ABSTRACT
In 1996, the advent of highly active antiretroviral therapy as an effective treatment for HIV marked a watershed moment in which a commonly fatal infection could be seen as a manageable chronic condition. While undetectability guides the promise of a once unimaginable normal life, critics, curators, and activists have also pointed to the limits of undetectability discourses, asking how overemphasizing treatment as prevention might leave out broader discussions of access, class, education, race, and community care. There is little doubt that the state-sponsored justice system failed Johnson in overlooking the circumstances of her death. There is little doubt, however, that this system was built on that failure, punishing and criminalizing people like Johnson: poor people of color, sex workers, houseless people, and those living with HIV/AIDS.
