with Rhea Ashby-Durall — Our connections strengthen when we can be real with each other and live our values. Activists knew this in the 1980s when National Coming Out Day started as visible support for people living with HIV/AIDS. Spokane AIDS Network (SAN) began their mission to assist people living with and affected by HIV, providing compassionate support, access to nutritious food, prevention and testing services, education, and a place where people know they belong. Join us as we consider how authenticity is a sacred act of community.

Rhea Ashby-Durall (they/them) is the Outreach Director at SAN-Spokane AIDS Network. They bring a multifaceted approach to advocacy being HIV positive and queer. They utilize lived experience in a person centered, trauma informed way to ensure that clients are met with dignity and respect no matter their walk of life. They are heavily focused on HIV/STI prevention and education with ideology centered around getting an HIV prevention tool called PrEP into the community with an emphasis on youth and gay men. They also are a peer navigator who assists clients in accepting themselves as people and not being just being a diagnosis.