That is a very excellent thought provoking and limit pushing question, and we need so many more of these.
Where I'm at in FL, they have 5 counties being ran by one counties health dept for the HIV programs. Which is ridiculous, but the decisions are made before they hit the shelves, so to speak, at the HD. And those decisions are made by a council/committee that has about 12 people in the most sub section of the council. It is written into policy, that the council MUST recruit PLWH, for at least half of 12 people. But even with that, it's still a dumpster fire and needs a lot of work.
If you take subject matter and reduce it to just the virus itself and the associating trauma and long term effects, it is no different, then kidney disease, heart disease, diabetes, etc. which are all life altering diagnosis. Which anyone could end up going through. So while they may not know exactly what it means to be a PLWH, there's no way that they dont have a solid understanding of the trauma and complete life changes you have to make.
I have no problem with individuals who don't have HIV assisting with making these decisions. Cause, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if you have HIV or not, of you're making decisions based off of feelings and not science, knowledge, understanding. Cause just because you have HIV doesn't mean you know what every person with HIV needs. We're all different, there's never going to be a blanket solution that makes everyone okay with what's going on.

Agreed....