Hydeia Broadbent, a well-known HIV/AIDS activist who made headlines as a member of America’s “first generation of children born HIV positive” in the late 1980s, died on Tuesday. She was 39.
Her father, Loren Broadbent, posted about her death on Facebook early Wednesday morning. He did not provide a cause of death.
“With great sadness, I must inform you all that our beloved friend, mentor, and daughter, Hydeia, passed away today after living with Aids since birth,” he wrote. “Despite facing numerous challenges throughout her life, Hydeia remained determined to spread hope and positivity through education around HIV/AIDS.”
Who was Hydeia Broadbent?
Broadbent was abandoned as an infant at the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas before being adopted by Loren and Patricia Broadbent. Broadbent was presumed to have HIV from birth, but she was not diagnosed until she was three years old.
Broadbent initially accompanied her mother, a social worker, as she began speaking publicly about HIV and attempting to reduce the stigma associated with the virus at the time, particularly for the benefit of children who had been diagnosed. By the age of six, the elementary school student began to speak and eventually took the helm.
Broadbent rose to prominence in HIV/AIDS advocacy before medications were developed that could make living with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, a more manageable chronic illness.
She appeared on a Nickelodeon special about HIV and AIDS with Magic Johnson in 1992, shortly after the basketball star’s public HIV diagnosis. When it was her turn to speak, Broadbent sobbed, pleading, “I just want people to know that we’re normal people.”
Johnson comforted the young girl. “You don’t need to cry because we’re normal people. OK? “Yes, we are.”