Podcast Appearance: Love, Stigma, and the Law with Robert Suttle
What happens when outdated laws and stigma collide with your most personal truths?
Pictured: Half-body headshot of Robert Suttle
In this episode of Choose the Bear, Robert Suttle participates in a long-form conversation examining the lived and lasting impacts of HIV criminalization under Louisiana’s HIV-specific criminal law.
Drawing from personal experience, the discussion documents how criminalization extends beyond the courtroom—shaping relationships, intimacy, identity, and the conditions under which people attempt to rebuild their lives after incarceration. The episode situates these experiences within a broader critique of how HIV laws perpetuate stigma, regulate personal autonomy, and constrain the possibilities of care and connection, particularly for Black gay men in the South.
Archived here as part of Robert’s Lived Experience Archive, this conversation represents a period of public witnessing that informs his current systems-focused work on HIV criminalization, public health, and structural justice.
Archive Note:
This material is archived to document lived experience already shared publicly. Current inquiries should focus on systems analysis, policy strategy, and structural reform.
