As a gay, HIV-positive, Indigenous man Jacob Boehme has experienced discrimination in many forms.
He says one need only log on to see it.
"You only have to go on social media, gay dating aps to find exactly what sort of discrimination and stigma is still out there."
Diagnosed with HIV in 1998, dance and performance became an outlet to cope with the obstacles life was presenting.
Next month he'll prepare to tell his story on stage in his latest performance piece: Blood on the Dance Floor, as part of next year's Sydney Festival.
He hopes to inspire other HIV-positive Indigenous men to become part of the discussion on preventing HIV transmission in Aboriginal Australia.
"It can't be determined by the gay white boys' club, sitting around, nutting out on their own terms how they're going to engage with people of colour."
And the timing is critical.
New national data shows the rate of HIV notification among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is now more than double the non-Indigenous rate.
It's a factor opposition health spokeswoman Catherine King says the government cannot ignore.
"While HIV rates have been stable in non-Indigenous people they have been increasing in the Aboriginal and Torress Strait Islander population, and we can't turn a blind eye to it."
Most of those transmissions are coming from unprotected sex between men, but transmission rates are also higher in the Indigenous communities through means such as intravenous drug use and heterosexual sex.
Health minister Sussan Ley says Indigenous Australia is bearing the brunt of the nation's HIV epidemic.
"The burden of HIV falls most unfairly on our first Australians where the incidence is almost twice that, and completely out of proportion, of non-Indigenous Australia."
It contrasts with figures out of New South Wales showing a 20 per cent reduction in new HIV diagnosis from July to September this year, compared with the previous year.
It's a success the government hopes to replicate around the country using Australia's biggest weapon in fighting the HIV epidemic - Pre-exposure prophylaxis - or PrEP.
As the country works towards a zero transmission rate by 2020, PrEP trials are being expanded into regional Victoria and South Australia.
CEO of HIV awareness group ACON Nicolas Parkhill says the drug is the key to eradicating the disease.
"The more access we can give to PrEP that's afforable and easy to get our hands on the more effective it will be in driving down infection rates."
It's a goal shared by researchers in South Africa, who have this week launched a landmark trial of an HIV vaccine.
The trial, known as HVTN 702, will build on a 2009 study in Thailand that was found to be 31.2 percent effective at preventing HIV infection over the 3.5 years of follow up after the vaccination.
It will eventually enrol 5,400 sexually active men and women aged between 18 and 35 at 15 sites across South Africa.
It will be the largest, most advanced HIV vaccine clinical trial in the history of the country, where more than 1,000 people a day are infected with HIV.
Professor Linda Gail Bekker, of the Desmond Tutu HIV Centre, says even a moderately effective vaccine would significantly decrease the burden of HIV.
"We now have evidence that a vaccine can work, many people in the world have said you will never get a vaccine against HIV, there are many sceptics in the world."
When the trial concludes in 2020, it's hoped she'll have proved the sceptics wrong.
