By Rynn Myles Closing the Loop Across the first four blogs, we traced how HIV stigma began, how respectability shaped care, how institutions built systems that reflect their fears, and how those fears turned into cycles that continue to harm people today. Every part of this series has revealed something uncomfortable but liberating. Stigma is not an accident. It is a pattern, a cycle, and a design. And anything designed can be redesigned. This final blog is the blueprint. Not

by Rynn Myles There is a pattern in HIV work that most people feel long before they can name it. It shows up in clinics, research protocols, policy conversations, and in the ways communities talk about help that does not actually help. In the last blog, I dug into how stigma becomes institutionalized through data, policy, and funding. This installment picks up that thread and turns it toward the bigger structure. I want to untangle the cycle that stigma creates: the way it tr

by Rynn Myles In the first two installments, I explored the quieter, everyday forms of HIV stigma — the kinds that slip into how we talk about responsibility, compliance, and worthiness without ever naming themselves as stigma. Those pieces centered what happens between people and within programs. This installment steps further back to look at something harder to confront: how stigma is baked into the very architecture of our systems. It is embedded in the policies we defend,

by Ashley Heidebrecht, LMSW, DRIEP Director Today is World AIDS Day. This year, for the first time ever since its inception in 1988, the United States government has chosen not to recognize this day. In the midst of incredible cuts to funding for HIV and AIDS research and programs, this choice speaks volumes. A new UNAIDS report shows just how fragile our progress against HIV really is. Sixty percent of women-led HIV organizations have been deeply affected by recent funding c

by Dr. Robert L. Reece, PhD I have to admit I tire of the phone calls. The text messages. The social media direct messages from people who I’ve only ever seen through a screen on my phone. And the one Californian attorney who kept saying I live in “occupied territory.”   The message is often the same, and it has advanced past care into cliché. They ask if I’m going to leave the South or leave Texas; effectively asking me if I plan to leave my comfortable tenured, pensioned jo

by Dr. Robert L. Reece. No one would accuse Georgia Congressional Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of being progressive. Many people...

by Rynn Myles In the first blog of this series, I looked at how stigma and morality shape our conversations about HIV. That discussion...

by Ashley Heidebrecht, LMSW On July 21st, stating the intention of prioritizing disaster preparedness and flood relief, Texas Governor...

by Rynn Myles When I think about the beginning of the HIV epidemic, I don't think first about the virus. I think about the people. The...

This July 4 weekend, Central Texas was devastated by sudden flash floods that rapidly transformed peaceful rivers into deadly torrents....

by Dr. Robert L. Reece, PhD “None but the yellow shall see God.”   That’s the hymn that the Colored Methodist Episcopal (CME) church (now...

by Ashley Heidebrecht, LMSW, Director Every Pride Month, we see rainbows and celebration, but behind the colors is a deeper truth: LGBTQ+...

by Ashley Heidebrecht, LMSW, Director When we are taught about slavery in the United States, it is often through one of two lenses, or...

written by Dr. Robert L. Reece, PhD Chloe was an enslaved woman and the mother of a child who would grow up to be Rev. London Ferebee....

Written by Jennifer Dahlgren The term Deaf* will be used as an inclusive term to include Deaf, deaf, Hard of Hearing, latened deaf,...

Friday was a hard day for our Texas trans family and so we at the Borderland Rainbow Center and the Diversity and Resiliency Institute of...

Written by Ashley Heidebrecht, LMSW, DRIEP Director Wow, 2022 has been a whirlwind of a year. As we move into planning for 2023, I'd like...

Official Statement of the Borderland Rainbow Center Written by Ashley Heidebrecht, LMSW, DRIEP Director Synthesized from Borderland...

By Diana Martinez The use of authority is a cornerstone to how white supremacy was able to declare other people they did not identify...

by Diana Martinez, DRIEP Education and Content Manager It is already difficult enough navigating two cultures being from a Mexican...