On March 23, 2007, Lashanda Salinas’ father died from brain cancer while she was behind bars in Nashville.
“I remember making a call to the nurse while I was incarcerated, telling her that I just feel like ending my whole life. My father's dead. I don't know when I'm going to get out. I don't know when I'm going to see my family again,” Salinas told The 19th.
Seven weeks prior, she was arrested at her workplace after an ex-boyfriend filed a police report alleging that she had exposed him to HIV without sharing that she is positive for the virus. Salinas was detained on a $100,000 bond for “criminal exposure to HIV,” a class C felony in Tennessee, punishable by three to 15 years in prison and up to $10,000 in fines.
Salinas maintains the allegation was false, but agreed to a plea deal that gave her three years’ probation. She worried that going to trial could result in a longer prison sentence, she said.
Her felony conviction came with an unexpected extra layer of punishment: She would have to register as a sex offender in Tennessee — for life. At the time, state law classified criminal exposure to HIV as a violent sexual offense, meaning that Salinas was generally restricted from being in the vicinity of children.
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The painstaking process of timing her grocery store runs so she could avoid children was a source of stress and shame. But the isolation from her family took the biggest toll: She endured 16 years of missed holiday dinners and birthdays.
Salinas decided to share her story publicly and pushed for legislative changes alongside organizations like Nashville CARES, a Tennessee nonprofit providing services to people living with HIV and AIDS. Much of her work involved speaking with state lawmakers; most, she said, knew nothing about this law.
Advocates secured a major win in 2023 when Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee signed a bill that removed the sex offender registry requirement for criminal exposure to HIV. People living with HIV can still be criminalized, though dozens were removed from the state’s sex offender registry. Salinas said she remembers the messages of gratitude she received from others who were also able to get off the registry.
“It didn't feel real because I'm nobody. I'm just Lashanda,” she said. “But I'm just doing what my mother and father instilled in me. If you can help just one person, you've done your part.”
This profile is apart of The 19th’s Revolutionary series. Subscribe to The Amendment, our biweekly newsletter, to receive project updates and political analysis focused on gender, race and power.
our past coverage of Lashanda Salinas
· March 12, 2024
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