ABSTRACT
“Ending the Epidemic” (EHE) plans have emerged throughout the United States. This chapter focuses on the reality and rhetoric of EHE in the context of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) movement in the US, where people living with HIV first organized as a community in the early 1980s and explores the truths and meanings of EHE. The HIV movement in the US began in the early 1980s and was built off the framework of Gay and Lesbian Liberation, a social movement begun in the 1960s; by the 1970s, in some cities, gay and lesbian neighborhoods emerged. HIV has always disrupted clear ideas of borders and populations, as it often spreads across these easy categories. The various communities of people living with HIV in the US continue to face challenges. The meaningful involvement of people living with HIV, once a central tenet of the HIV responses, has become a much less integral part of building EHE plans.
