The Ms. Plus America pageant celebrates plus-size women as beautiful contributors to society, and its newest winner is an HIV-positive woman who is taking that message of female unity even further.
“I am hoping that by sharing that we can tear down the walls of being stigmatized,” says Michelle Anderson, who was crowned Ms. Plus America 2011 and plans to use her title to cross boundaries between women who are HIV-positive and those who aren’t. The crown sits on her mantel, but it has given Anderson access to tell her story in “rooms that I couldn’t go in just being HIV-positive.”
Anderson, who works to help women and girls learn about HIV prevention, is a lead peer educator and programs assistant at the Afiya Center for HIV Prevention and Sexual Reproductive Justice in Dallas. The new Ms. Plus America, who has been positive since 1999, remembers first feeling the stigma that comes with the disease — an experience she hopes to help others avoid by telling her story to as many people as will listen.
http://www.advocate.com/Health_and_Fitness/Here_To_Inspire/Ms_HIV_Plus_America/
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