Is AIDS a "Gay" Disease? | Human Life Internatnal

Contents:

• 1980S. HIV/AIDS: WHY WAS AIDS LLED ‘THE GAY PLAGUE’?
• HIV/AIDS AND EDUTN: LSONS OM THE 1980S AND THE GAY MALE COMMUNY THE UNED STAT
• THE AIDS EPIMIC’S LASTG IMPACT ON GAY MEN
• IS AIDS A “GAY” DISEASE?
• GAY MEN'S STEREOTYP ABOUT WHO IS HIV FECTED: A FURTHER STUDY

1980S. HIV/AIDS: WHY WAS AIDS LLED ‘THE GAY PLAGUE’?

READ MORE: Panmics That Changed History: A TimeleThe AIDS Epimic Aris Though HIV arrived the Uned Stat around 1970, didn’t e to the public’s attentn until the early 1981, the Centers for Disease Control and Preventn (CDC) published a report about five prevly healthy homosexual men beg fected wh Pnmocystis pnmonia, which is ed by the normally harmls fung Pnmocystis jirovecii.

Bee the disease appeared to affect mostly homosexual men, officials ially lled gay-related immune ficiency, or the CDC disvered all major rout of the disease’s transmissn—as well as that female partners of AIDS-posive men uld be fected— 1983, the public nsired AIDS a gay disease. The FDA would revise s l 2015 to allow gay men to give blood if they’ve been celibate for a year, though blood banks routely tt blood for the end of 1985, there were more than 20, 000 reported s of AIDS, wh at least one se every regn of the is Developed In 1987, the first antiretroviral meditn for HIV, azidothymide (AZT), beme available. HIV/AIDS the 1990s and 2000s In 1991, the red ribbon beme an ternatnal symbol of AIDS that year, basketball player Magic Johnson announced he had HIV, helpg to further brg awarens to the issue and dispel the stereotype of beg a gay disease.

HIV/AIDS AND EDUTN: LSONS OM THE 1980S AND THE GAY MALE COMMUNY THE UNED STAT

Men who have sex wh men were, and still are, disproportnately impacted by HIV bee transms much more easily through anal sex than through vagal first official ernment report on AIDS me on June 5, 1981, the Morbidy and Mortaly Weekly Report, a ernment bullet on perplexg disease s: “In the perd October 1980-May 1981, 5 young men, all active homosexuals, were treated for bpsy-nfirmed Pnmocystis rii pnmonia at 3 different hospals Los Angel, California. ”In a 1983 appearance on NBC's "Today" show, activist and Gay Mens Health Crisis -founr Larry Kramer asked host Jane Pley, "Jane, n you image what mt be like if you had lost 20 of your iends the last 18 months? 'GAY PLAGUE'After the Stonewall Rts 1969, LGBTQ activists across the untry ma signifint civil rights advanc and secured some municipal and state-level protectns agast discrimatn public employment.

She lled the group "Save Our Children" and said reprented the rights of the majory of fileOn March 22, 1980, a year before that first MMWR report, evangelil Christian lears livered a petn to Print Jimmy Carter mandg a halt to the advance of gay rights. “God’s judgment is gog to fall on Ameri as on other societi that allowed homosexualy to bee a protected way of life, ” Bob Jon III predicted, acrdg to the anti-gay reactn gaed steam across Ameri wh the electn of Moral Majory ally Ronald Reagan, activists found their mands for attentn for a growg medil crisis were ignored.

One such group was the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, found New York Cy 1982, which is today the olst HIV/AIDS service anizatn the Men's Health Crisis Smh / NY Daily News via Getty Imag fileBut 1987, activists were still trated by ernment actn as bodi ntued to pile up, and they found the AIDS Coaln To Unleash Power, or ACT UP, New York, their actns and their activist art are legendary for speedg the ernment’s rponse to the AIDS crisis, allowg quicker ttg and treatment of lifavg experimental dgs, and drawg public attentn to the adly impact of homophobic public health polici. Sce early victims were predomantly gay men, the stigma attached to homosexualy the medil, erng, law enforcement and eccliastil stutns beme a barrier to unrstandg, preventn, and out of doctoral study the mid-1980s, I was part of the first generatn of mental health provirs to rpond to the epimic the San Francis Bay Area Northern California.

THE AIDS EPIMIC’S LASTG IMPACT ON GAY MEN

Her Highns Sheikha Mozah exhorted the atten om around the world to not stop at talk but, stead, m themselv to actn agast both the sndalo lack of accs to dimentary tn for over one hundred ln school-age children worldwi, as well as the tolerable equi of genr, class, and enomic stature which impair the attament of basic years ago, the gay muny was effective tg var social and profsnal muni bee, beg highly ted, privileged, and entled, was unaaid to speak the tth and go head-to-head wh powerful sectors that were perceived as obstctg accs to rmatn, rearch, treatment, and fundg.

