The award-winning advocate discusses shifting from survival to celebration while mentoring the next generation of Black queer health leaders
Dr. Daniel Driffin is a project manager with the HIV Vaccine Trials Network and co-founder of Transforming HIV Resentment into Victory Everlasting Support Services (Thrive SS). The HIV advocate, researcher, and community organizer recently received the Alvin Agarrat Award for Impact from the Counter Narrative Project, recognizing his work at the intersection of HIV prevention, treatment, and advocacy within Black queer communities.
What does receiving the Alvin Agarrat Award for Impact mean to you personally?
When I think about receiving this award, especially in an amazing friend’s name, it just really humbles me. When I think about my work specifically at the intersection of HIV prevention, treatment, advocacy, and when I think of the work that Alvin did more than 20, 30 years ago, to be still young but hold something with his name is just huge. Others look forward to Oscars or Emmys, but when a community-based organization like the Counter Narrative Project creates an award named after a juggernaut like Alvin and bestows it to another community member, that’s real life. I’m super excited to receive the award, and it only makes me want to work that much harder.
How do you see storytelling as a form of healing, advocacy, and transformation within the community?
Without our stories, it goes back to that adage: if we do not capture our stories, our killers will tell people we enjoyed it. Being able to ensure that the narrative is changed with lives of Black people, with lives of Black queer people, with lives of Black queer people with HIV, it only makes sense. When I think of the community solutions that I attempt to offer in reducing burden, these are common sense things. I wake up every morning and realize common sense is not common, but I am very happy to serve in the role of a practitioner to ensure that community lives, community voices, community impact is led throughout the process of public health solution making.
How has the narrative around Black queer health and visibility evolved over the past decade?
I’ve lived here in Atlanta since August 2010, and when I think about the conversation of what it meant at that time to just be infected with HIV versus today, 2025, living and thriving with HIV, I know the work that myself, Larry, and Duane has done truly has created that new narrative. I don’t recall, prior to creating Thrive Support Services, individuals truly celebrating what it means to be living with HIV.
One of the things we started really early on within the organization is what we call our seriversary, and that’s the day that we learn when we are living with HIV. For mine, it’s 6-19, which is also Juneteenth. But 6-19 used to be a very somber day, but after truly realizing we’re here, we’re healthy and living a life, we have a community, we said let’s change this around. Now you can Google seriversary and see others celebrating their seriversary. That’s just one easy thing I think of when I think of how our stories have changed the lexicon, not only here across Atlanta region, but truly the world.
What lessons have you learned about navigating the intersections of public health policy and activism as a Black gay man in leadership?
It goes back to something my grandfather shared with me years ago: a thank you and a smile will take you around the world and back. I think of the presentations associated with the iThrive campaign that we had the opportunity to share in Durban, South Africa, back in 2016. That was the first time other Black gay men from the continent walked up to us and said this is the first time I’m seeing other people out loud talk about living with HIV at that intersection of Black and queer.
I still receive emails, I still receive DMs on Instagram, of folks from around the globe saying a story that I heard from you from the White House, or a story from the Democratic National Convention, is still helping me and friends be healthier. Four years ago, I transitioned from taking a daily HIV pill to injectable therapy, and today, I usually answer three to five questions any given day or week on am I having side effects around my injections, and why did I change. A couple of weeks later, folks hit me back up saying they’ve been on the injectable now a year and can’t imagine their life any other way. My lived expertise, my lived experiences, just truly continue to create ripples within the universe that allow other Black queer people, especially people living with HIV, to be the healthiest that they can be.
For those who may not understand the difference between treatment and a vaccine, can you explain?
When I think of the therapy that I take to remain undetectable, I’m taking a medication. If I do not take medication every eight weeks, HIV will build up in my body and begin to shut down my immune system. A vaccine is given either one time or a booster. For some things, you only get a vaccine once, and your body actually develops antibodies to protect yourself from said virus, said illness. The difference is duration. Even when we think of daily PrEP taking, you are only protected from HIV if you take PrEP every day. Ultimately, if we develop the right vaccination against HIV, individuals can take it one time in their life to remain protected from HIV, or even stay protected every six months, versus taking a daily or bi-monthly injection.
What’s your advice to the next generation of Black LGBTQIA+ leaders stepping into this work?
Mentoring is so important to me. I think of my earliest mentors, especially in this HIV movement: huge names like Sheldon Fields, Mitchell Wharton, Rudy Karn, Cornelius Baker, Ernest Hopkins, Douglas Brooks. I think of all the things that they have instilled in me, and I hope to continue to instill those things in this next lineup.
I fully believe we have all the tools except a vaccine. If we pair the tools that we have differently, we truly do not have to live in a state like Georgia where there’s 2,500 new diagnoses every year. We do not have to live in a country where, more times than not, individuals who die as a result of HIV look like you and I. We truly do not have to live in a country where your zip code dictates your life expectancy. I hope, ultimately, my mentorship to the next line continues to show individuals that when you hear a no from someone, when you hear a not yet, you truly do not stop, but you continue to fight the good fight.
How do you feel mainstream narratives still miss the mark when it comes to Black queer voices?
Media treats Black queerness as a caricature. I think it’s highly disrespectful. I think it’s over-familiarity when it comes to the cultural buyouts that we see in memes, in television, in even the language that we communicate with. I think of the countless trans and gender non-conforming people who have been brutally murdered as a result of hatred and bigotry and bias, for someone or groups of people to be drinking mimosas at their venue, saying “clock the tea, yes queen, that’s shade.”
You don’t know the lives that have been lost, the lives that have been taken. The inventions that we do not have as a result of those people being killed. For you to just be throwing those words, those experiences around. I hope folks truly take the moments that should be taken to really think about who we have lost.
What do you hope the next 11 years look like for yourself and the broader movement toward equity and visibility?
In the time that we live in, joy, happiness, compassion, empathy is really fleeting. I have been sitting here, especially over the last week, as we continue to lose friends, loved ones, but most importantly, we continue to lose Black queer men. I hope we have the opportunity to truly have a conversation around succession planning. I hope we have a conversation around ensuring that we are not working until the death of us. We are also worth relaxation. We are also worth the knowing of “I did what I could do to get us to the next checkpoint.” We deserve that as well.
Dr. Driffin can be followed on Instagram at @ddriffin. His work continues through Thrive Support Services and the HIV Vaccine Trials Network, where he remains committed to transforming narratives around Black queer health and HIV advocacy.