AIDS Crisis In The 1980s

When discussing queer history, it is hard to ignore or downplay the role the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and 1990s had on the LGBT community and the Western World as a whole. Needless to say, the disease itself, as well as its impact have both been the subject of plenty of written works. Straight authors as well as gay authors have produced fictional and factual works concerning the illness, showcasing just how much of a mark it left on the queer consciousness. But you didn’t have to be an author in order to respond strongly to the AIDS crisis. People of the general public didn’t hold back their opinions, which varied immensely. And it is the variation in these responses that I want to analyse further. I also want to take a look at how these various

It was initially misdiagnosed as in June, 1981 the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported five cases of some sort of ‘pneumonia’ in Los Angeles. The new epidemic first made headlines in the United States, when in July 3, an article in The New York Times carried the headline: “Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals”. The ‘cancer’ was called Kaposi’s sarcoma and the article mentions that “the cause of the outbreak is unknown, and there is as yet no evidence of contagion.”. The epidemic didn’t stop there, and by August 1981, The New York Times reported once more about the disease, mentioning that both Kaposi’s sarcoma and the rare form of pneumonia “have struck more than 100 homosexual men in the United States in recent months, killing almost half of them.”. By July 1982, the disease was officially given the name ‘Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome’ or ‘AIDS’ for short. Before scientists realised that heterosexuals could also get infected, it had gone by the names of ‘GRID’; ‘Gay-Related Immune Deficiency’ or ‘gay cancer’. In 1983, scientists from the Pasteur Institute in Paris discovered the first evidence of AIDS being caused by a virus. Shortly thereafter, the World Health Organisation assembled in Geneva to discuss the international effects of the syndrome, seeing how both men and women from several countries were now battling the devastating disease. Research on the syndrome continued. By 1986, scientists had successfully isolated the virus and had given it the name ‘HIV’ or ‘Human Immunodeficiency Virus’. Throughout the rest of the 1980s and 1990s scientists continued to study the disease, attempting to find medication, vaccines and drug treatments to combat its crippling effects. Unfortunately, by the end of the decade, in 1989, already 27,408 people had died from AIDS. This number doubled in 1995 with 49, 897 people having died from the syndrome. It wouldn’t be until