This post is part of a series providing in-depth and accessible breakdowns of FreeState Justice’s various policy objectives and accomplishments over the past 2024 Legislative Session within the Maryland General Assembly. For more posts like this, check out FreeState’s 2024 Legislative Session Reflection Series. The year 2024 has been quite eventful for LGBTQ+ Marylanders. FreeState Justice and its various coalition partners were involved in much advocacy regarding a multitude of bills that will affect the lives and wellbeing of Maryland’s LGBTQ+ community. FreeState Justice worked hard this past year to repeal a longstanding law within Maryland that criminalizes the transmission of HIV. Under current statute, Maryland penalizes people (with significant fines and even imprisonment) for “knowingly transferring or attempting to transfer the human immunodeficiency virus to another individual.” This law has long been regarded for its role in further stigmatizing HIV-survivors and communities that are disproportionately affected by the condition, such as men who have sex with men (MSM). Furthermore, the law inhibits people from getting tested for the virus, as a person who do not make themselves aware of their status cannot be prosecuted under the law. Given this significant impact of this law on public health and the rights/dignity of so many LGBTQ+ community members, FreeState went into action, working to ensure that House Bill 485 - a bill to repeal the criminalization of HIV - would make it through each stage of the Maryland General Assembly. Through the Maryland Coalition to Decriminalize HIV that FreeState Justice had organized earlier, FreeState brought together various organizers and HIV-affected individuals from across the state to conduct outreach to legislators, organize public awareness campaigns, and develop testimony during the bill hearing. At the hearing, representatives gave valuable insights to General Assembly members regarding how the criminalization of HIV prevents diagnosis and the treatments necessary to tackle the HIV epidemic in the first place. They also discussed how the law’s enforcement is highly discriminatory in nature, being wielded disproportionately against Black and Latino individuals. We are saddened to relay that the bill unfortunately did not pass this session. However, we remain determined that through our continued efforts, we will see the bill passed in forthcoming sessions. This year already marks the farthest any piece of legislation that decriminalizes HIV has made it within the Maryland General Assembly, having received bipartisan support and being cross-filed within the legislature for the first time in its history. It is long overdue that Maryland removes its archaic and deeply harmful legislation regarding HIV, and we here at FreeState Justice, along with our multitude of coalition partners, will work to ensure that this change becomes a reality and that we decriminalize HIV within the State of Maryland once and for all. Written by Nic Oke, a Legal and Policy Intern at FreeState Justice