Suttlepoints
Transforming Lived Experience into Leadership, Strategy, and Systems Change
Suttlepoints is a curated resource hub connecting analysis, lived experience, advocacy tools, and strategic insight across public health, policy, and community-based work. It is where ideas, practice, and purpose meet—designed to support learning, reflection, and action.
The Hub is organized by function, not chronology. Writing, media, and resources are grouped according to how they are meant to be used—whether to document lived experience, build leadership capacity, inform policy strategy, or support ethical public health practice.
The Five Pillars
The Hub organizes content across five core pillars:
Ending HIV Criminalization
Policy- and systems-focused resources examining HIV criminalization as a legal and public health failure, and outlining pathways for reform.
Public Health & Human Rights
Analysis exploring how law, health, and human rights intersect—centering institutional responsibility, equity, and accountability.
Leadership & Capacity Building
Trainings, tools, frameworks, and coalition-building resources designed to equip advocates, practitioners, and leaders to act within systems.
Storytelling & Media
Archived narratives, interviews, and reflections that document lived experience and movement history. These materials are preserved as record, not requirement.
Higher Education & Mentorship
Teaching, learning, and leadership development work connected to higher education and mentorship, growing intentionally over time.
Across all five pillars, the Hub reflects my commitment to translating lived experience into practical insight—supporting strategy, leadership, and more ethical public health responses without relying on repeated personal disclosure.
Facing HIV Criminalization: What to Know and Where to Start
HIV criminalization continues to impact people across the United States—often regardless of actual risk, scientific evidence, or engagement in care. This resource offers grounded guidance for understanding the landscape, preparing for potential legal harm, and identifying support, while recognizing the limits of what individuals can control within a punitive system.
Supporting Student Success through Mentorship, Practicum Supervision, & Experiential Learning
Supporting students has been a consistent part of my work across advocacy, public health, and higher education. This resource outlines how mentorship, practicum supervision, and experiential learning connect academic inquiry to real-world policy, leadership, and systems change—particularly within HIV, public health, and human rights.
Learning Platform: U=U University Online Courses
A multi-pathway learning platform designed to support real-world implementation of U=U through education, facilitation, and community leadership.
Learning Platform: HIV Justice Academy - HIV Criminalization Online Course
This course equips advocates and leaders with the knowledge and strategies needed to challenge HIV criminalization as a systemic legal and public health failure.
Video Interview: The Recruiters with Tom Duane — Episode 3
This conversation documents how lived experience, political context, and public visibility intersect in efforts to challenge HIV criminalization and stigma.
Podcast Appearance: The Mental Illness Happy Hour with Paul Gilmartin
This conversation documents how HIV criminalization extends beyond legal punishment to shape mental health, identity, and survival long after incarceration.
Feature Article: Robert Suttle in The Independent – As Told To / Life Stories
This first-person account documents the lived consequences of HIV criminalization and the ways outdated laws transform health status into state punishment.
Blog: HIV Stigma - Where Do We Go From Here?
A reflective essay examining HIV stigma and the structural conditions that sustain it, written at a moment when the movement was asking what must change next.
LGBTQ&A Podcast - HIV is Not a Crime: Making the Case for Ending HIV Criminalization
This conversation documents how HIV criminalization functions as a system of fear and punishment that continues to shape queer lives long after the height of the AIDS crisis.
Podcast Appearance: Love, Stigma, and the Law with Robert Suttle
This conversation documents the long-term personal and structural consequences of HIV criminalization, including how law and stigma continue to shape intimacy, identity, and autonomy after punishment ends.
Practice Guide: Person-First Language Guide for Criminal Legal Reform Advocates & Allies
A practical guide for using person-first language as a tool to reduce stigma and reshape how criminal legal systems define people.
Podcast Appearance: Ask Dr. Drew
This conversation documents how HIV criminalization persists despite advances in treatment, and how policy reform efforts seek to realign law with contemporary public health realities.
Blog: Balancing Hope, Joy, and Challenge: Navigating Life on the Registry
A recap of a Restorative Action Alliance webinar where Robert Suttle joined other speakers to discuss life on the sex offense registry through the lens of lived experience, advocacy, and resilience.
Blog: Black. Gay. HIV. Criminalized.
A narrative reflection published for HIV Is Not a Crime Awareness Day that examines the criminalization of Black gay men living with HIV.
Panel Discussion: Centering Black Voices: Building an HIV Decriminalization Coalition Rooted in Racial Justice
A coalition-building conversation that examines how centering Black leadership and lived expertise creates durable strategies for ending HIV criminalization.
Video Feature: POSITIVE DESTINATIONS: Robert’s Story - Produced by HIV Justice Network
A documented personal narrative reflecting on HIV criminalization, survival, and the long arc of justice work.
Video Interview: Surface Level Podcast - What Are HIV Criminalization Laws? — With Robert Suttle
A systems overview video that explains how HIV criminalization laws operate, why they persist, and what reform requires from advocates and policymakers.
Educational Video: EHE Campaign (New Orleans) “Bounce to Zero” Conversation: HIV Criminalization
A public education video designed to address HIV stigma and misinformation by explaining HIV criminalization as a structural public health issue.
A Panel Commemorating Johnny L. Baily, Ph.D - Lemon Project Spring Symposium: Healing Ourselves: Black LGBTQ+ Community Making in the Eras of HIV/AIDS and COVID-19
A community-centered panel examining how Black LGBTQ+ people build healing, belonging, and collective care as acts of leadership and survival.
Podcast Episode: HIV in Black Life — Then, Now, & Next — SisterLove, Inc. Visible & Unseen
A systems-level conversation examining HIV in Black life across history, current realities, and future possibilities—centering equity, leadership, and accountability.

