Demonstrators stage ‘die-in’ at HHS to protest cuts to HIV programs

Demonstrators gathered Thursday on the steps of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) building for a “die-in” over proposed funding cuts at the agency that could devastate programs addressing LGBTQ health disparities. 

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has sought to radically reshape the department and its approach to health care, including through funding cuts to programs geared toward treating and preventing HIV, a virus that in the U.S. disproportionately affects gay and bisexual men. Kennedy previously questioned evidence linking HIV to AIDS, a discovery that won a Nobel Prize in 2008. 

On Thursday, more than 100 participants sank slowly to the ground while Matthew Rose, senior public policy advocate for the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), which organized the demonstration, read aloud from a list of possible outcomes that funding cuts at the HHS would have on the LGBTQ community.  

“Every person here represents countless other stories. Countless lives. Countless possibilities. And as the federal government cuts funding — from research to housing, from mental health to Medicaid — we’re not just watching systems disappear. We’re watching lives disappear,” Rose said Thursday.

“But LGBTQ+ people will always be here. We are still here. In defiance. In community. In truth.” 

Organizers said they specifically chose to stage a “die-in” — a form of protest used by HIV/AIDS activists in the late 1980s to jolt political leaders into action — to symbolize the people who will die because of the funding cuts. 

“It’s a glaring visual,” said John Gruber, director of national campaigns at the HRC. “It sends a message when you put your body on the ground like that that you’re not willing to compromise.” 

“This is a demonstration of what is going to happen,” said Hooriya Hussain, a volunteer leader from San Diego. “Instead of making strides forward in an area that is already significantly underfunded, we’re going backwards, and this is going to cost us more lives.” 

The HHS began laying off thousands of workers earlier this month, including personnel at the National Center for HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and Tuberculosis Prevention and the Global Health Center Division of Global HIV and TB. Within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s division of HIV prevention, five branches were eliminated completely, including the research, surveillance and prevention communication branches. 

Kennedy has defended plans to overhaul the HHS in the name of efficiency. “Over time, bureaucracies like HHS become wasteful and inefficient even when most of their staff are dedicated and competent civil servants,” he said in a news release in March announcing restructuring at the agency. 

The Trump administration appears set to slash other LGBTQ-focused health programs. A budget document obtained by The Washington Post last week would end funding for an LGBTQ youth suicide hotline, for instance.