No, I don't know anyone personally who has died of AIDS. Although, to be fair, I haven't really had anyone close to me die. The prospect of that happening terrifies me.

Wow. What an interesting exercise. It should be an eye-opener.

I'm 51 years old, and I was living in NYC at the inception of the pandemic. I moved to suburban DC in the mid 80's. And yes, I've known many people who died from AIDS-related complications.

I knew people who were getting sick with it even before they were calling it GRID, the earliest designation before it was dubbed AIDS.

This is somewhat embarrassing to admit, but it got to the point that we'd lose track of who had died. That is, I'd read an obituary, be initially shocked by the news, and then think to myself, "wait - did I already know that?". Sometimes we couldn't remember if we had heard that some had been diagnosed or had died. The two events being so closely associated in both time and fate. A very sorry state of affairs, but that's how it was.

By the mid 90's, I figured that all of my friends from college were either long since dead, or if they were still alive, surely were HIV-. That didn't turn out to be true, either. I did have a friend from college who I found out was diagnosed at that time. It was at the dawn of the experimentation of the AIDS "cocktails", when no one knew if they would work, and the side effects were almost as bad as the disease. I found myself holding my breath again, re-living the early days of the crisis, in a type of PTSD reaction.

The good news is that the "cocktails" were successful for him, and he became the first person I knew for whom AIDS wasn't an immediate death sentence.

OTOH, by the turn of the century, I had met young trans people who were so self-loathing, they purposely tried (and succeeded) to become HIV+ while working the streets.

In a sense, that represents different generations of the AIDS crisis, as well.

Interesting question, which gets me thinking:
I think the issue needs to expand beyond and complicate the question of who knew PWAs who've died. While I think knowing friends who died in the crisis certainly makes the issue of AIDS resonate powerfully for activists, it's also important not to dismiss younger generations for not having that close a connection to the epidemic and to remember that they do feel passionately about a host of issues (and here, let me add, it's not Bil I'm pointing to, but the tendency of people like Kramer to keep harping on this one point).

It's also important to remember that a lot of people with such close connections to AIDS also have some pretty conservative politics vis-a-vis a host of other gay issue. Marriage, for a lot of people, is not a radical idea/cause. And AIDS, we tend to forget, has become a completely deradicalised issue, and ignored by some of the very people who once fought on the battle lines. Black men and women have some of the highest rates of HIV infection in this country, but we ignore those statistics even as AIDS days come and go every December.

A question I'd have have for people like Kramer: How many people do you know who are struggling with health care? Why and when did you decide that universal health care for all, regardless of marital status, was no longer an issue? How many people do you know who are unemployed and stand on the brink of homelessness and poverty, compounded by a lack of health care? And on, and on...My point here is simply that perhaps it's time we stopped asking the question about how many people we know who died of AIDS and instead ask: What do we know about the changing demographics and nature of AIDS today? And what do we know about the lives of people without health care?

My larger project and future posts take on this issue of personalisation at greater length, so I'm just putting in my two cents for now. But, overall: I think Kramer's rants are occasionally useful but, frankly, they are becoming less and less relevant over time.

As for the article itself: it begins, surprisingly, on a nuanced note, but Gross ends up making the same mistake that so many people make: Assuming that gay politics as defined by the gay mainstream is somehow represents a progressive/left agenda. Maybe, just maybe, we ought to consider the idea that a lot of people simply don't think that marriage and DADT are progressive causes at all. Is there really a movement? Or are we trying too hard to pretend that we can somehow steamroll people into believing that these causes somehow make up a movement?

Bil, I had some very close friends in the priesthood who died of AIDS. I miss them terribly. Their families never spoke of the real cause of their deaths. Their bishops were surprisingly supportive of them in their illnesses. Perhaps that is why I hold back on a wholesale condemnation of the Catholic Church. Because I know some private stuff. Their friends made panels that went into The Quilt. Those friends would call me from San Francisco when it was time for that final good bye before the morphine. I can barely speak of these things.

I'm 57 years old and live in suburban Pittsburgh. Yes, I lost several close personal friends and one close family member to AIDS. However, the last one of these died a little over ten years ago now.

With the success of new drug cocktails, AIDS has become a more manageable disease with a longer life expectancy for most of those who have it, but some people have serious side effects to these drugs and their life isn't easy.

I'm 50, and I cared for a guy in Berkeley who died. I also knew the best dancer in the Universe at Trocadero who died real early. My best freind is a total butterfly, and he's seen a hundred people go.
There was really no reason for any of this after we learned the transmission method decades ago. But the community is still chock full of internalized homophobia and won't talk the simple steps to stop AIDS. I've been waiting for peer group pressure for some twenty five years. Still no luck.

