The 1970s promised so much—gay liberation had broken through homophobic hate, and life for LGB

The 1970s promised so much—gay liberation had broken through homophobic hate, and life for LGBTI people was being transformed. As the 1980s arrived, so too did homosexual law reform, anti-discrimination laws, gay media and a thriving gay culture. But then came a mysterious disease that seemed to target gay men, its cause and mode of transmission unknown. Suddenly, gay sexuality was stigmatised all over again, with panicky headlines referencing a “gay plague” or, in the case of Melbourne’s Truth newspaper, the overtly homophobic “Die, you deviate”. Talk of forced quarantining, compulsory testing and surveillance of gay men was everywhere.In the US, President Ronald Reagan refused to utter the word AIDS in the first four years of the crisis, despite 60,000 being infected and 28,000 dying. As late as 1987, the US Congress banned the use of federal funds for AIDS prevention or for education that was in any way supportive of homosexuality. “Nobody left those years untouched”, wrote journalist David France, “not only the mass deaths—100,000 in New York alone—but also the foul truths that a microscopic virus had revealed about American culture: politicians who welcomed the plague as proof of God’s will, doctors who refused the victims medical care, ministers and often parents who withheld all but the barest shudder of grief”.But LGBTI people were coming out of a period of activism and, despite the initial shock, were prepared publicly and defiantly to fight any attempt to take away what they had won. READ MORE: Silence = death! Action = life! Activism in Australia’s AIDS crisis -- source link

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