Activists mark 45 years since the start of the AIDS crisis with rally against Trump's health cuts

Hundreds of people brought candles to New York City’s historic Christopher Street on Friday afternoon for a vigil marking 45 years since the first reported cases of AIDS and protesting cuts to HIV care and public health programs under President Donald Trump.

The New York City AIDS Memorial partnered with numerous health and advocacy groups for a vigil and march through the historic heart of LGBTQ+ New York, ending at the Stonewall Inn. Forty-five years prior, on June 5, 1981, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention first reported five cases of an unknown disease eventually identified as AIDS.

“The New York City AIDS Memorial was built as a place for commemoration, but also as a place for action,” Dave Harper, the memorial’s executive director, told The Advocate. “It’s very appropriate that those two things are converging here today.”

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Vigil participants stage a die-in on New York City's Christopher Street, just outside the Stonewall Inn. Photography by Alexander Sargent, courtesy of the New York City AIDS Memorial © 2026 New York City AIDS Memorial

Advocates warned that reductions to Medicaid and other safety net programs in the 2025 budget bill dubbed by Republicans as the “Big, Beautiful Bill,” could undermine access to HIV prevention, treatment, housing, and health care for vulnerable communities.

“Those cuts include a ton of cuts to programs that impact people with HIV and AIDS. But they are impacting way more than just that,” Harper said. “Medicaid cuts across the board. Rural hospitals closing. All kinds of preventative treatment gone. Housing for people living with AIDS gone. Ryan White funding gutted.”

The vigil and rally were co-hosted by groups focused on HIV advocacy, the LGBTQ+ community, and civil rights, including ACT UP, Housing Works, PrEP4All, Callen-Lorde, Rise and Resist, Treatment Action Group, Citizen Action of New York, Defend Public Health-NY, Metro New York Health Care for All, and Physicians for a National Health Program.

The New York City AIDS Memorial hosted a vigil June 5 commemorating 45 years since the AIDS epidemic was first reported in the United States. Photography by Alexander Sargent, courtesy of the New York City AIDS Memorial © 2026 New York City AIDS Memorial

Several health officials and LGBTQ+ advocates delivered remarks during the demonstration, including actress and drag artist Peppermint, actor Javier Muñoz, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis of Callen-Lorde, Dr. Oni Blackstock of the consulting firm Health Justice, and UNAIDS liaison Vinay Saldanha.

“I’m grateful for the progress that we’ve made, in large part because of many of the people that I believe are standing in front of us right now,” Peppermint said in a speech at the vigil. “It is so important that everyone else who can hear this message understands that they have to show up. You may not be HIV-positive. You may not ever even think about HIV. … But if you are a human being, you need health care. It is essential.”

Friday’s vigil was part of a broader activist campaign called Seven Days in June, a week of grassroots activism and demonstrations across the country from June 1 to 7, aimed at urging lawmakers to stop cutting public health programs and increase their funding. The effort was organized by longtime AIDS activist and AIDS Memorial Quilt creator Cleve Jones.

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Friday's candelight vigil was also a protest opposing cuts to health and HIV funding under President Donald Trump. Photography by Alexander Sargent, courtesy of the New York City AIDS Memorial © 2026 New York City AIDS Memorial

The demonstration ended with a die-in on Christopher Street, where participants lay down in the roadway for a moment of silence. The protest tactic was adopted in the 1980s by AIDS activists seeking to illustrate the human toll of the epidemic and has since become a hallmark of HIV-related demonstrations.

According to advocates, Friday’s vigil commemorated lives lost to HIV and AIDS while drawing connections between the movement's past battles and current fights over health care access.

“The big lesson of HIV/AIDS activism is that everybody needs health care, not just some people,” Benjamin Heim Shepard, a member of ACT UP New York, told The Advocate. “Everybody needs health care. Everybody needs prevention. Everybody needs treatment. That’s sort of been the underlying moral message of AIDS activism from the very beginning.”