His name was Eugene Prince Earle. He was one of the best damn camera assistants in Hollywood, wore bow ties and loved his boyfriend who cheated on him and exposed him to HIV. My daughter was a year old when he died in 1986, I was a newlywed,a yuppie dad, a film industry grunt, an alcoholic and deeply in denial about being Trans. To my own credit(only in retrospect)I hired him on a TV series job that took us to the North Coast of California after I knew he had the disease; I guess I just loved him. The new kids have no idea the kind of courage it took for their gay elders to stand up and make noise about this plague back then; Howdy Doody was in the White House and didn't give a rat's ass if gay people lived or died. Gay rage and courage made a huge difference in the end. The rest of us were scared irrationally shitless; I'd be a liar if I told you I didn't wash my hands furiously after visiting him in the hospital and watching him descend into madness as the disease crawled up his optic nerve and attacked his brain.
Damn it.

There was also Don Furneaux, actor, artist, friend.He was so happy he'd settled down after a mad life in the baths.

There was J.C Carr; brilliant artist and again, a good friend.He had beauftiful blue eyes.

Jimmy Crabe, the Cinematographer on "Rocky" and the original "Karate Kid". A sweet, smart, funny and well loved guy by the gruffest and seemingly homophobic of movie crews.

Damn it.

First the facts. I'm 46 and currently reside in Temple, TX. I've been with my current partner for 10+ years. However, my former partner I lost to AIDS in 1997. We were together for only 7 years. From the time he was diagnosed positive to his death was less than 5 years. Somehow to this day I remain negative and did deal with survivor guilt for a while. I can only hope that he's in a much better place now. Even at 46 I've been to too many funerals. The current generation see HIV/AIDS as a manageable disease, such as diabetes. After so much, I can't see that.

Something else... I'm part of a group that holds a semi-annual campout for PWAs. Each one gets bigger and bigger... the last being about 150. It's free for all PWA folks although a 25.00 donation is requested (but NOT required) from all others. It includes Friday dinner, Saturday all meals and Sunday breakfast as well as water/soda/tea/gatorade all weekend. Each campout we wonder who isn't going to be with us this time. We're still losing good people to this.

If anyone is interested in these campouts, please take a look at http://www.lvlpwa.com

I'm 26, I grew up in Miami and now live in New York, and I haven't known anyone who died of AIDS. But I still care passionately about queer issues.

His name was Eugene Prince Earle. He was one of the best damn camera assistants in Hollywood, wore bow ties and loved his boyfriend who cheated on him and exposed him to HIV. My daughter was a year old when he died in 1986, I was a newlywed,a yuppie dad, a film industry grunt, an alcoholic and deeply in denial about being Trans. To my own credit(only in retrospect)I hired him on a TV series job that took us to the North Coast of California after I knew he had the disease; I guess I just loved him. The new kids have no idea the kind of courage it took for their gay elders to stand up and make noise about this plague back then; Howdy Doody was in the White House and didn't give a rat's ass if gay people lived or died. Gay rage and courage made a huge difference in the end. The rest of us were scared irrationally shitless; I'd be a liar if I told you I didn't wash my hands furiously after visiting him in the hospital and watching him descend into madness as the disease crawled up his optic nerve and attacked his brain.
Damn it.

There was also Don Furneaux, actor, artist, friend.He was so happy he'd settled down after a mad life in the baths.

There was J.C Carr; brilliant artist and again, a good friend.He had beauftiful blue eyes.

Jimmy Crabe, the Cinematographer on "Rocky" and the original "Karate Kid". A sweet, smart, funny and well loved guy by the gruffest and seemingly homophobic of movie crews.

Damn it.

Bil,

Thank you for bringing this subject up. Like a number of posters here, I belong to the, um, shall we say, slightly older generation that remembers the 80's poignantly. It was a time of independence from parents, Wham!, Tears for Fears and Erasure. It was a belief that we were invincible. Personally it was a time of hiding and closeting the true me. It was also the time of the "Gay man disease", although we didn't know exactly what or how it happened at first. Remember in 1987 there were 71,000 reported cases of AIDS and 40,000 deaths. I lost two close friends.

I'd worked in and out of Ohio, commuting every couple of months from my main office in the UK. I met Tony. A sharp Ohio State grad and band member and his partner. Tony eventually ended up working in my organization. Very shortly after that he told me his partner was sick, and within weeks had developed lesions, and shortly after died.

