In-Queer-Y: Reflecting on the HIV/AIDS Crisis of the 80's

Thursday through Saturday there’s going to be a performance of Angels in America: Millennium Approaches by Tony Kushner in the Hepburn Zoo. It’s a very famous play that focuses around the lives of several characters during the HIV/AIDS Crisis in New York City, one of the turning points in American gay history, as well as other themes like accepting your sexuality, racism, queerness and faith.

The play isn’t unique in its theme. The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer is also based on the rise of HIV/AIDS in New York City during the 80s. During this time, HIV was an unknown and unnamed disease largely affecting gay men. On the account that gay men can’t impregnate each other and the different attitudes of the time on safer sex practices, it was an unfortunate series of cause and effect that lead to such detriment particular to the gay community. But this was a particularly pivotal moment in gay history packed with social issues that sets it apart from many other epidemics that have faced humanity.

Because of its effect on homosexual men, it reinforced the idea that being gay, that having anal sex was wrong, and that being gay led to being sick. People called it “gay cancer,” and as the medical community became more aware of the disease it was referred to as GRID, Gay Related Immune Deficiency. Even as people who were not queer men were diagnosed with the disease, the stigma of HIV/AIDS being associated with gay men is something that still exists today. The Reagan administration was slow to address the pandemic and the gay community, having faced such homophobia, were not easily trusting of the publications relating to the disease, which themselves were not always the most informative. Many people died and the world was slow to care. So many people died that many older gay men refer to it as a time in which an entire generation was lost. Works like The Normal Heart and Angels in America strike up strong emotion in their audiences as they touch on the themes of fear, sadness, and hope, especially in the older members of the queer community.

But I did not grow up in these times. My sex education was not the best, but  when I learned about condoms and STIs, I was taught it was an issue for everyone. I was not taught that it is a gay people thing; in fact, the majority of my sex education revolved around pregnancy. The language used around how sexually transmitted infections were transmitted was pretty much only discussed in terms of men giving STI’s to women. Aside from the fact that queer people are largely erased in our sex education, this is good in many ways. It is a signal of how slowly but surely we are removing the stigma of HIV being a gay man’s disease. Furthermore, sex education as a whole is improving with me having learned that even if you do have HIV/AIDS you are capable of living a normal life. We know it’s not contagious via shaking someone’s hand. We’ve learned a lot.

But in that transition we’ve had to a greater scientific understanding, we’re losing a piece of history, leaving a generational gap between my generation and that of my mother’s. I remember when I first came out to my mother, she told me how important it was to not get HIV. While it was refreshing to not hear her warning me about getting a girl pregnant (turns out she really had no idea I was gay), I remember being offended in a way. I remember telling her that HIV is not particular to gay men and that HIV isn’t the only disease to worry about. It was the most passionate I’ve ever felt about the misconceptions surrounding HIV. And even then, the fervor I felt then is nothing compared to that of someone who lived during the times or knew the people who died. It was a time when gay men were fighting to live and fighting for the voice to be addressed on every level from the personal to the political. And in light of the upcoming show, I think it’s important to think about the issues being art so that we don’t forget what has happened, in addition to enjoying the show.