Venita Ray (Left) and Masonia Traylor (Right)

When Magic Johnson announced during a press conference in 1991 that he’d acquired HIV, Masonia Traylor, 34, was only four-years-old. And in 1995, when the first HIV “cocktail,” a combination of antiretroviral drugs used to suppress the replication of HIV in the body, became widely available for use, Traylor was eight. The gravity of Johnson’s diagnosis and the impact it would have around the globe at the height of the epidemic couldn’t have been further off eight-year-old Traylor’s radar. HIV wasn’t a part of her world as a child growing up in Atlanta, and this would remain unchanged well into her early 20s until it did.

On a lunch break from work, Traylor recalls seeing a woman wearing a t-shirt that read on the front, “I Have HIV.” Traylor says she was shocked and figured if the “woman was bold enough to wear that I could ask her if she had HIV.”

Traylor says the woman chuckled and said, “Girl, no. Read the back.” The woman turned around to reveal the text written on the back of her t-shirt: “If only it was that easy to tell. Get tested.”

It was the reminder that Traylor needed to schedule an appointment with her doctor to receive her yearly HIV test. Since age 15, she made it a habit to be tested at least once a year and to encourage her friends to do the same.

“I learned all it took was just one time. I learned you can be with somebody and they have it, and you wouldn't be able to tell based on what they looked like. I learned that early,” said Traylor. “I decided when I go to get my pap smears, I would make sure I requested a full STD panel.”

Traylor, a mother of two, had her first child at 16 and graduated early from high school the following year. She tells The Reckoning that although she and her then-boyfriend used condoms “probably 85, 90% of the time, as you get more comfortable in relationships, you know, the condoms come off.” So, in 2010 she paid a visit to her OB/GYN for what she believed would be routine testing. Traylor recalls insisting on being tested for HIV after facing resistance from her doctor, whom she says believed Traylor to be at “low-risk” for acquiring HIV.

"I normally log in to look for my results. Boom. They're all there,” she said. “I logged in this time and none of the results were available. So, I called them. My results, are they ready? She said, ‘yes, they’re ready. But can you come in?’ I was thinking that they're going to tell me I have HPV and that I have abnormal cells because I may have cancer. That's what I have in my head,” said Traylor.

It wasn’t HPV or cancer, Traylor’s doctor revealed that her HIV test results were positive.

“I remember leaving there, feeling lost, angry, hurt, disappointed, and sad,” said Traylor. “I did not want to be here anymore. I was coming from Sandy Springs, where my doctor's office was. I was coming down to I-285, and fortunately, there was bumper-to-bumper traffic because all I wanted to do was run my car into the median,” she said.

Traylor says she was in a heavy state of denial and believed at the time that HIV was a punishment from God and only gay men were susceptible to acquiring HIV.

“I didn't have a lot of information, even though I worked in a pharmacy at the time. How do the medications work? How do they stay alive? I just always wondered, because some people would come in and pay $20,000 for all of their medications out of their own pocket. I would be with them while they're swiping six, seven, different credit cards to pay for their medications. I never saw a medicine for less than $800. Unless, of course, they had health insurance. I always wondered, but I never thought I would be that person,” she said.

The lights went out

Venita Ray, 62, Co-Director of Positive Women’s Network, also never imagined that her life would be altered by HIV. A Houston, TX native, Ray dropped out of high school and became pregnant with her daughter after her first sexual experience at 14. She was able to kick a drug and alcohol habit and transition from San Diego, CA, where she was raised to the East Coast. After a tumultuous start, she received her law degree from American University in D.C., and secured a government job. Ray believed that her life was changing for the better, until a phone call from her doctor on April 2, 2003, changed everything.

“I get this call saying, ‘Hey, you need to come in so we can talk about some of your lab work.’ And I instantly knew. I said, which labs? She said, ‘Well, I'd rather you come in.’ And I knew instantly,” said Ray. “Is it the HIV test? Because I went to get a physical exam and I asked for an HIV test because I hadn't had one in a while. And she had to say, yes.”

Ray tells The Reckoning that it was during this moment that “the lights went out for years.”

“I’ll never forget, April 2, 2003, about 11:30 Eastern time. I was in my office. It was a sunny day because it was the beginning of spring and it immediately went dark,” she said. “I’d just got to work. I didn't say anything to anybody. I cut off my computer, and I walked out of the office. I walked home instead of taking the subway. I went into the house and I called my sponsor. I called my best friend and my sister, and then I fell apart. I didn't go back to work for a month."

Ray says when she returned to work she would function and then retreat home to “die every night.” Suicidal, she quit her job, sold her home, and returned to her native Houston.

“I began to want to move again. I couldn’t cure myself of HIV, but I began to think, I can feel better through prayer and meditation, and yoga led me there.”

— Venita Ray

“I moved here to be near my daughter and sister, but it wasn't because I was trying to have a life,” said Ray. “It was because I really didn't want a life. I merely existed for four years. I was like, I’m gonna hold my breath until they call me and tell me that shit was wrong,” she said.

Ray’s results were not wrong. And in 2007, four years after her diagnosis, she remembers hearing a voice inside her head that said “either kill yourself or move on.”

“I’ve always been an exerciser. I began to want to move again,” said Ray. “I couldn't cure myself of HIV, but I began to think, I can feel better through prayer and meditation, and yoga led me there.”

And after accepting her diagnosis, Ray says she was led back to meetings for recovering addicts.

“I hadn't gone to an AA or an NA meeting in four years. I didn't know how to go in and say I had HIV and I didn't know how to not be honest,” she said. “I finally went to a meeting and it dawned on me that I have a chronic illness. And then someone suggested, ‘Venita, they have an HIV AA meeting.’ I went over there and it was nothing but white gay men. And I was like, shit, I’m home,” said Ray. “They put me back together again,” she said.

S.W.A.R.M.

Like Ray, who affectionately calls Traylor her “badass niece,” a compliment to the budding HIV advocate working alongside her “auntie”/mentor through Southern Women Advocacy Response Mobilization (SWARM), a monthly space created to engage and mobilize Black women living with HIV in the South—gay men have also played a pivotal role in Traylor’s life. She points to the death of an Atlanta Black gay man and former classmate who died alone from HIV-related complications as the moment that pushed her from silence about her status into advocacy.

“If he knew that he wasn't by himself and that HIV didn’t have to be his demise, he’d probably still be alive today,” said Traylor. “If I would've shared my status, he wouldn't have felt alone. I made a decision that I was ready to talk about it more.”

Through her interactions with other Black gay men over the years following that tragic experience, Traylor says she began to “curve her judgment and biases” and lean into understanding.

“My relationship with them [Black gay men] now— they're our men. And when I say they—all gay, bisexual, straight men are our men,” said Traylor. “They come from us, they are our brothers, they're our husbands, they are our cousins. I’d definitely go to war for a few of them,” she said.

But in this season of her life, Traylor says she’s advocating for Black women living with HIV alongside Ray and views her work as a direct connection to the legacy she’d like to leave behind, which includes creating space specifically for Black women.

It’s a rare occurrence, but with Traylor and Ray leading the effort towards change, it's a strong possibility that it will become a problem of the past.