Tony however was one of those brave souls willing to try all sorts of 'trial' cocktails, via OSU, in the hopes of stopping HIV spreading. He was shunned at work during a required "off-site" when no one wanted to room with him, not because he was HIV+ - they didn't know,- but because he was gay. As his VP, I wanted to show others that Tony was good, and we roomed together. Over time he was getting thinner, and more gaunt. Questions and rumors were flying. I deferred to Tony as to what he wanted to say or do, as his work schedule had been accommodated to help his daily testing (t-cells) and medicines.

Tony, said lets explain everything. So, with the permission of my staff and other departments, we invited people to a lunch meeting. It wasn't mandatory, only optional. I talked for a while, then Tony, stories told, emotions shared, hearts and minds opened, and tears shed.

Tony lasted until 2001; a long time for someone living HIV+. We met up in New York where I had been working until 9/11. He was pale, so frail and so gaunt. He walked with a cane and his then partner helped him throughout the meal. I knew his time was close, and gave him a big hug when we parted ways. He died shortly after.

So. From a generational point of view. Some of us lived through the worst of HIV/AIDS. When knowledge was scarce, when the public was fearful of the "gay cancer" and thus gay men. The Will & Grace period allowed people to gain understanding about the disease and it's dangers, and how it was conveyed, the TV was full with news and hopes for a cure, along with the AIDS Quilt when it was last displayed in 1996. They were aware of it's spread amongst all ages and demographics. The Facebook age? Well if you look at statistics, cases of HIV are up in younger people, and I fear that they don't see the risks and therefore don't care as much as we may have once we had understanding in the mid- to late- 80' and early 90's. With the availability of drugs to prolong life, and unwillingness to be tested, we have a percentage of a generation walking around ambivalent about HIV/AIDS. That upsets me.

Personally I have since held the hands of dying patients of AIDS, and in the last 2 years joined the Board of AIDS Foundation Houston so as to keep awareness going and to remember Tony and his partners courageous life.

I and my partner's closest friend ever was Richard Haas. Richard was a Vietnam vet who I met when he was a buyer for Wiebolt's department store in Chicago. He was honest, funny, a flirt and a man always looking for love, laughs and friendship.

He switched to my side of the world and became a manufacturer's rep in an adjacent, but not competitive field, so we routinely shared "shoptalk" and insights on problems with stores. He was a charming natural persuader who could call birds out of the trees.

We watched a lunar eclipse together in Chicago. We partied, cooked out and shared holidays together. We created our own Gay Family.

When he became ill we saw to his needs when his relationship broke up with his partner. His partner was also HIV positive and could not deal with the reality of Richards decline. I learned how to give IV drips, take Richard to doctor's appointments and "comfort" therapies. he stayed in our guest bedroom when his former lover needed a respite. I was the person who was sure to enforce his "do not resuscitate" standing order. When dementia came to him it was horrible to realize that if the nurse asked me to leave his room he would forget that I had been there when I returned. I left a picture of myself and my partner on his night stand so that he would always know that we had been there and would return.

He was never to feel alone.

At his funeral and after dozens of people I did not know told me how they considered Richard to be their closest friend. Where were they when he needed them? HIV victims became lepers among the Gay Community at that time in ways unimaginable today.

I have known only one person personally, he was my partner's cousin. I am 38, he died two years ago at 37, we live in the SF bay area.

I grew up in the 1960s in the Mississippi Delta. It's been called "the most Southern place on Earth." Not a safe place to come out... One of my best friends, Tommy, was in denial about being gay. I sure as hell was in denial about being transsexual. So we went our separate ways after high school and the first time I saw Tommy again was at our 15 year high school reunion, which he attended with his partner. His courage at facing a hostile Mississippi crowd was an inspiration to me to come out and get on with my life and transition.
Tommy was a flight attendant on international flights. His square on the quilt shows the airport codes of cities worldwide where he worked. He became ill in the 1980s and passed away in 1989. One of my greatest regrets is that Tommy and Becky never really got to know each other.

I am 47 and was in the Marines during the 80's and early 90's when alot of folks were dying. It also affected the gays and lesbians in the military and they had the added battle of being discharged or taken off duty after they tested positive. One of my best friends John Conte who was a Commander in the Navy died of AIDS while I was overseas and I was not able to attend his funeral. I have very fond memories of my military buddies that were postive and died.
I know some Coast Guard, Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marines who lost their lives to AIDS during this time while in the military and how they had to deal with peoples attitudes, (homophobia in the military) and the changes that it brought in their lives. It was very difficult for them. Some even ended up on the AIDS Quilt that was displayed in Washington DC.
To all of those Souls, may they never be forgotten. God Bless them all.

