American activist Peter Staley was BOTD in 1961. Born in Sacramento, California and raised in Philadelphia, he studied at Oberlin College and the London School of Economics, and moved to New York to work as bond trader for JP Morgan. Diagnosed with AIDS in 1985, he joined activist group ACT-UP, chairing their fundraising efforts. He eventually came out as gay to his employers and went on disability leave, devoting himself to AIDS activism. He was involved in many of ACT-UP’s most well-publicised protests, including blocking traffic in Wall Street, barricading the offices of Burroughs Wellcome to protest the price of AIDS medication, demonstrating at the New York Stock Exchange and storming the 5th International AIDS Conference in Montreal to demand speedier access to medication. In 1991, Staley founded an ACT-UP affiliate called Treatment Action Group, focused on developing AIDS treatment solutions. To launch the group, Staley and his colleagues draped a giant condom over the house of conservative Senator Jesse Helms. In the 1990s, he served on the board for the Foundation for AIDS Research, and joined President Clinton’s ADIS National Task Force. He also founded AIDSmeds.com, an information and advice website for people living with HIV/AIDS. In 2004, he funded and launched a controversial ad campaign in New York warning of the link between crystal meth use and HIV transmission. The ads, reading “Huge Sale! Buy Crystal, Get HIV Free!”, attracted considerable debate among the LGBTQ community. Staley lives in New York and Pennsylvania. His work was prominently features in the 2012 documentary How to Survive a Plague. He published his memoir, Never Silent, in 2021.