This post is written by guest contributor JD Davids, Winter 2025 DRI Participant. Connect with JD Davids on BlueSky: @crankyqueer.org; LinkedIn: @JD Davids; and Instagram @thecrankyqueer

There’s so much I appreciate about being a queer and trans activist rooted in the HIV/AIDS epidemic. For one, it allowed me to have a digital life far before the norm – starting with a dialup account in 1991 or so, thanks to fellow ACT UP Philadelphia member, lifelong social justice activist and tech-for-justice innovator Kiyoshi Kuromiya, founder of the Critical Path AIDS Project. 

I’d use the terminal shell of the computer – the classic black screen with text-only commands – to enter commands for “telnet,” a network protocol that allowed my computer to log onto others as part of the same network and send email. 

Access to telnet allowed us to talk to other HIV activists around the world, so we could organize for access to medication, challenge exorbitant drug prices, and share lifesaving information on HIV prevention, research opportunities and promising therapies. 

Fast forward to 2025, and I’m pulling up the terminal shell for the first time in decades… 

But this time,  the terminal shell is a part of the whirlwind, mind-opening Digital Research Institute (DRI) at CUNY Graduate Center, via Zoom. I’d come to the Biography and Memoir program at the Grad Center in the fall, eager to share experiences and struggles as an activist and disabled “illder” – someone who has learned much by being sick with immune-depleting and autoimmune illnesses, now including Long COVID. Chronic illness has taught me a lot – but also hasn’t left much time for keeping apace with technology.

The DRI gave me exactly what I wanted and needed as a returning student – a comprehendible and remarkably comprehensive overview of the potentials of digital research today. I thought of Kiyoshi often in that four-day stretch, imagining his delight at the current state of coding, mapping, web design and other aspects of computing. 

I didn’t expect I would become an expert. But, for example, I now have a much better understanding of the potential of Python for text analysis. This could help me as I unearth and seek to analyze archival documents showing early collaboration in ACT UP between people with HIV (mostly gay men) and people struggling for recognition of chronic fatigue (mostly lesbians), which can offer vital lessons for our struggles in this time of rampant Long COVID and attacks on LGBTQ and HIV research.

I’ll be honest: I didn’t emerge from the DRI with all the skills to create that code myself. But I can twin what I’ve learned at the DRI with the skills and principles that Kiyoshi and other activists instilled in me, that will allow me to move the project forward:

• Know it is possible: I was able to contribute to efforts to bring HIV medication to tens of millions of people worldwide who had been written off by capitalist Pharma and governments alike. We knew it could happen if there was political will, and we organized worldwide to insist that it happen (and need to do so again due to the cruel policies of the current United States leadership that’s cutting off access to meds for people worldwide.)

Now, after my time in the DRI, I know it is possible to use digital tools to help make meaning of the archives of HIV history that have vital lessons for today and the future. It’s a much smaller scale, sure, but it can happen!

• We make it work by working together: We never have to fight or figure it out alone. We can and must make the changes we need by bringing each of our skills and passions to reach shared goals. 

I may not have a fluency with coding or other skills I learned more about with the DRI. But I know there’s people at the Grad Center – including the fantastic digital fellows I met at the DRI, who could help me figure out the coding. 

Through the years, as I’ve trained a lot of people as activists, I’ve come to believe that there’s one central practice that is vital – knowing ourselves. We combine our strengths to make the changes we need. The DRI was a wonderful way to see people doing just that – supporting one another to grapple with digital technology to further our important work. 

It’s not about becoming an instant tech expert, though I am sure the training has inspired many to go on to deepen and expand their skills. It’s an opportunity to build our collective capacity to understand and make the most of digital research – and I think Kiyoshi would have loved it too.