportunity to facilitate the launch of my project, Trans Futures: Centering Trans Youth Voices in HIV Policy, a national storybank and advocacy toolkit developed through AIDS United’s Transgender Leadership Initiative. The project was designed to translate the lived experiences of transgender and gender-expansive youth into policy-relevant insights that can inform advocacy, public health planning, and legislative action through five core pillars: lived-experience leadership, ethical narrative practices, structural pattern recognition, policy translation, and community-centered accountability.
The workshop explored why storytelling remains one of the most powerful tools we have for policy change, not because stories replace data, but because they provide the human context behind statistics. As I shared during the presentation, statistics alone cannot explain how systems fail in real time, how administrative barriers interrupt care, or how fear shapes healthcare decisions. Stories help us understand what policy outcomes actually look like in people’s lives.
Through the Trans Futures project, stories were collected from transgender and gender-expansive youth ages 16 to 29 across the United States, representing diverse racial backgrounds, geographic regions, socioeconomic conditions, and healthcare experiences. What emerged were not isolated incidents but recurring structural patterns, including but not limited to administrative Medicaid terminations, insurance coverage that still denies care, geographic barriers to treatment, housing instability impacting medication adherence, and fear of discrimination within healthcare settings. I hope that this toolkit becomes a living advocacy resource that helps advocates, organizations, policymakers, and community members better understand how policy decisions affect trans youth living with or impacted by HIV.
Following the plenary and workshop, I had the opportunity to bring these conversations directly to Capitol Hill. During meetings with congressional offices, I discussed HIV policy priorities, Medicaid protections, healthcare access, housing supports, and the challenges facing communities in Indiana. These conversations reinforced something I have believed for a long time: advocacy is most effective when lived experience, community expertise, and policy strategy work together.
It is one thing to identify barriers. It is another thing to sit across from policymakers and discuss how those barriers can be removed.
AIDSWatch reminded me that advocacy is not confined to a single room, a single panel, or a single meeting. It exists in the connections between storytelling, education, organizing, and policy change. It exists when communities share their experiences. It exists when advocates translate those experiences into recommendations. And it exists when policymakers are willing to listen and act.
I left AIDSWatch feeling grateful, energized, and reminded that while policies can create barriers, communities continue to create pathways forward. We survive hostile administrations. But we build power in the spaces between them.
View the full toolkit here: Trans Futures Policy Toolkit