Why Trump’s Ban on World AIDS Day Must Be Resisted
It is nothing short of a disgrace that the United States government, under President Trump, has ordered federal agencies to “refrain from publicly promoting World AIDS Day,” effectively erasing the annual commemoration that since 1988 has stood as one of the few globally-recognized moments when the world — and America — pause to acknowledge the lives lost to HIV/AIDS, to honor survivors, and to recommit ourselves to fighting the epidemic.
This is not a neutral bureaucratic decision. It is a moral abdication. When the government turns away from acknowledging suffering, from publicly grieving the dead and supporting the living, it signals: some lives don’t matter enough. By silencing this commemoration, the administration is effectively saying that HIV/AIDS — and the queer, marginalized, global communities so disproportionately impacted by it — are no longer worthy of remembrance or solidarity.
Worse, this symbolic erasure comes at a moment when the government is simultaneously cutting funding to critical HIV/AIDS programs. The result will not be limited to abstract statistics or “budget lines.” It will be real: a surge in new infections, a collapse of prevention and treatment infrastructure, millions deprived of medicine, children born HIV-positive without support, and entire communities under siege. The human cost will be devastating. As one health-policy analysis warned, the U.S. pullback could trigger millions of new infections and deaths over just the next few years.To allow this — unchallenged — is to accept that when parts of the population become inconvenient, we simply erase them, ignore them, and abandon them. That is not leadership. That is cowardice. That is cruelty wrapped in bureaucratic language.
We must push back. We must demand accountability. We must remind every official who thinks they can sweep suffering under the rug: silence = death.
Silence from government doesn’t mean the pain goes away. It means the pain becomes invisible — until it becomes irreversible.
If we accept this, if we shrug and say “well, the government doesn’t commemorate anymore,” we are not only betraying people with HIV/AIDS. We are betraying the very principles of compassion, dignity, and collective responsibility that define what America — or any moral society — should stand for.
We must speak, demand, resist. Because the alternative is far too costly.
