Get your exclusive ‘Read My Lips’ t-shirt and support ‘ACT UP London’ here!

For World AIDS Day – December 1st 2023 – order this iconic t-shirt design of the original ACT UP long sleeve T-shirt as worn by Jimmy during the Read My Lips campaign – all profits will be donated to our ongoing healthcare activism at ACT UP London. Thanks lovers!

Please get yourself a t-shirt ACT UP supporters – here’s why

“I can’t tell you how much this news means to me. As a 21 year-old when I received my HIV+ diagnosis, barely dealing with my sexuality in a healthy way because of the murderous Conservative parties Section 28′, I listened to Bronski Beats ‘Smalltown Boy’ on loop to lift my spirits .

Then years later I found out about ‘AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power’ (ACT UP), ‘Gran Fury’s’ incredible art-ivism both of which literally saved my life. So we at ACT UP London are so grateful for your support to continue the journey for access to healthcare for all! Please support us friends buy getting yourself a t-shirt’ dan glass, ACT UP London

“ACT UP London is more than a grassroots and DIY organisation fighting HIV and AIDS, right- wing administrations and advocating equal healthcare for all. It is a community of principles, human rights, activism at its core with radical and direct action, paying it forward for the common good, especially focusing on the LGBTIQA lives. Our lives. It’s flabbergasting to see how much it has been so important and vital in the past, saving lives and how crucial and urgent it is now, to continue the push against negligence and discrimination. We have not established our lives today, without a fight and this fight continues.

I am tirelessly proud, grateful and honoured to belong in a community which goes against apathy, lethargy and the catatonic pill of the mainstream. I stand united in the margins of queer abundance with my fellows, as I know that divided I fall.” Stav B, ACT UP London.

ACT UP London is a diverse, non-partisan group of individuals united in anger and committed to direct action to end the HIV pandemic, along with the broader inequalities and injustices that perpetuate it. Our continuing focuses for this world World AIDS Day – December 1st 2023 on the journey for healthcare for all are

1 – Challenging the regional disparity for access to PREP across the UK, and particularly the limited access and uptake for women – see the incredible work by Women4Women. This is a useful report from NAT that highlights some of the issues and calls to action from different relevant bodies.

2 – Continued movements and protests in support of LGBTQIA+ and HIV+ migrants – particularly in the light of ‘UK’s Suella Braverman [who] says LGBTQ+ persecution not enough for asylum claims’

Campaign Successes

Access to PREP that included organising the ‘Stand Up for Prep’ demo - Our coordination of the April Fools 2016 resulted in a ‘Stand Up for Prep’ demo outside Department of Health – the beginning of many actions that led to a monumental and historic success of the lowering of diagnosis in London (amongst certain demographics).
Intersectional HIV led community campaigns such as our continued momentum around ‘Fight AIDS Not Migrants’ is to confront xenophobic border and imprisonment policies which criminalise people living with HIV whilst making sweeping cuts from healthcare services which save lives. Throughout networking and campaign building we have organised and collaborated with a number of networks for the ongoing demand for justice and dignity for HIV+ migrants and supported regular protests at Yarlswood detention centre – the site of many detained LGBT+ migrants.
To protect the National health Service (NHS) and to confront pharmaceutical greed such as the creation of the ‘NHS Anti-swindle team’ - creative activists and mischief makers to save the NHS from the ongoing destruction at the hands of corporate privatisation.

Just some of our community empowerment protests, performances and actions include

The BANG BUS - a literal and metaphorical vehicle for change is continuing to build our networks in response.
‘A Catwalk for Power, Resistance and Hope’ – to increase awareness of how HIV affects women in the UK, and to create an opportunity to portray women with HIV as strong, creative and resilient, and not as ‘victims’; it will educate and entertain, offer a platform to celebrate the collective and individual power of women with HIV, and highlight the essential role of women only peer lead space.
#PatientsNotPassports demonstration at the Department of Health that led to the creation of ‘Docs Not Cops’ – a UK-wide campaign calling for an end to checks on patients’ immigration status and charging patients for NHS care.
Building the ACT UP Movement - Through our campaigns, trainings and events we have catalysed ACT UP Bristol and ACT UP Dublin (2) ‘How to Survive A Plague’ screenings we have held throughout the UK to explore creative-activist responses to the epidemic as well as hold international solidarity events such as Act Up London UPRISING 2021 – Let the Record Show – A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993 launch with Sarah Schulman – “Wildly inspiring, makes me want to take action!” Avtomat – Queer composer, producer, DJ and vocalist
Hosted annual ‘HIV Blind Date’ shows in which volunteer contestants – people living with HIV and/or Hep C – were invited to answer questions relating to their vision for the future, their experiences, and their goals for tackling the injustices at the heart of neoliberal discourses on treatments.