I was one of many who engaged medil and law enforcement profsnals our muni to te them about social bias and mistaken notns about homosexualy, so that they would be ls aaid to serve the muny. One, the Lbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgenr, Queer (LGBTQ) Prints Higher Edutn is newly formed and "advanc effective learship the realm of post-sendary tn, supports profsnal velopment of LGBTQ lears that sector, and provis tn and advocy regardg LGBTQ issu wh the global amy and for the public at large.

IS AIDS A “GAY” DISEASE?

Turng pots gay history In the 20th century, the gay muny saw such watershed moments as the targetg of gay people by the psychiatric enterprise and the McCarthy era wch-hunts, the birth of gay liberatn, lbian femism, and queer culture, homosexualy’s crimalisatn and medilisatn, the legalisatn of gay marriage, and the overturng of bans on gay people servg the wh all watersheds, the events’ impacts were filtered through such characteristics as genr, ethnicy, class, and age at the time of the event. For gay men and women born before 1930, whom I terviewed 1995 and who me of age an era of polil, medil, and scientific opprsn, the emergence of gay liberatn (which, sparked by the 1969 Stonewall and siar uprisgs, formed a new celebratory lbian and gay culture based on the open exprsn of, and pri , same-sex relatnships) was the most signifint event shapg their experience of gay rights monstratn, NYC 1976Peak of the AIDS epimicWhile the olr gay people were aged 50-70 1980, when HIV / AIDS emerged the wt, gay male ‘baby boomers’ (born 1946-1964) were aged 34-16.

Decimatn of gay male baby boomersAs I and lleagu tablished, the epimic h male baby boomers much harr than did olr and younger men, g high numbers of premature aths, pecially among those aged 25-44 (and, this age group, among those aged 35-44), wh gay men sufferg ‘the most AIDS aths by far at the epimic’s height’.

In the USA, by 1995, one gay man ne had been diagnosed wh AIDS, one fifteen had died, and 10% of the 1, 600, 000 men aged 25-44 who intified as gay had died – a leral cimatn of this hort of gay men born 1951-1970.

GAY MEN'S STEREOTYP ABOUT WHO IS HIV FECTED: A FURTHER STUDY

Silence = Death: Direct actn rponse to the AIDS CrisisThis was unfoldg a polil ntext tensely hostile to gay men and women, wh, the USA, nservative forc nmng people livg wh HIV / AIDS as ‘immoral’, and Print Reagan notorly avoidg public mentn of AIDS until 1985. 0Devastatg numbers of AIDS aths major ciUnlike the 404, 000 USA bat-related aths WWII, which were evenly distributed across the untry, AIDS aths were hight major ci wh thrivg gay muni wh a far higher proportn of gay male rints than the natnal average. Lrdale, 32% Boston, 33% Washgton, DC, 39% Seattle, 34% Dallas, 38% Atlanta, 43% Miami, and 25% Portland, gay men who had lost iends and / or partners durg the AIDS epimic scribed ci beg virtual gay men I terviewed for my Brish-Amy fund study to the social worlds of olr gay men who had lost iends and / or partners to the AIDS epimic scribed ci beg virtual ghost-towns.

Returng to ‘the world’ after a partner’s ath was often a return to a world which many if not most of the survivors’ gay male iends had ‘disappeared’ on survivors of the AIDS epimicThe AIDS epimic’s impacts on this generatn of gay men, now aged 54-72, are still beg explored. But the aths’ impacts vary by, for example, gay men’s gree of nnectedns to urban gay muni, and when they entered gay my Brish Amy study’s data, the effects were mediated by whether terviewe were ill wh HIV / AIDS when they were losg iends and / or partners to AIDS; were HIV / AIDS and / or gay activists durg the epimic, or, if they had been diagnosed wh HIV, still workg; and had strong ti to blogil fay.

AIDS Memorial Quilt ont of the Washgton MonumentEffects of age on the experience of livg wh HIV for olr gay menFor olr HIV-posive gay men, age tersects wh the experience of livg wh HIV. Olr people livg wh HIV terviewed for The HIV and Later Life (HALL) study scribed experiencg ‘uncertati over how HIV, HIV meditns, and “normal ageg” tersect to fluence physil and mental health; ageism tersectg wh HIV stigma to further stigmatise olr people livg wh HIV; threats posed by the stigmatisatn of HIV and, for [gay men], homophobia, specifilly relatn to the qualy of long-term re’ and ncerns over ‘the nsequenc of terptns to profsnal reers by HIV’.

Ongog impact of HIV/AIDSGay men diagnosed wh HIV pre-1996 lived through often-lengthy perds of ill health, wh life-long nsequenc, and of expectatns of imment and / or premature ath om AIDS. 0Gay rights monstratn, NYC 1976“Rt [Stonewall ’69… AIDS Crisis ‘89] (Sticker)” by Gran Fury (Art and Activist llective) via NYPL"ACT UP NEW YORK: Activism, Art, and the AIDS Crisis, 1987 - 1993" by Act Up Oral History Project is licensed unr CC BY-NC-SA 2.