Dr. Carrie Foote was recognized at the Annual Indiana University Harvey Milk Dinner, which honors the memory of Harvey Milk and celebrates the LGBTQ+ community at IU Indianapolis and beyond. She was awarded the Sylvia Rivera Award for her activism for the last decade building the HIV Modernization Movement-Indiana and working to end HIV stigma, criminalization and discrimination in Indiana law.
The award ceremony bio notes that Dr. Carrie Foote has been living with HIV since 1988. She was once homeless, addicted to heroin and is now an inspiring Professor of Sociology at Indiana University-Indianapolis and a nationally recognized scholar and activist working to end HIV stigma, discrimination and criminalization of people living with HIV. She co-founded the HIV Modernization Movement-Indiana in 2016, which is a grassroots network of people living with HIV and allies of diverse racial, gender, and sexuality backgrounds, working to reform unjust and harmful HIV criminal laws. Since founding HMM, she has won numerous legislators as allies to the issue, helped forge crucial relationships with statewide agencies, and testified on HIV law reform bills, some that have been signed into law, making science updates and eliminating stigmatizing law language. Under her leadership, thousands of Hoosiers have joined the movement and scores of people living with HIV have found their advocacy voice. Whether advocating at the state or national level for HIV criminal law reform; or presenting on the issue to community audiences – Dr. Carrie brings a fearlessness and relentless pursuit of justice to her every breath. She has a huge heart. But it is her brave facing of inequity, especially through her activism with HMM-Indiana that astounds and makes the world a much better place!
- Click here to learn more about Dr. Carrie Foote.
- Click here to learn more about and join HMM-Indiana.
