Brandon Lacy Campos, the openly queer and HIV-positive activist, artist, writer and poet, has died at the age of 35. He wrote widely about race, sexuality and his experience living with HIV. In a speech earlier this year at the Civil Liberties and Public Policy Conference at Hampshire College, he called for HIV to be a central concern of the movement for reproductive freedom.
Brandon Lacy Campos: “Let me be clear: HIV isn’t over. It’s relevant to your work. It’s relevant to your lives. It is not just a disease that affects white gay men. It isn’t a disease that impacts only men of color on the down-low. In fact, it isn’t a disease that impacts only men. Women, and specifically women of color, and even more specifically African-American and Latina women, are the fastest-growing population of people living with HIV. And with 300,000 women living with HIV in the United States and women representing more than 50 percent of HIV cases around the world, you cannot in justice or in faith remove issues of HIV from reproductive justice.”
Lacy Campos was found dead in New York City on Friday. The cause of his death is still unknown.