Ange

Ange lives in Western Australia and has done lots of peer support work with women living with HIV over the years. She has also been a practicing witch for almost as long as she’s been positive: “My name is Ange and I’m a 58-year-old woman who is HIV positive. And first and foremost in my life, I am a woman. That’s how I identify. But I’m also a mother and a grandmother and a friend and sister to many. And I currently am single. My official marriage status, if you want to call it that, is widowed. And I’m ok with that. I’m very comfortable being in the single space. I’m a witch. My spirituality is one of the things that keeps me going. I have been diagnosed HIV positive for over thirty years, and I’ve been through times when we had access to no treatments, times when we had access to treatments that were really harmful for us, and in the era now, where we can deal with HIV as a chronic disease. So, I’ve seen lots, been involved in lots, but mostly, I’ve come out of all of it as a fairly resilient being, who’s quite in love with herself to be honest. I really like who I am and I’m comfortable with that. So that’s me in a nutshell I guess.”