I'm 51 and at the time this shit all started i lived in Palm Springs. i have no idea how many people i've known with AIDS and attended their funerals. My uncle died of aids in 1987, my cousin passed in '92. i've read this thread and started remembering and by the time i got to the bottom i was crying. damnit.

I don't really get Kramer's point. Is he saying that people who don't know someone who died of AIDS can't be passionate about marriage? That doesn't make sense to me - they're unrelated issues. Maybe it was just underreported, but I don't remember hearing about marriage activism being all that big a deal for ACT-UP.

LGBT people are downright terrible at generational analysis, and nothing coherent ever comes from it. Let's see, in this article younger people were more assimilationist and therefore saw marriage and other issues related to that as more important, we were also more likely to be in favor of Obama and worry about rocking the boat, we're also more likely to just no care because we didn't know anyone who died of AIDS. Why not just say that we don't care about anything besides going to the club, taking drugs, and getting laid? At least those observations are more popular.

Anyway, the answer is no. I know a few who are living with HIV, but no on who has died from it.

I turned 50 on August 4th. I purchased my home in Wilkes Barre, PA on August 1st, 2007 as a gift to myself. Before that I leved in NYC, born and raised for 48 years.
At 30 I broke up with my cheating boyfriend. Two weeks later he was diagnosed and passed away a year later. I remained his friend and looked after him although we no longer had a love relationship. I lived in fear for the entire year waiting for my test results again and again and watching as the disease ravaged his body. I kept thinking I was next. Luckily and miraculously I dodged that bullet.
At age 40 my best friend from childhood was diagnosed. I was a volunteer with the GMHC and came in contact with many who were HIV+. A few years later he passed after receiving the most horrible health care from the VA. They would give him 6 months worth of meds and send him home with no follow up. The meds did not work for him and I watched him slowly and painfully pass away.
I am now in college in PA. I helped co-found a Health Awareness Club on my community college campus. I am the guy in front of the bookstore handing out condoms and information. I am getting a degree in Human Services with the intention of continuing on and getting a BSW (Social Work). I volunteer with the local Aids Counsel and help to put together HIV/AIDS Awareness days at churches and venues here in Northeastern Pennsylvania.
Although a positive diagnosis is no longer the death sentence it once was it is still a major problem. Many people I know who are now well enough to work and would like to be contributing members of society are held back from doing so because to take a job means that you lose your health care and they fear that their new employer will not insure their condition or that they will be stigmatized if anyone finds out. It's a shame that people are treated this was this many years later.
The blight of HIV/AIDS has effected my life and changed the course of it.

I'm over 70, and I lived in the Los Angeles area in the late 70's and 80's. I knew at least five co-workers who died of AIDS, plus another five to ten others.

I wonder if the younger generation knows what a devastating disease AIDS is. While HIV can be controlled now with medicine, it continues to take a toll on the gay community. Maybe we still need to get the message out there about safe sex.

I'll turn 55 next month. Between hearing about 1970's Indiana college friends and living in L.A. during the 80's and 90's, I can only use one word:

Countless.

I'm 30- and know plenty of people who are HIV+. We talk about it sometimes.

One of my friends who was HIV+ recently died, but of cancer, and at the age of 35. We miss you Dan. There was some perverseness to his death that he thought he would die of AIDS, and then cancer took him out.

I feel lucky to not have been part of the generation that saw so many die so young. Although when I came out to my mom, the first thing she said to me, is you're going to get AIDS and die.

That still stings 10 years later.

For those who were part of the generation who lost so many- what did it do to your psyche? How did / do you grieve?

I am 48. I graduated from UT-Austin in 1984 and moved to Washington, D.C. for grad school. I joined Dignity/Washington and through that organization made several friends who died of HIV/AIDS. I remember their quilts at the Names Project displays.

My first partner was a volunteer with the Hospice of Northern Virginia. He was also a volunteer AIDS "buddy" in the DC/NoVa area, and he taught me a lot about the disease. We both joined a longitudinal study of 1000s of gay men through Johns Hopkins (also at other locations) to study the health of gay men, both positive and negative, over a period of many years, still ongoing, seeing who developed HIV, who didn't, what was the progress of the disease, what treatments had what effect, etc, etc. I moved away in the mid-1990s to California and no longer participate.

