Local LGBT activist joins GLAD's Board of Directors

LGBT and South Asian community activist Amit Dixit has joined the Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders (GLAD) Board of Directors.

Formerly, Dixit served on the Board of Massachusetts Asian & Pacific Islanders for Health, on the steering committee of the Massachusetts Area South Asian Lambda Association, on the Board of The History Project, and in 2009 became Chief of Operations for the Boston LGBT Film Festival.

"Amit has been involved in local, national, and international campaigns for over fifteen years," Rick McCarthy, GLAD's Board President, said in a prepared statement. "He will bring disparate groups together under one cause -- equal justice for LGBT and HIV communities."

Dixit has been fighting the stigma surrounding HIV/AIDS in South Asian communities since his own positive diagnosis in 1994. "The impulse to cover up, to treat the fact that someone has HIV/AIDS as a sin to be concealed can result in a person's avoiding medical treatment and ultimately may put their life in jeopardy," Dixit said.

"When you're told you only have twelve to eighteen months to live, you tend to look at life differently," he said in a statement released by GLAD. "You learn that it's not about superficial fears and desires, but about what you leave behind. It's about giving."

Dixit delivered the keynote address at the 2004 United States Conference on AIDS in Philadelphia. Five years later, GLAD represented Dixit in a case against Harvard Pilgrim Health Care after the insurance provider refused to cover Dixit's treatment for lipodystophy, a side effect of AIDS medication. GLAD's AIDS Law Project Director Bennett Klein represented Dixit, and in January of this year, Harvard Pilgrim reversed its decision.