As a professor at California State University San Marcos, Andrew Spieldenner, PhD, begins every semester by telling his students that he is a gay man of color living with HIV. Spieldenner’s confidence to speak his truth dates back to when he first came out to his family as a young adult.

As a very young HIV tester in her native Lesotho, Africa, Dee Mphafi always encouraged newly diagnosed people to go on treatment. But after her own HIV diagnosis at age 17, Mphafi initially struggled to take her own advice. To make matters worse, when she finally did seek care, she encountered stigma.

Pat Migliore remembers when most HIV support groups in Seattle were exclusively for men. She was never discouraged, though. If anything, it sparked her to find more women living with the virus.

George Ayala is founding executive director of MPact Global Action for Gay Men’s Health and Rights, which is based in Oakland, California. MPact is one of the organizers of the HIV2020 conference to be held July 5 to 7 in Mexico City. HIV2020 was organized as an alternative to the 23rd International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2020), which will take place July 6 to 10 in San Francisco and Oakland. The International AIDS Society (IAS) is the sponsor of AIDS 2020.

When Joyce Turner Keller was diagnosed with HIV 18 years ago, she relied heavily on her Christian faith to get her through this new phase of life. “My spirituality was everything,” says the 70-year-old interdenominational minister and advocate from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, who is also the founder of Aspirations Wholistic Tutorial Services. “It was the foundation of my healing.”

Since 1994, POZ has featured countless people living with HIV in its pages. The subjects in these stories—everyone from everyday people who beat the odds to headline-grabbing advocates who spoke truth to power—have inspired readers throughout the country to take action, be resilient and remain optimistic even in dark times.

During the early days of the epidemic, when George Ayala was a clinical psychologist working with youth, HIV was a frequent topic of discussion in his conversations with young people.

As a gay man, Oscar Lopez thought it was inevitable that he would one day contract HIV. So when he entered the public health field more than 30 years ago, he made it his mission to fight and prevent HIV in his beloved LGBT and Latino communities.

Like most people living with HIV, LaTrischa Miles remembers the day she was diagnosed with HIV as if it were a second birthday: December 15, 1995.

When he tested positive in 1989, Mark Misrok didn’t expect to live a full life or have a career. “I spent many years just taking jobs that helped me survive and that I coped with,” explains Misrok, an HIV advocate who now lives in New York City. One of those jobs was driving a cab in San Francisco.

Dee Dee Chamblee identified as transgender from an early age, but her family didn’t accept her. So at 15 years old, she turned to sex work to support herself.

Baseball fans may recognize Ed Randall as a longtime broadcaster for the sport commonly known as America’s favorite pastime. But since 2003, he’s been speaking out—and enlisting athletes, from minor leaguers to four-time Gold Glover Steve Garvey—to promote the lifesaving value of early detection for prostate cancer. That’s the year he founded and became CEO of Fans for the Cure (FFTC).

In 1994, frustrated by the media’s coverage of the AIDS epidemic, activist Sean Strub started a magazine to amplify the voices of people living with HIV. He named it POZ.

In 2016, when Mariah Wilberg started working as a communications specialist at the Minnesota Department of Health, she was determined to incorporate the concept of Undetectable = Untransmittable (U=U) into the state health agency’s messaging.

Guy Anthony had for some time suspected that he might have HIV, but it wasn’t until 2007, while living in Los Angeles, that the activist and author tested positive.

After battling and surviving breast cancer, Michelle McNeely knew she wanted to give back somehow. So when she learned of a new initiative intended to improve the health of millions of Americans, she decided to participate.

Krishna Stone was one of more than 4,500 walkers at the first annual AIDS Walk New York in 1986. The historic fundraising event would mark the beginning of Stone’s long relationship with the world’s first provider of HIV prevention, care and advocacy.

Jesús Guillén left behind everything he knew and loved in Mexico to immigrate to the United States in 1984. A year later, he tested positive for HIV.

In early June, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) relaunched its “Let’s Stop HIV Together” campaign, which aims to reduce HIV-related stigma and raise HIV awareness. Now, the CDC has released the next phase of campaign materials, which include a Spanish-language version of the campaign.

Lillibeth Gonzalez proudly celebrated her 26th “HIVersary” on June 2, marking yet another milestone for the woman who has overcome addiction, domestic violence, stigma and the AIDS-related deaths of three siblings.