Tequan Penny was just 16 when she was diagnosed with HIV.
She contracted the virus during sex with a “much older” partner who did not disclose he was positive, and when she developed meningitis two years later, her immune system was ill-equipped to fight the infection and it nearly killed her.
“I lost my vision due to a detached retina,” she says. “I can see light and shadow, but I don’t have a retina.”
Penny, now 44, became legally blind while battling depression and caring for her two-year-old daughter. With HIV treatment and support, Penny is slowly getting healthier, both physically and mentally.
That’s what drives her work today at the Afiya Center, where she provides support and resources to Black women living in poverty and at higher risk of contracting the virus.
The Afiya Center, an HIV prevention and reproductive justice organization, held its 11th annual free testing event on June 29, the Saturday closest to National HIV Testing Day on June 27. Organizers said the event, held in South Dallas, aims to provide resources to a community that has few resources.
Texas led the nation in new positive cases in 2022, with more than 18% of those cases recorded in Dallas County, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The HIV crisis, both in Texas and nationwide, disproportionately affects Black people, according to CDC data.
In the Dallas area, which includes Dallas, Collin, Delta, Denton, Ellis, Hunt, Kaufman and Rockwall counties, black men who have sex with men account for 25% of cases, according to the CDC.
In Texas, 1 in 156 black women is infected with HIV, compared with 1 in 2,146 white women, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.
Marsha Jones, founder and executive director of the Afiya Center, said they began hosting annual testing events about 10 years ago to meet the needs of Black neighborhoods.
The event started as a small gathering in a parking lot, with local residents bringing portable barbecue grills to grill and serve hot dogs to people who came to get tested. Jones worried no one would show up the first year, when it was held during a snowy winter.
But dozens of people showed up despite the bad weather, and Jones recalls that she knew “we were doing something good.”
About 150 people attended this year’s event, which offered free birth control, counseling, mammograms and women’s health information, and evolved into a lively block party with blaring hip hop music and attendees line dancing and singing.
“I’m an old-fashioned street activist,” Jones said with a laugh.
Helen Zimba, HIV programme manager at the Afiya Centre, said the most common mistake people make when trying to understand HIV is not focusing on the underlying causes of the disease.
HIV is transmitted through contact with certain bodily fluids during sexual activity, but can also be transmitted through blood and breast milk, and is often transmitted through the sharing of needles, syringes and drug paraphernalia.
“A variety of things happen for people to become infected with HIV,” Zimba said, adding that difficult living conditions, such as a lack of safe housing, can play a contributing role as it puts individuals in a vulnerable situation.
HIV can be fatal if left untreated and severely weakens the immune system, leaving the body defenseless against infection and disease if the virus progresses to AIDS.
Michelle Anderson, 54, a director at the Afiya Centre, said she learned she was HIV positive when she was 29.
Anderson has spoken openly about her own trauma, including sexual abuse, poverty and drug addiction, which she says led her to eventually end up in a relationship with a man who didn’t tell her he was HIV positive.
She said her life experiences, and how she overcame them, have given her deep compassion for others who are forced to fend for themselves on the streets.
“I want to help other black women because the information I received was misleading and not relevant to my experience as a black woman living in America,” she said, stressing that women need to be aware of how race, gender and class affect their risk level.
Anderson went on to become the first HIV-positive woman to compete in a mainstream beauty pageant and win a national title, crowning Miss Plus America in 2011. Anderson said accessing treatment saved her life and being freed from the stigma of HIV “liberated my soul.”
That’s why she works every day to provide the same services to young Black women who experience the same things.
Zimba, who is HIV positive himself, said he wanted people to understand that the virus was no longer deadly, and that with HIV treatment many people were now able to live longer, healthier lives.
“I’ve worked in this field for many years, and we talk to people about death a lot,” said Zimba, who has worked at the center for nearly a decade. “Literally, we were like, ‘Okay, do you have a will?’ That was the first thing we had to say: ‘Do you have a will? Because you’re going to die.'”
“But that’s not true,” she said.
After trying three different HIV treatment plans, Penny found one that worked for her. She now has a zero viral load, meaning her risk of sexual transmission is effectively zero. She’s also been married to her HIV-positive husband for 19 years.
“I want young women to understand that HIV doesn’t have to be a part of their life, but if it is, they can still get through it and live with it,” she said.