In time for Southern HIV/AIDS Awareness Day on Aug. 20, the Saving Ourselves Symposium (SOS), presented by the Southern AIDS Coalition, will bring together the Black LGBTQ+ community for a four-day conference in Atlanta.
From Aug. 20 to 23, HIV and LGBTQ+ advocates will meet at the Atlanta Marriott Northwest Gala to share research, updates, and community. This year’s theme is Collective Action for Collective Impact, a call to move beyond conversation and into coordinated strategy, shared accountability, and cross-sector collaboration.
The itinerary includes plenaries, skills-building workshops, strategic planning sessions, and events like a Southern HIV/AIDS Awareness Day reception at Atlanta City Hall, a red carpet gala, and a Queer Soul Brunch.
Among the participating organizations is the Normal Anomaly Initiative, which creates barrier-reducing, narrative-changing resources for marginalized people. Deputy Director Jordan Edwards and Program Manager Titan Capri, who are both living with HIV, will be in attendance at SOS.
“SOS provides space for the range of individuals across the South, and primarily the people who are doing the work [in HIV advocacy] are people of color,” Edwards told Georgia Voice. “If the South can look at what’s happening in the South, we can really take care of ourselves.”
Related story: Trump ends direct HIV prevention funding to community groups
Both Edwards and Capri became HIV advocates after getting their own diagnoses. Capri was diagnosed in 2005 and received cold and uninformative care from a non-Black doctor who didn’t treat him with humanity.
“The doctor came in and basically said, ‘You have AIDS,’ and walked out of the room,” he said. “It was horrible. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know what was happening.”
Despite being diagnosed nearly a decade later in 2013, Edwards had a similarly uninformative and stigmatized experience.
“[The case manager] opened up a box of pens and gave me a pen out of the box,” he said. “He did not want me to touch the ones that were on his desk. He told me not to share the same toilet… and I’m thinking, ‘I live in a house with my mom. I don’t know what to do with that.’”
Luckily, both men ended up receiving competent care from other doctors and social workers, and the two now advocate for similarly human-focused HIV care.
After living decades with HIV, Edwards and Capri have seen huge progress be made in the medical treatment for HIV but see newly diagnosed people still experiencing stigma and shame, emphasizing the need for spaces like SOS.
“Jordan and myself, our diagnoses weren’t perfect – mine wasn’t good at all,” Capri said. “Now we’re able to say, ‘Hey y’all, this happened to us, but it doesn’t have to happen to you. We can help you out.’”
The Normal Anomaly Initiative will be presenting community infrastructure at the 2026 Saving Ourselves Symposium. Registration for SOS is still open and can be completed for $150 through the event’s website.
