Telling the (HIV) Stories That Will Save Lives

Onstage and onscreen, Dominic Colón aims to tell stories about people whose lived experiences are often marginalized in the mainstream.

His original script Crush, which won the HBO and New York International Latino Film Festival, centered around prom night at a South Bronx high school and a romantic longing almost suffocated by homophobia.

As part of the writing team for Netflix’s 2025 series Boots, he explored how U.S. Marines during the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell era pushed back against entrenched ideals of white heterosexual masculinity.

Some of the stories Colón wants to tell draw upon his own and others’ experiences living with HIV. One of his first opportunities to delve into HIV-centered storytelling came in 2021 when he entered a playwrighting workshop and competition for people living with HIV. For his entry The War I Know, the first part of a trilogy that portrays the impact that HIV has had on the Latino/a community in the Bronx from the late eighties through the COVID-19 pandemic, he earned the top prize.

The recognition, however, prompted a question: Should he come out more publicly about living with HIV? Dominic’s answer: yes.

Ultimately, Colón told amfAR, coming out proved to be a liberating experience.

“I feel like I am here for a reason,” Colón said about what drives him to share his message about HIV through advocacy and storytelling.

By the time he wrote The War I Know, he had already done the work on himself. He was no longer the little boy who linked negative portrayals of people living with HIV on the news with the fate of gay people. And he had a much thicker skin than in 2005 when he acquired HIV and first felt the burden of stigma.

“One of the things that I try to do in uplifting [the] HIV narrative, specifically in theater, is to not focus on the lens of the gay white male. I think we’ve seen that for decades,” said Colón about bringing underrepresented stories to light and teaching audiences about the diversity of people living with HIV. “There are so many stories to tell and they’re equally as deserving.”

He is open-minded, too, about evolving his own HIV story.

Initially, when hearing speakers at health fairs testify that HIV was the best thing that ever happened to them, he balked at the perspective—it seemed to gloss over the possible negative aspects of living with the virus.

Negative aspects like mental health challenges, with which he struggled during his first years of living with HIV. He found himself “running on empty” and, one painful night, for a moment, he considered ending it all. But he told himself, “Nah, chill.” He chose life.

It was the start of what he calls his “healing journey,” a time when therapy became as important as taking HIV medications.

“Had it not been for those experiences, I would not be in this moment now,” he says about being able to fully accept the ‘Dominic’ who at first could not find his footing with HIV.

“HIV is a part of my journey. HIV shows up with me every day in the writer’s room, shows up with me on the page—even though it may not be literally within a scene, that is a part of who I am. And I love Dominic now.”

It’s propelled him to be an even fiercer advocate on and off the page, not only to educate people by demystifying HIV but also to champion organizations dedicated to research like amfAR, especially in this era of funding cuts.

“I think we’re very fortunate to live in an age where we have these [treatment] options and amfAR continues to be that fighter, to make sure that the research stays relevant, that it gets into the hands of people worldwide so that one day we can come to a place where we don’t need to have medication. We have a cure.”

Donors save lives, he shared. And their role in ending AIDS remains crucial. “They have the opportunity to change HIV worldwide.”

---