Medicine has transformed HIV. Stigma and inequality haven’t disappeared with it.

On Saturday 21 November, I’ll be joining the Impulse London team to take on the RED RUN for National AIDS Trust (NAT) at Victoria Park.

I was diagnosed with HIV in January 2007, aged 28. I remember the loneliness and the sense that my life had suddenly become something very different. Almost 20 years later, I am unashamedly living with HIV and I am undetectable. I’ve had the privilege of spending much of the last 15 years using my voice and my lived experience to help change the conversation around HIV.

The science has changed extraordinarily quickly. Treatment keeps people healthy. U=U means people on effective treatment cannot pass HIV on sexually. PrEP has transformed HIV prevention. And we are now seeing new long-acting treatments and research that could change how HIV treatment is delivered in the future. I’m even taking part in a clinical trial exploring once-weekly HIV treatment, while continuing my daily medication.

But medicine alone does not cure prejudice.

That is why I’m supporting National AIDS Trust. NAT is the UK’s HIV rights charity, fighting discrimination, challenging inequality and campaigning for better access to prevention, treatment and support.

For the past few years, I have been proud to be a member of NAT’s Community Advisory Group, helping to bring the voices and lived experiences of people affected by HIV into the organisation’s work. For me, that principle matters enormously: our voices are most clearly heard when we work together.

I’ve seen the difference that campaigning can make. In the 2010s, NAT took NHS England to court over PrEP and won, helping pave the way for PrEP to become available on the NHS. I stood alongside colleagues from NAT at protests then, and I did the same earlier this year, when we were fighting for a life-saving treatment, lenacapavir, to be made available for the people who needed it.

I’ve worked with UNISON and NAT on the Unionising Against HIV Stigma campaign, helping put HIV firmly on the trade union agenda and contributing to the development of a model workplace policy for people living with HIV. That campaign has grown from a motion I initiated in UNISON in 2023 into a wider piece of work challenging HIV stigma and discrimination in workplaces.

But there is so much more to do.

NAT’s work helps make change tangible. £15 can provide three schools with HIV education materials. £50 can help fund a meeting with an MP to push HIV higher up the political agenda. £75 can provide free, confidential legal advice to someone who has experienced HIV discrimination.

So please sponsor my RED RUN and help me support the people doing the hard graft of turning progress into rights, dignity and equality.

Because we have come a very long way since my diagnosis in 2007. But we haven’t finished the job.