Building Coalitions of HIV and LGBTQ Organizations
nce recognized by the Obama White House as one of the “Nation’s Emerging LGBTQ+ Leaders,” Tyler TerMeer now finds himself at odds with the Trump administration. TerMeer heads the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit that has, so far, managed to temporarily blockantidiversity and antitransgender executive orders.
Created at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic in 1982, the SF AIDS Foundation aims to reduce HIV transmission and support people who have the disease. The bulk of the organization’s funding comes from private philanthropy and local grants, with federal grants accounting for just 4 percent of its roughly $44 million annual budget.
However, the administration’s proposals to roll back DEI policies and cut programs intended to help marginalized people is a major threat to the foundation’s work, TerMeer says. “We felt like we had a lot on the line and wanted to be out in front and wanted to fight for the people who needed us the most.”
As the lawsuit makes its way through the courts, TerMeer is finding ways to build a coalition he hopes will help HIV- and LGBTQ-focused organizations withstand the challenges that may come. For TerMeer, who is the first Black person to lead the SF AIDS Foundation, it’s about finding commonalities.
“The HIV and LGBTQ movements have kind of gone on separate paths and not always been in sync,” he says. “But we have really come back together and found ways to learn how to communicate and collaborate better over the last several months.”
TerMeer says he’s seeing that more and more with different social movements.
“We have to figure out how to work together in this moment to overcome the roadblocks that are ahead of us,” he says, “so that we can fight for the people that need us the most.”
