Cristina Herrera moved to New York City in 1985, during the height of the crack cocaine and AIDS epidemics. At 16 years old, just as she was beginning her journey as a trans woman, she saw some of her peers fight addiction and die of AIDS-related causes.

When the first HIV test became available in 1985, John McLay took it and tested positive. The result didn’t surprise him; he was sure he had been living with the virus for three years.

As a labor lawyer living with HIV in the 1980s, Jesse Milan Jr. used his expertise to help protect and advance the rights of HIV-positive people.

Charles King’s passion for helping the homeless was ignited during his early days as a Baptist minister in San Antonio. But it wasn’t until he joined ACT UP New York in the late-1980s that he connected his fight for the homeless to his fight for people living with HIV.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.