Horizons - Plenary 2

Plenary 2 includes the keynote "Sex, Equity, and Resistance: The power of community-engaged research by, with, and for women living with HIV" by Elder Valerie Nicholson and Angela Kaid and also includes the Horizons Community Mosaic.

Elder Valerie Nicholson is Mi’kmaq, Haida, Roma and UK Islander descent. Honouring her given names, The One the Eagles watch over, NoDeWenDa (wolf eyes) and Auntie from the Torres Straight Islanders, Valerie is a Spirited Indigenous Warrior Woman living with HIV and a Peer Research Associate with several community engaged research studies, including the Canadian HIV Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health cohort study (CHIWOS). Valerie conducts community-based research with Indigenous women and mentors youth living with HIV as a trainer with the Positive Leadership Development Institute.

Dr. Angela Kaida is an Associate Professor in Health Sciences at Simon Fraser University. Kaida is Canada Research Chair Tier II in Global Perspectives in HIV and Sexual and Reproductive Health. Kaida is a global health epidemiologist interested in the linkages between HIVand sexual and reproductive health. She received her PhD in 2010 from the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia (UBC). She then completed a brief post-doctoral fellowship jointly at the Women’s Health Research Institute at BC Women’s Hospital and the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at UBC. In addition to her academic training, Dr. Kaida has substantial experience as a public health practitioner, having worked with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), the Alberta Ministry of Health and Wellness, and the Public Health Division of the Capital Health Authority. Dr. Kaida joined the Faculty of Health Sciences as an Assistant Professor in September 2010. She commenced her Canada Research Chair in January 2012.

People living with HIV in Canada can face criminal charges for not disclosing their HIV status to sexual partners. Although the law produces little discernible public health benefit, it intersects with other social oppressions to create substantial harm for people living with HIV. Driven by community demand for evidence about the gendered consequences of HIV criminalization in Canada, we embraced a community- engaged research approach to understand the impact of the law on the lives of women living with HIV. In this presentation, we share our community collaborative process to collect, analyse, and understand the consequences of HIV non-disclosure laws on the sexual rights, health, and safety of women living with HIV. We also share how a community-engaged research approach created both the evidence and infrastructure necessary to advocate for ending the over-criminalization of HIV non-disclosure using a sex-positive, women-centred, and critical feminist lens.