Aids anti gay
How HIV Impacts LGBTQ+ People
Overview
HIV continues to be a major universal health crisis both in the Combined States and around the world. While major scientific advances have made it easier than ever to prevent and treat HIV, there remains no vaccine or cure, and tens of thousands of people proceed to contract HIV every year. Insufficient funding for widespread health programs, ideological opposition to frequent sense prevention policies, and societal barriers like stigma and discrimination, have made it especially complicated for us to turn the tide against the epidemic. Together, HRC and the HRC Foundation are committed to working with our friends, partners, members, and supporters to end the dual epidemics of HIV and HIV-related stigma.
HIV disproportionately impacts segments of the Queer community.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there are 1.2 million people living with HIV (PLWH) in the United States, and approximately 40,000 people were diagnosed with HIV in 2015 alone. While the annual number of new diagnoses fell by 19% between 2005 and 2014, progress has been uneven. For example, gay and bisexual men made up an estimated 2% of t
The double epidemic: AIDS and anti-gay hysteria
The AIDS death count is rising by leaps and bounds across the nation. Yet the bodies of those who have died could be piling up in the streets for all the U.s. government cares.
Despite the AIDS epidemic’s spectacular growth rate and its huge threat to widespread health and safety, the government has refused to move to bring it under control. Meanwhile, rightwing reactionaries are using the crisis to fuel the destruction of the hard-won gains of the lesbian/gay movement. Like 14th century bigots who blamed the Black Death on Jews, then slaughtered half the Jews in Europe, today’s bigots blame AIDS on gays.
They too are laying the groundwork for mass slaughter. Using scare of the disease in tandem with homophobic prejudice, rightwingers are whipping up a pogrom atmosphere, urging everything from quarantines to outright genocide.
The medical front. AIDS — Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome — destroys the body’s immune system, leaving the sufferer susceptible to serious infections and tumors.
AIDS is not a “gay disease.” Although it struck first and hardest at gay males (72% of reported U.S. cases)
LGBTQ History Month: The early days of America's AIDS crisis
It was not until the late 1970s when the HIV strain that started the North American pandemic had made its way to the United States, via Zaire and Haiti. By then, the sexual revolution was in packed swing and HIV was spreading silently among gay male populations in big American cities. Men who have sex with men were, and still are, disproportionately impacted by HIV because it transmits much more easily through anal sex than through vaginal sex.
The first official government state on AIDS came on June 5, 1981, in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a government bulletin on perplexing disease cases: “In the period October 1980-May 1981, 5 young men, all active homosexuals, were treated for biopsy-confirmed Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia at 3 different hospitals in Los Angeles, California. Two of the patients died.”
In NBC Nightly News’ first report on AIDS in June 1982, Robert Bazell reported that “the optimal guess is some infectious agent is causing it.”
In a 1983 appearance on NBC's "Today" show, activist and Gay Mens Health Crisis co-founder Larry Kramer asked host Jane Pauley, "Jane, can you fantasize
The HIV/AIDS Epidemic
The United States was the focal gesture of the HIV/AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. The disease was first noticed en masse by doctors who treated gay men in Southern California, San Francisco, and New York City in 1981.
When cases of AIDS first emerged in the U.S., they tended to originate among either men who had sex with other men, hemophiliacs, or heroin users. The fact that the disease was also prevalent among Haitians led to the "Four-H Club" of groups at tall risk of AIDS.
Though some people believe that AIDS began in the U.S. in the 80's, that is actually the decade when it gained recognition as a health condition. Instances of HIV are believed to have been in the U.S. long before that - perhaps as early as the 1960s. The first reported cases of HIV are believed to have come from Kinshasa in or around 1920. Scientists believe the disease was transferred from monkeys and chimps to humans.
The prevalence of the disease among same-sex attracted men in the U.S. in the 80's and 90's resulted in a stigma against homosexuals and a general fear and misunderstanding regarding how AIDS was spread. Over moment attitudes changed as celebr
The AIDS Virus and the Galvanization of the LGBTQ Movement for Equality
Abstract
The LGBTQ community was greatly altered by the AIDS crisis and the organizations that were founded in the 1980s. AIDS would turn into associated with those of the gay community during the early years of the crisis. The government and leading health officials perpetuated the public’s ignorance about the relativity fresh disease leading to more misunderstandings and mishandlings of the HIV/AIDS crisis. The disease did not discriminate among people, however, and quickly spread throughout many of the communities in the U.S. Organizations with roots in the LGBTQ community established themselves during the 1980s to deal with not only the AIDS crisis, but also the issues that arose in the community. GMHC (Gay Men’s Health Crisis), sought to help those who had fallen ill with AIDS, and spread information on AIDS. Execute UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), fought for the rights of those with AIDS. GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) sought change for the betterment of the LGBTQ community, and fought against defamation of the community. The NAMES Proposal brought those who disoriented loved ones to AIDS t