Abstract The term “transition” is inadequate for the shocks, disruptions, infringements, detentions of the first 100 days of the second Trump administration. In this short time, we are having common experiences while also feeling and undergoing specific forms of fear, anxiety, loss of safety, stability. The specificities of our experiences of the present moment reflect and refract through our lived and professional experiences and expertise. Being together and holding space for each other in this moment of shared and specific rupture presents its own challenges, as we discovered when we began to have a collective conversation about the possibilities of doula'ing the destruction of the US foreign aid architecture in this time of national “transition.” In this piece, we share the work of a subset of WWHIVDD? who responded to a February 21 email from one of the collective's members, Emily Bass, an activist historian, AIDS worker, and author who focuses on transnational solidarity supporting the HIV response in low-income countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. We share that email and some of the exchanges from other members that flowed from it to begin this piece as a way to show our process. Once we were writing, we thought it might make sense to share our concerns, and knowledge, outside our collective, given that others might not be as focused on how Trump was undermining, canceling, and changing the world of HIV/AIDS.
Bass et al. (Wed,) studied this question.