A slew of bills are rollg back recently won eedoms for gay people. Is Ameri ready to fight for LGBTQ+ rights all over aga?
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AFTER YEARS OF PROGRS ON GAY RIGHTS, HOW DID THE US BEE SO ANTI-LGBTQ+?
* act up gay rights *
On diversy wh the movement that's been historilly overlooked: The women and people of lor ACT UP tend to e om prev movements, and of the whe gay men, only the olr men me om gay liberatn. When ACT UP began, s founrs uld not have gused how high the group would soar; they would have been even more surprised by the particular nflicts that brought down to the time ACT UP was born, 1987, tens of thoands of Amerins—mostly gay men—had died of AIDS, and more were dyg every day, even as the ernment remaed largely different.
Early that March, Larry Kramer, the wrer and activist who had helped found the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, livered a speech at New York’s Lbian and Gay Communy Servic Center, on Wt Thirteenth Street. It also took on surance practic like the excln of sgle men who lived predomantly gay neighborhoods.
GAY RIGHTS
The gay rights movement the Uned Stat began the 1920s and saw huge progrs the 2000s, wh laws prohibg homosexual activy stck down and a Supreme Court lg legalizg same-sex marriage. * act up gay rights *
6 tra when he had a “revelatn” that he was not bisexual but gay. “Beg a practil person, ” Schulman tells , he searched the phone book and found somethg lled the Gay Swchboard. There was, and he attend one meetg, then another, and for the next five years he led a gay youth Rso, another ACT UP stalwart, is bt known for “The Celluloid Closet, ” his 1981 book about homosexualy and homophobia film.
) As Rso told a crowd, he had AIDS, but that wasn’t what was killg him:If I’m dyg om anythg, I am dyg om homophobia. And, pecially, if I’m dyg om anythg, I’m dyg om the sensatnalism of newspapers and magaz and televisn shows, which are terted me as a human-tert story—only as long as I’m willg to be a helpls victim, but not if I’m fightg for my polics of AIDS—“gay-related immune ficiency, ” or GRID, was an early signatn, as if a medil ndn might have a sexual orientatn—was evably a nontatn wh homophobia. Buckley, Jr., wrote, a syndited lumn, “Everyone tected wh AIDS should be tattooed the upper forearm, to protect mon-needle ers, and on the buttocks, to prevent the victimizatn of other homosexuals.
Several years to a harrowg epimic, gay Amerins were told that an act of nsensual sex uld not only fect them wh a fatal disease; uld also, at the will of a state, send them to prison. As Fkelste told Schulman, one day he said, “What about Gay Silence Is Deafeng?
The ACLU works to ensure that lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr and queer people n live openly whout discrimatn and enjoy equal rights, personal tonomy, and eedom of exprsn and associatn. * act up gay rights *
In the summer of 1985, Mike Petrelis was savorg life as young, openly gay man New York Cy. He'd found an affordable apartment — not far om the gay mec of Greenwich Village. But the months that followed Petrelis soon shifted the foc of his rage, as he began to learn jt how ltle the ernment and medil tablishment had done to addrs a crisis that, at the time, mostly afflicted gay men.
Over the next , this rage would drive not jt Petrelis but thoands of gay men and their supporters to form one of the most fluential patient advocy groups history. As fur as he was wh the ernment, he was jt as dignant that so few other gay men around him seemed to echo his rage.
The gay and lbian muny had created a dynamic work of self-help groups rponse to the crisis. All around him fellow gay men were sudnly fallg sick wh horrific symptoms — sk ncer, extreme weight loss, ntence.