National HIV Prevention Day: Awareness is my superpower

What if the greatest barrier to HIV prevention isn't willingness...but awareness?

People say knowledge is power. Well then...

Awareness is the superpower!

Because you can't advocate for options you don't know exist.

That truth didn't just change my life.

It gave my life purpose…

In 2016, I found myself navigating a serodifferent relationship with a man living with HIV, meaning one partner is living with HIV, while the other is not. His diagnosis never changed how I saw him. To me, he was someone I cared deeply about, someone deserving of love, intimacy, dignity, and the opportunity to experience all of those things without shame.

Like so many couples, we were trying to figure it out together. Healthcare providers talked to us about risk, but none of them spoke about or offered options. No one asked me what I knew. No one asked me what I wanted. Not one medical provider I saw at the time said, "Let's talk about every tool available to help you navigate this relationship."

So I did what many people do: I moved forward with the information I had. The problem was that the information I had wasn't complete. Looking back, I don't think my biggest barrier was fear. It was the absence of awareness. I wasn't refusing PrEP, nor was I declining prevention. I simply didn't know PrEP existed and that there was and is a difference.

That realization has shaped everything I believe about HIV prevention today. Because prevention isn't just about what exists, it's also about awareness of what exists.

Three years later, in 2019, I entered another serodifferent relationship. Another city, another man living with HIV, and he shared something with me that no healthcare provider ever had:

He told me about PrEP.

Not only did he share critical knowledge with me, but he also walked beside me right into a trusted health department so I could learn even more.

And wouldn't you know, that moment didn't just introduce me to a medication; it introduced me to an awareness. It introduced me to agency. And it led me to realize that awareness is what makes everything else possible.

That newfound awareness led me to seek understanding. And with that understanding, I made real and informed choices about my body. Those choices strengthened my agency and confidence, fueling my advocacy of today. I'm now known as a fierce advocate and ally for treatment and prevention because I became relentless about sharing what no one had shared with me—that HIV prevention was for me too. And it's not about wanting everyone to make the same choices that I made; it's about helping people realize the message of prevention is for them as well and that so many avenues of care exist for them today.

I used my superpower the best way I knew how: I wrote, I spoke, I shared, I researched, I consulted, utilizing my awareness superpower to share the knowledge I acquired. I shared my story wherever someone was willing to listen and will continue.

It was through sharing my own experiences with challenges accessing PrEP and advocating for Black women that I also began to build relationships with Black transgender men and women advocating for PrEP access for members of the LGBTQ community. I began working for and collaborating with HIV advocacy organizations throughout Georgia to help others find their superpower in awareness.

Today, my superpower has uniquely positioned me to be a lived-experience expert, HIV treatment and prevention advocate, community ally, community informer, trainer, speaker, consultant, researcher, and educator, utilizing those extensions of power to aid in the facilitation of change in perspective about HIV prevention, care, diagnosis, and all things regarding the impact of HIV in the communities I call home. I am seen standing within and beside communities that have too often been left out of HIV prevention conversations while working to ensure those same communities are represented wherever decisions are being made.

It wasn't my college education, certificates, or privilege. It was knowing that if I was unaware, I am most certain I am not the only one. Everything I do today is driven by one question that refuses to leave me: If I didn't know…who else doesn't?

This is my compass.

It drives me to normalize conversations about HIV prevention with diverse communities throughout Georgia, including Black women and LGBTQ people who are often forgotten in rural areas. It drives me to help providers move beyond assumptions and toward person-centered conversations. It drives me to challenge systems that expect people to advocate for themselves without first ensuring they know all of their options. It drives me to ensure community voices help shape research, public health messaging, healthcare delivery, and policy—not simply respond to them. It drives me to create spaces where Black cisgender women, gender expansive folks, and all people can make informed decisions about their bodies, relationships, health, and futures without shame or judgment.

That's how awareness becomes understanding.

Understanding creates informed choice.

Informed choice strengthens agency.

Agency fuels advocacy.

Advocacy creates impact.

And impact becomes legacy.

For National HIV Prevention Day (July 17), I believe we must advocate for systems and conditions that help even more people find the superpower of awareness. We need increased funding for HIV prevention to support community-informed awareness campaigns, expand provider awareness and education, and address coverage barriers that pose as challenges to PrEP access. We need a federally funded National PrEP Program to connect and support all those who need PrEP, including those without insurance.

My legacy isn't creating followers. My legacy is creating informed advocates. I want to leave behind a world where awareness is recognized as the first act of prevention, informed choice is expected, not exceptional, and that no one has to discover life-changing information by chance.

I don't want people to think like me.

I want them to know enough to think for themselves. I want them to walk into every healthcare encounter knowing they deserve answers. I want them to leave every conversation knowing they have options. I want them to understand that informed choice isn't a privilege. It's their right!

My superpower isn't that I learned about PrEP—my superpower is that awareness transformed what I learned into purpose. And if my story helps just one person discover options they never knew existed, then they have the power to choose. That is the power of HIV prevention through awareness and the power of sharing personal experience boldly and without shame.

And this, my friends, this is the belief and understanding I want to leave behind and leave with you.

Latonia Wilkins is an HIV prevention advocate, speaker, educator, and PrEP user based in Georgia.

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