From Philly Gay News:

“ACT UP made the difference then, and ACT UP will make the difference now!” shouted the voice of an activist from her seat in the crowd at an ACT UP town hall meeting on May 12 at William Way LGBT Community Center.

Another member spoke about her son who died after he was denied Medicaid and couldn’t access his medication.

Once again, Philadelphia’s ACT UP chapter — which was established in 1988 to spotlight and change the lackluster government response during the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis — is coming together to help protect people from a government that seems set on leaving them behind.

“They committed civil disobedience. They got arrested,” said Jane Schull, another one of the original ACT UP members who, until her recent retirement, was also the executive director Philadelphia FIGHT. “They kept it up and kept it up and they kept it up. And the fact is ACT UP won.”

But that win took a lot of work — with marching, die-ins, and other organizing and direct actions that led to today’s progress, including measures that support a goal set during the previous Trump administration to “end” the epidemic. But that effort now hangs in limbo as cuts to federal HIV/AIDS-related spending have been proposed for fiscal year 2026 — beginning in September.

“Unbelievable I think as it seems to those of us who lived through this history, this is all at risk,” Schull continued, underlining that the Trump administration’s recent gag order on LGBTQ+ and HIV/AIDS related topics mirrors how the epidemic was handled in the 1980s.

“For the first five years of this epidemic, the word AIDS or HIV was not mentioned by the White House,” she explained, noting that the federal government’s silence also meant that no money was allocated for research, potential treatments, or other needs of the HIV/AIDS community.

“They did nothing,” she underlined.

Action Wellness — which launched as Action AIDS in 1986 as a response to that lack of acknowledgement and care — now receives 90% of its funding from government programs. Executive Director Evelyn Torres, who spoke as a private citizen rather than on behalf of the organization, said she’s concerned about the federal budget cuts which have been revealed over the last few weeks.

If the Trump administration’s proposed budget is passed as-is, a total of $163 billion in discretionary spending would be slashed. Those are funds often touted by conservatives as “optional” even though they support people’s survival through the development of social safety nets. Military spending would increase by 13% while social services are gutted and removed — a worry for Torres, who underlined that the proposal calls for 22.6% reduction in funding compared to this year’s financial plan.

Read the full story at Philly Gay News