CHLP Kicks-off 20th Anniversary with Celebration in New York City

On Thursday, February 27, CHLP proudly celebrated 20 years of making positive justice possible at a 20th anniversary reception hosted by the Fund for the City of New York. The event coincides with National HIV is Not a Crime Awareness Day and comes at the end of a week when CHLP released an update to its HIV Criminalization Maps, one of its signature resources.

The evening reception was attended by CHLP staff, advisory board, event host committee, friends, and fellow advocates. Lisette Nieves, the President of the Fund for the City of New York delivered welcome remarks that recounted the founding of CHLP being supported by the Fund, which has been the organization’s fiscal sponsor since its inception.

CHLP Executive Director S. Mandisa Moore-O'Neal welcomed guests and introduced a 20th anniversary video produced for the event. The video features advocates and collaborators from throughout CHLP’s history sharing how the organization's work has changed laws and changed lives.

Comments from Senior PJP Attorney Jada Hicks recognized the growth and power of the Positive Justice Project, a project that has been at the heart of CHLP’s mission to challenge HIV criminalization. “In 2025, we have doubled our reach and actively engage in 20 state-based coalitions working alongside advocates, policymakers, and people living with HIV in states across the country to dismantle laws that criminalize HIV based on stigma, not science,” she said in remarks delivered at the event by CHLP Special Project Consultant Matt Blinstrubas.

“Over the years, we have built strong alliances with organizations and institutions that share our commitment to justice, equity, and the fight against HIV criminalization,” her remarks continued. “As we celebrate 20 years of CHLP, we also look forward—to building stronger partnerships, deepening our impact, and continuing to fight until every law that criminalizes HIV is dismantled.”

Michael Elizabeth, Director of Public Health Policy at Equality Federation, took to the podium and spoke about the expertise and passion that CHLP brings to the member organizations at the heart of their work. Highlighting examples of CHLP’s exemplary work in Maryland and Oklahoma, Michael Elizabeth made it very clear that CHLP's partnership is invaluable and the impact is great.  

CHLP Policy and Advocacy Manager Amir Sadeghi spoke next and highlighted CHLP’s principled and necessary work in New York State. “We're leading an effort in New York to repeal our stigmatizing STI criminalization law,” he said. “It’s an offense that has been enforced as recently as two and a half years ago when a young person living with HIV was charged under Public Health Law 2307, an interaction with police that ruined their life, that led to their discriminatory expulsion from their university.”

“We need all New Yorkers to talk to their friends, their family, their clergy, and their colleagues to urge their lawmakers to support this effort so the state has one less instrument to weaponize against marginalized PLHIV, including sex workers, and people living with other stigmatized STis,” he concluded.

CHLP Executive Director S. Mandisa Moore-O'Neal delivered remarks that acknowledged the contributions of people who helped build the organization through the years. She also discussed the honor being asked to lead the organization and working with staff to steer its transition to a Black feminist-led abolitionist organization. “We did it. We changed the landscape of HIV justice. Folks are having to contend with abolition in a way that they never did,” she said. “It’s not just a t-shirt or a slogan. It is a legal strategy It is a framework that determines how we talk to each other, how we draft bills.”

Her remarks also recalled that the spirit of CHLP’s founding was rooted in radical advocacy and a credit to founder Catherine Hanssens. Hanssens founded CHLP in 2005 and was awarded CHLP’s inaugural Urvashi Vaid Visionary Justice Award. The award honors the late Urvashi Vaid, an outspoken LGBTQ+ rights attorney, award-winning author, and visionary social justice movement strategist.

Longtime friends and collaborators, Vaid and Hanssens shared an uncompromising commitment to justice, and worked together on numerous initiatives in the HIV and LGBTQ+ rights movements. The award was accepted by Nieves for Hanssens, who was unable to attend.

Before adjourning the program to cut the anniversary cake, Moore-O’Neal concluded her remarks by quoting civil rights activist and poet June Jordan, “We are the ones we have been waiting for,” from Poem for South African Women. Noting that our country is now facing an onslaught of threats to public health and safety she looked around the room and concluded, “We are the leaders that we need in this moment.”