I look back at it not so much with any sense of anger -- I was never impressed with the guys who spilled pigs' blood on the steps on NIH and thought they were having any concrete effect on the world -- but more from a sense of fear and love. Fear, because fear of the disease was an omnipresent overbearing reality. See a play like Jerker or a movie like Jeffrey and you'll start to scratch the surface of it. Love, because it brought many of us to put self aside and devote ourselves to caring for others. Not just a hold-hands-and-sing-Kumbaya caring, but concretely, sitting with the sick, changing their cat boxes (or their diapers), bringing them food, rides to and from the doctor. Simply being there, as a human presence.

Do you call that activism? I call it service.

My current partner is a long-term HIV survivor and a Type 1 diabetic since childhood. We live near Houston now. As I type this, he is very ill, very weak, sleeping beside me. Yesterday he fell twice. Once I had to call EMS for assistance. He's a "frequent flyer" at the hospital, having last been inpatient in May. He'll be in again soon, I think.

For me, my "activism" is the act of keeping him alive. I wake him up to check his blood glucose. I cook him meals. The last few days, with him unable to walk, I bring him a urinal, a bedpan. I clean. This is more real to me than anyone's rage, anyone's march, or anyone's Twitter feed. This is an act of love.

Bil: I'm 72 years old and lived in San Francisco during the sexual revolution. 1960's and 70's. It was a very exciting time sexually. We went from not being able to even shake hands in a bar to bathhouses and back rooms where sex was available to everyone. We would go out drinking and end up at the bath house in a dark room having a sexual orgy. Very few wanted a permanant relationship. It was very exciting then and no one knew of AIDS. I first heard of AIDS in the early 80's and I was then in my 30's. Everyone said, it couldn't happen to me. That only happens to the "fisters", the leather queens and to those who used poppers. Friends of friends were diagnosed, then friends, then close friends. It was a terrifying time. We all wondered who is next. All of us had been promiscuous and expected to be the next one. I lost so many close friends, friends I counted on to be here in my last years. I often wonder how I escaped the plague. Out of a large group that were close, there are two of us left. Left to wonder why not me? Do I know anyone who died of AIDS? Check "The Quils". You will see the names of many of those friends.

I'm 40, presently on the East Coast, but in the 80s and 90s I lived in Denver. Lost several friends both out of my own group of friends and colleagues, and my mother's group of friends and colleagues, most notably my wonderful kind pal Calvin, one of the sweetest & most sardonic men who ever lived. I still have the shirt he gifted me in 92. My friend Renee's uncle Alejandro, in SF, another wonderful man. Also have friends still living with HIV or AIDS after many years of infection.

I agree with the time gap measures you put forth. The upcoming Kiss-in, while delightful and important, is not like the Kiss-ins I used to go to as part of ACT UP and Queer Nation. So how can we harness the intellect of the new kids to the anger of us old folk? how can we remind folks outside our community that there is more to being gay than Will Truman and the guys on Queer Eye?

As to the rest... For some of us, Larry Kramer will ALWAYS be relevant, because we remember when almost nobody was saying what he has always said. For AIDS, he was our Cassandra. So leave him alone. His focus on AIDS & health is no less valid than other queer folk whose entire focus is marriage, or prison reform, or whatever.

I came out very young in Detroit in the 90s. As such all of my friends were older gay men. I don't know how to explain it to the gay friends my age I have now because it was so different. It was as if when I came out, I had all of these great big brothers looking out for me, teaching me about safe sex, giving me literature and handing me condoms--even though it would be years before I did the deed. I had a friend who was already very sick and ailing BEFORE he contracted the virus, and went fast. I have another who committed suicide who may have done so because he had found out (none of us know why he did it, but its always been in the back of my mind) and old bar friends from Detroit that are long gone now.

I'm still negative, but I have many positive friends--young friends my age--and that makes me worry that this new complacency with AIDS has made us shitty big brothers. Why aren't we still handing out condoms and talking frank about sex with our young friends, and why do the older gay men who once took me under their wing now avoiding all contact with my generation, squandering the oportunity to teach these important lessons?

When I was younger, the gay community was one big family, and though it was the horrors of the virus and being rejected by society that put us there, it was beautiful and amazing nonetheless. Not to mention that family probably saved my life and millions of other young gay young mens' lives. I don't know what there is to take from that, but it is a big part of my experience.

