New York City Launch of Criminalized Lives: HIV and Legal Violence, Rutgers University Press. Using storytelling, theory, and comic illustrations, this book examines firsthand accounts of people living with HIV who have been criminalized because of their status. The book also traces activist social movement response working to counter the harms of HIV criminalization under the slogan #HIVISNOTACRIME.

Moderated by Blake Paskal of Visual AIDS, this event will be a discussion with Criminalized Lives author Alexander McClelland, along with activist and author Robert Suttle, who wrote the foreword to the book, queer comic artist, Eric Kostiuk Williams, who did the illustrations for the book, and Amir Sadeghi, Policy and Advocacy Manager of the Center for HIV Law and Policy. Collectively, this panel will discuss the current realities of HIV criminalization in the US, and New York State, as well as the ways public health responses can drive criminalization efforts, recent successes in advocacy, and the role of art, archives, and activism in supporting movements for change.