Three s later, men who survived the 'gay plague' speak out

Contents:

• QUEER FANS MOURN LLIE JORDAN, A SYMBOL OF A 'LOST GENERATN' OF GAY MEN
• GAY IN LLIE JORDAN HAS DIED AT THE AGE OF 67
• REV. STEPHEN PIETERS, HIV SURVIVOR AND GAY ACTIVIST, DI AT 70
• A 25-YEAR-OLD GOT A TAXI OUTSI AN N.Y.C. GAY BAR. HE WAS AD AN HOUR LATER.
• FAMO GAY PEOPLE WHO DIED OF AIDS
• GAY MAN DI AT RIKERS WHILE HELD UNR $1 BAIL; FAY SEEKS ANSWERS
• 1000S WHO DIED ANTI-GAY, ANTI-TRANS ATTACKS (UPDAT)
• THREE S LATER, MEN WHO SURVIVED THE 'GAY PLAGUE' SPEAK OUT
• MOLLY SHANNON RELLS FDG OUT HER FATHER WAS GAY BEFORE HIS ATH

QUEER FANS MOURN LLIE JORDAN, A SYMBOL OF A 'LOST GENERATN' OF GAY MEN

"Related: Llie Jordan Is the Baton-Twirlg Comic the World Needs a Crisis"I'd do an exercise vio bee there are so many gay men wh the perfect abs and they do exercise vios, " Jordan told The Advote 2020 for a digal ver story about how the viral vios started. In 2021, Jordan released his first album, tled Company's Com', featurg gay in Dolly Parton and out sger-songwrer Brandi Carlile among others, and he went on to make his Grand Ole Opry but as a rult. Jordan — an effemate Southern gay actor who for s occupied his own special rner of queer culture — died Monday morng a r crash Hollywood.

GAY IN LLIE JORDAN HAS DIED AT THE AGE OF 67

” Jordan’s character eventually out as gay on the show, which self broke major barriers for s time s reprentatn of gay men, though mostly whe and cisgenr, on work televisn. ” For many, Jordan was a symbol of the joy of unqutnably visible queerns — of reclaimg and rejoicg long-held stereotyp about the feme affects of gay men. In the late ’60s and early ’70s, amid the Stonewall uprisg and the Amerin Psychiatric Associatn’s removal of homosexualy om s official list of mental disorrs, he was g to terms wh his inty as Amerins’ ias about sexualy were also startg to change.

Gay men like Jordan, born om 1946 to 1964 and classified as baby boomers, were h the harst at the peak of the crisis, om the late ’80s and throughout the ’90s. ”The AIDS epimic, and the Reagan admistratn’s failed rponse to , played a role the rise to promence of already well-tablished LGBTQ enclav, which some referred to as “gayborhoods, ” larger urban areas the ’80s and ’90s. Vela, a gay man and the host of an award-wng Colorado Public Rad show about addictn, “Back From Broken, ” said that although has never been easy for anyone to e out, was particularly difficult the latter s of the last century.

REV. STEPHEN PIETERS, HIV SURVIVOR AND GAY ACTIVIST, DI AT 70

Avoidg anti-LGBTQ discrimatn and homophobia remas pecially hard for queer people who, like Jordan, are ls straight-prentg, which n give people centiv to supprs aspects of their inty.

A 25-YEAR-OLD GOT A TAXI OUTSI AN N.Y.C. GAY BAR. HE WAS AD AN HOUR LATER.

“I open my mouth, and 50 yards of purple chiffon e out, ” Jordan said another appearance on “The Ellen DeGener Show” September 2021, promptg a roomful of the terview, Jordan spoke about havg to play a straight man a meo on DeGener’ s, which broke new ground Amerin culture when DeGener’ character famoly me out as gay 1997. A straight woman, she beme a strong LGBTQ+ ally and worked extensively wh Out Boulr County and other activist ReynoldsHunter Reynolds, a gay artist who appeared elaborate gowns of his own sign to raise awarens of HIV and fight homophobia, died July 12 at his Manhattan home of squamo cell rcoma. Jefey EsffierJefey Esffier, a longtime activist, thor of works on gay inty, and creator of public health mpaigns, died May 20 Brooklyn, N.

In the 1970s, he beme print of the Philalphia chapter of the Gay Activists Alliance and found s publitn, The Gay Alternative. He wrote many says, some of which were llected books, and the 1990s he joed New York Cy's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, where he oversaw advertisg mpaigns on a variety of health issu, cludg HIV, asthma, smokg, and Wt Nile PacheAdult film star Jason Pache, who performed unr the name Randy for the Sean Cody gay-porn stud, died July 9 at age 33 Sprgfield, Mass.

Kantrowz was “an early champn of gay rights and an fatigable mpaigner for fairer treatment of gay people by the media, ” the Tim not. He helped found GLAAD, then known as the Gay and Lbian Alliance Agast Defamatn, was a profsor the English partment at the Cy Universy of New York’s College of Staten Island om 1965 to 2006, and while there he created one of the first gay studi urs the natn. He promoted the work of Walt Whman and other gay 1977 he published a memoir, Unr the Rabow: Growg Up Gay,  which he chronicled the difficulti he and other gay people faced mid-century Ameri.

