Kimberly June Skeete (she/her)
Clinical Research Assistant and Community Advisor, Bios Clinical Research Palm Springs
Years as an ANAC member: 2
Greater Palm Spring chapter member
DEI committee member
DEI conference scholarship winner - 2022
What does Transgender HIV Testing Day mean to you?
As HIV continues to have a great impact on the trans community, it is important to have days like this one to spotlight and spread awareness to the community that is impacted by this virus but often forgotten and left out. As a trans person, navigating healthcare systems can seem challenging and often impossible. This day offers those of us working in HIV care a chance to provide resources, education and access to HIV services directly to a community who needs them the most. It makes the ones in the community living with HIV feel seen and valid, and it spreads awareness for ones that are most vulnerable.
Why did you join the fight to end HIV/AIDS?
Working in HIV care is not just a job I choose to do each day. It is, for me and so many others like me, my life. Transgender women are 14 times more likely to have HIV than other adult women. In some places, up to 40% of transgender women have HIV. Not only do I know those statistics, but I am also living proof of them. At the time of my diagnosis, I knew very little about prevention and had limited access to education and care for someone like me, someone trans. What little I knew came from movies like RENT or Angels in America. Navigating early adulthood ostracized from family left me vulnerable and susceptible for many of the challenges that could have broken me but didn’t. In fact, what didn’t break me, made me stronger and determined to create change. It was through my diagnosis that I found a reason to not just exist in life but live it and do so with purpose. I didn’t choose to work in healthcare, healthcare chose me, and I now know it is my goal to act up and join the fight in HIV.
What does ANAC mean to you?
ANAC represents community. We hear that word a lot and it is usually depicted as a place people just fall into by default. With ANAC, community is not a default setting, it is something that was built for great change. From folks like Alison Moed and Cliff Morrison, to even new members like me, we all have come together to create tangible change and redefine what it means to put the CARE back into healthcare. We are not a moment but a movement of solidarity, visibility, acceptance and passion. Joining ANAC is like finding family and for many LGBTQ folks like me, family wasn’t given to us but chosen for us.
Do you have a mentor or mentors who have been instrumental to your career and, if so, whom and how?
“I've heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason, bringing something we must learn. And we are led to those who help us most to grow if we let them and we help them in return.” These are more than lyrics from a famous Broadway show to me. These words sum up how I feel about my mentor Anthony Velasco. At 33, I am a proud trans woman of color doing great work in HIV care and in the community, but also, I just am. I say it like that because I almost wasn’t anything. When I met Anthony, I had no idea of all that I could be. He saw something in me. It was not only life changing but lifesaving. It was through him that I found my calling and realized my potential. I am a better woman, trans woman, because of the friend he is, which truly makes him not only one amazing ally but a mentor.
Golkoo Marcos, my boss here at Bios Clinical Research Palm Springs, is someone else I would call a mentor. She just gets “it”. Being a woman of color, she understands adversity like me. Her passion and advocacy to get trans and gender-diverse representation in research and in clinical roles, just like Anthony, is unmatched. I am doing things I have never seen a person like me doing and am learning to reach my highest potential. With those two and folks like Alison Moed (original 5B Nurse), PHD Antonia D'orsay (Borrego Health) and Bridget Picou (Palm Springs Chapter President), the world is not ready for me.
