So Let’s Stop Trying To Cure This Disease And Start Focusing On Stopping Anyone Else From Getting It

A generation of artists were wiped out by Aids and we barely talk about it

A new film about the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe is a shocking and brilliant reminder of the devastation HIV and Aids wreaked – and still does

“Yet there was a time when you could walk around London or New York and see these gaunt faces, marked with sarcomas, and everyone you hung out with was dying. The official culture was in denial. Sometimes it was easier to be. I remember seeing Derek Jarman at a play. At that point he was blind. I didn’t want to see him like that. And then my friend was queer-bashed on the way home. Freddie Mercury died. Keith Haring died. Eazy- E from NWA died. Denholm Elliott died. Rock Hudson died. Fela Kuti died. And my uncle who wasn’t famous or even my actual uncle died. One of my friends lost seven people who were all under 30.”

When you see it, REBLOG IT.

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This Was the First Major News Article on HIV/AIDS

The epidemic’s early days were perplexing and terrifying

Entitled “Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals,” the article was penned by Lawrence K. Altman and appeared in the New York Times. At the time, gay men were dying of an unusual disease. They presented with purple spots on the skin, and their lymph nodes eventually became swollen before they died. It seemed to be cancer—but the symptoms matched a type usually only seen in very old people. The people who were dying at the time, however, were young and otherwise healthy. Doctors did not understand what was happening or whether the cancer was contagious.

“I can’t receive oral sex over the course of one year — at all — but my best friend can sleep with eight different women in a week and go donate blood. No problems—without any protection. There is something fundamentally wrong with that.”

Jay Franzone, a 21-year-old gay man, hasn’t had sex in a year so that he could donate blood under the FDA’s policy. On paper, the one-year deferral policy sounds like an improvement over the flat-out ban on gay and bi men donating blood that was in effect previously, but it’s just as discriminatory. Watch Jay’s interview with Vice here, and read his New York Times article about it here.

The ABCs of HIV from The Stigma Project.

on this date in 1981, the new york times printed an article with the headline “rare cancer seen in 41 homosexuals.” this headline is historic because it is the first mention of what would become the hiv epidemic. at this time, on this date in 1981, the epidemic didn’t have a name. 

even after 36, it is still chilling to read this headline because it is a sobering reminder of all that the world didn’t know about hiv. what caused it? how to treat it? we didn’t know shit! it took three years to identify HIV. three years to find out that it wasn’t cancer. however, in those three years, stigma, blame, and shame didn’t need a name to thrive. many died not even knowing the name of the disease that robbed them of breath and humanity. 

this headline is historic because it is the first mention of what would become the hiv epidemic. 

36 years later we know so much. we have survived so much. we now have life-saving meds. we now even have PrEP - the pill that helps to prevent hiv infection. this is huge because, in 1981, treatment for any virus was rare, yet alone a virus that was virtually unknown. 

we still have work to do. we still have to shift culture and we still have to fight health care and access. we still have to fight to live. but we know so much more now than we did on july 3, 1981.

Don't tell me how to live my life

Wrong Side of Stairs

AIDS Memorial Quilt of the Names Project Foundation displayed on the National Mall, DC. in 1987

we can’t let this happen