Despite recent sweeping cuts to HIV-related funding under the Trump administration, a Chicago collective is still pushing through to inform its community about healthcare and risks.
PrEPárate, a campaign through the Chicago Queer Latine Collaborative, is aiming to educate the queer Latine community on PrEP. The campaign’s kick-off is scheduled for April 11 and will feature a gallery exhibition.
In 2022, the group launched an arts-based campaign promoting health awareness and sexual health information for the Latine LGBTQ+ community. The campaign was done by a number of Latine creators and featured the stories of Chicagoans who shared their journeys with health and wellbeing and was also featured on the group’s Instagram.
The free April 11 event, featuring art from the original campaign, is intended to mark the start of a year of programming for PreEPárate in 2025 and beyond into 2026. It’s set to be hosted at the Chicago Art Department at 1926 S. Halsted St. and run from 6-9 p.m.
J Saxon, a partner consultant and coordinator for the upcoming event, said it’s important to have HIV information that’s “by us, for us” in terms of the Latine community. In 2022, CQL created a campaign for education on monkeypox after what Saxon said was “lack of clarity from the CDC.”
“We live in a country that does not prioritize or center sexual health information, especially [about] the kind of sexual contact that LGBTQ people [experience],” he said. “This part of our lived experiences, in order to surmount that lack of information, we had to provide specific information that was understandable and relatable.”
Saxon said the group’s recent focus has been less-public facing and more about research projects in partnership with different universities. With the upcoming event, he said they’re hoping to kickstart more community-facing events.
With all the uncertainty facing both the Latine and LGBTQ+ communities, Saxon said the night isn’t specifically an organizing event—although CQL is planning on having “deeper conversations with a lot of community-based organizations” about how to mobilize.
The gallery event will be a time for community members to mix and mingle and enjoy the art, with programming in the final hour. The art will feature portraits of people in different walks of life—such as some living with HIV, some on PrEP.
“We’re just going back to an opportunity to center and celebrate our diversity at a time that our diversity is being challenged, and that we’re being asked to conform,” he said. “I think embracing our individuality as a community and as individual people is really important in a time like this.”
While the rest of the campaign is still in the works, Saxon said the upcoming event is going to be the beginning of the series. He said their goal is to be out connecting with more people across the city and focusing on the specific needs of the community.
“I think the best thing about communities is you can never really plan the spontaneous connections that will happen when you bring people together,” he said. “I think that the most productive things that may happen are not necessarily things that we can put down on paper [about] what will happen.”