Today, on World AIDS Day, Donald Trump wants there to be silence.

I say no to silence.

More than 20,000 Americans died before Ronald Reagan could bring himself to say the word AIDS in public because it was a “Gay Plague.”

Silence is deadly.

On December 10, 1989, I had participated in the massive demonstration of 7,000 protestors gathered in the bitter cold outside St Patrick’s to demonstrate and protest the church’s AIDS-phobic, homophobic policies.

We would not be silent.

For years in the early 1990s, I marched with ACT UP in the Gay Pride Parade, stopping in front of St. Patrick’s to point and shout “Shame!” at the policies of the Catholic church and, in particular, John Cardinal O’Connor, Archbishop of New York.

Too many peers of mine died a horrible death.

We could not be silent.

Today, Trump’s government is no longer officially commemorating World AIDS Day the first since the observation was established in 1988.

Shame on you!

So many lives lost, but we are here today to remember them. And never forget

We once said no to silence.

Today we still do.