Tez Anderson
Public Speaker, Founder, and Writer in San Francisco, California
Tez Anderson is an award-winning, nationally recognized HIV Long-Term Survivor activist, writer, and speaker who focuses on HIV Long-Term Survivors Aging with HIV. Tez has been living with HIV since 1983. He's written for Time magazine. He's a U=U Ambassador.
The founder of Let's Kick ASS—AIDS Survivor Syndrome, the first and largest group in the world focused on improving the lives of HIV long-term survivors and older adults aging with HIV.
He coined AIDS Survivor Syndrome (ASS) to describe the spectrum of sustained trauma survivorship. It’s a psychological state resulting from living through HIV/AIDS pandemic.
Tez created HIV Long-Term Survivors Awareness Day in 2014 to shine a spotlight on those living longest with HIV, who had felt forgotten and invisible as they age with HIV. https://LetsKickASS.hiv and https://hltsad.org.
His hallmark is an ability to write information about issues to make them accessible to long-term survivors and the general population. He's passionate about improving the lives of older adults aging with HIV.
Tez became a gay rights advocate in his hometown Atlanta, Georgia in the early 1980s.
Ian McKellen credits him with helping, now Sir Ian, come out as gay in 1990.
He co-wrote and served as Executive Producer on The Night Listener (2006)a feature film based on an eerie event in his life. The film stars Robin Williams, Toni Collette, Bobby Cannavale, and Sandra Oh.
In a People magazine article in 1990, we went public as a person living with HIV. He has always been out about his HIV-positive status.
He also served as Creative Consultant on the three groundbreaking Tales of the City miniseries that aired on PBS in 1994.