FAMO GAY PEOPLE WHO DIED OF AIDS

Much later, 2009, he was grand marshal of the Staten Island Gay Pri was a ntemporary and iend of many fellow activists, cludg Vo Rso, thor of The Celluloid Closet. He appeared  Vo, a 2011 documentary about Rso, and several other documentari about the LGBTQ+ muny, cludg Gay Sex the ’70s and After Stonewall. He also was one of the first out gay guts on popular rad and TV talk shows, speakg to Geraldo Rivera, Sally Jsy Raphael, and more.

”“He was thoughtful, charmg, and like any good profsor (he was among the first to teach a urse gay lerature, 1973), a lifelong stunt and teacher, ” former Whe Hoe staffer Jeremy L. ” which he lambasted “the tenncy among some gay activists to rpond to AIDS by downplayg their sexualy and emphasizg the need to replite bourgeois heterosexualy, ” the Tim reports.

“Male homosexualy was not the mirror image of heterosexualy, he argued, but somethg radilly different, lackg many of the patriarchal equali that he said fed straight life, ” the paper explas. “Far om apologizg for their promiscuy as a failure to mata a lovg relatnship, gay men should ceaselsly lament the practil necsy, now, of such relatns, should rist beg drawn to mimickg the unrelentg warfare between men and women, ” Bersani wrote the his 1995 book Homos, he criqued queer theory, sayg that by seeg gay inty as socially nstcted and performative, proponents of this theory ignored and unrmed the liberatg quali of beg gay. “He thought that the whole pot of beg a homosexual man is that you dispted the experience of posssn, ownership, fily, nsistency, safety, and you allowed sexualy to be what really is, which is disptive, disorientg, shatterg, lim-vlatg and boundary-breakg, ” she said.

GAY MAN DI AT RIKERS WHILE HELD UNR $1 BAIL; FAY SEEKS ANSWERS

She thored the books Irristible Revolutn: Conontg Race, Class and the Assumptns of LGBT Polics (2012), and Virtual Equaly: The Mastreamg of Lbian and Gay Liberatn (1996).

1000S WHO DIED ANTI-GAY, ANTI-TRANS ATTACKS (UPDAT)

Jefey Esffier, a longtime activist, thor of works on gay inty, and creator of public health mpaigns, died May at age e was plitns om a fall, his fay told the paper. He beme print of the Philalphia chapter of the Gay Activists Alliance, and 1972 he found The Gay Alternative, published by the anizatn. He and his staff at Out/Look anized the OutWre nference for LGBTQ+ wrote numero says on gay inty and the factors that shape .

THREE S LATER, MEN WHO SURVIVED THE 'GAY PLAGUE' SPEAK OUT

They were llected volum cludg Amerin Homo: Communy and Perversy and Sex, Society, and the Makg of Pornography: The Pornographic Object of Knowledge. Returng to New York the 1990s, Esffier beme puty director of the Office of Gay and Lbian Health the cy’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene 1995.

Hunter Reynolds was a prized asset to the LGBTQ+ muny and for HIV activism, as the artist fought homophobia and the AIDS crisis head on durg the 1980s and ’90s. After llege, his first huge movement the public eye stemmed om a quote he read by artist Mark Kostabi, om an article  Vany Fair: “The mm curators, that are for the most part homosexual, have ntrolled the art world the ’80s.

Riverfger Women has been named to The New York Tim’ list of 100 Greatt Gay Novels, while Beyond the Pale won the 1998 Lambda Lerary Award for Lbian Fictn.

MOLLY SHANNON RELLS FDG OUT HER FATHER WAS GAY BEFORE HIS ATH

”"I'd do an exercise vio bee there are so many gay men wh the perfect abs and they do exercise vios, " Jordan told The Advote  2020 for a digal ver story about how the viral vios started. In 2021, Jordan released his first album, tled Company's Com’, featurg gay in Dolly Parton and out sger-songwrer Brandi Carlile among others, and he went on to make his Grand Ole Opry but as a rult. Sourc reportedly told the outlet that thori received a 911 ll that a male sger, who was the younger brother of Backstreet Boys star Nick Carter, had a pop reer startg the late s release 2000, his sophomore album, Aaron’s Party (Come and Get It), went triple platum, acrdg to The Hollywood 2006, Carter appeared along wh his siblgs, Nick, B.

Jim Kolbe, a longtime Republin ngrsman who me out as gay 1996 and was reelected several tim afterward, died December at age e of ath was a stroke, the Arizona Daily Star reports.

The Advote mataed s policy agast outg but did ntact Kolbe to ask him to expla his DOMA vote and to see if he would discs beg gay. “As an out gay man Congrs the late 1990s and 2000s, Jim Kolbe affirmed to the Amerin people and gay men across the untry that there was a place for them the halls of Congrs, ” he said a prs release. “While a stunt at Louisville Collegiate School, he advoted for the rights of transgenr people by anizg a prott agast gay nversn therapy, speakg to the Kentucky Senate Edutn Commtee, and participatg other lol and natnal .