There are just too many words to say about him, so I don't know where to start. I did the google search and found the following:

DIED: MICHAEL MILLIGAN, 41, died of
complications related to AIDS January 1 at the Cleveland
Heights home of friend Daniel Postotnik. Michael, a graphic
designer and performer, lived and worked In Columbus
most of his adult life. He served as art director and graphic
designer for the Ohio Arts Council from 1980 to 1987, then
as graphic designer or the Office of Communications at
the OSU College of the Arts until he became too ill to work
in 1993.
As a dancer , Milligan brought energy and charisma
to his work, although he had no formal training as a
dancer.
Milligan is survived by his parents, James and
Margaret Milligan; a sister, Melinda Sounders; two nieces;
and numerous friends and fellow artists. Those who wish to
remember Milligan may make contributions in his name to
the AIDS Task Force of Greater Cleveland, 2250 Euclid
Avenue,C1eveland,OH 4415

I did a google search for this, because if you knew Michael (and I wouldn't be surprised to find that some of you might) you knew him best as a human search engine before they even existed.

We were lovers late in our relationship, but more importantly we danced together. 15 years my senior, he took me under his wing and became my first and only life advocate, something, unfortunately, my parents hadn't to that point given me (had to claim it from them).

I wasn't there for his death, because I wanted New York City after grad school more than Ohio and facing his death. Silly huh? Moving the NYC in 1989 to escape the shape of death. Like that worked... More to it, really, but I made it to his memorial. And then I cried for nine days straight.

Michael was brilliant, sweet, giving and in many of the subtle, but telling ways that only he seemingly could appreciate he has spoiled me to all men since.

As a Person Living With AIDS, as a person who has witnessed the deaths of JFK, RFK, MLK, the resignation of a president 35 years ago today, and as a person who has lost a best friend, a partner's best friend, and a partner of 30 years to HIV/AIDS or its consequences, it is extremely hard to write comments about those days. During the early years of this crisis, I sat on the sidelines not knowing what the next day would bring. Many of those between 50 and 70 also sat on the sidelines not knowing what to do. I am grateful for Larry Kramer and Act-up. He should not be demeaned or disparaged in any way for without him and the others in the early movement of mostly gay men (GMHC, Act-up, groups in San Francisco, etc.), we would not have five classes of drugs available today. I will always think of Larry Kramer as a hero. Frank Kameny, Leonard Mattlovitch, Harvey Milk and all those who lead when our friends were dying. Thank you. My friends from Washington, D.C. were all taken by this virus. I remember them all; especially, Bill Handel, John and Eric, and dozens more. My friends in Indianapolis, Indiana, John and Bart, Don and "Z", and a hundred more whose pictures are displayed at the Damien Center, and Marty Grisel, and my partner of 30 years, Joe Ballinger, who died of the consequences of AIDS, we loved you all.

I had to pause for about four hours while writing these comments so I hope they are not too disjointed. Continuing ...

Today's generation is defined; not by HIV/AIDS, or assassinations of leaders, but by 911 and unjust wars in the Middle East. The rights that would have protected Joe and me were not even seriously being considered when he died in 2002. Now we are so close to attaining those rights and we must keep striving for each and every one of them and to my generation; or, at least, me, marriage is tone of the greatest equalizers in our struggle for equality.

I volunteer extensively for HIV/AIDS and am involved with one of the most influential and important groups in the Greater Indianapolis area. It is so urgent for everyone who can volunteer to do so. Enough griping and complaining ... get involved and do it today. Whether it is in prevention or in helping people still affected by the pandemic, there are so many needs. Every person who has HIV needs to be in care and there are resources. It is, believe it or not, still a gay, white disease, but it is much, much more and ignorance of prevention and treatment will be the ultimate destruction of billions of people and maybe even civilization. HIV/AIDS is not curable. HIV/AIDS is sometimes manageable, but don't think for a moment that a single pill a day will work for everyone and keep working for everyone. This disease is very unmanageable, in my opinion, because while I advocate that you must keep it at bay ... so far, the disease always wins in the end. If the HIV/AIDS doesn't kill you or one of the Opportunistic Infections doesn't kill you; then, the medicine might.

Continuing once again after several hour interruption... All I really want to say is the gay community and especially my generation has been decimated. We need to stop squabbling about this or that and name calling those who went before and did so much. Now, we need to get it together and work to defeat HIV and cure AIDS.

I'm 65. When the plague hit about '82 I was living in LA. I was politically active and went cruising every day. There were a dozen or so cruising spots in the LA basin plus bars, etc. You couldn't miss. I smiled a lot.

Within 5 years I lost two lovers and an ex. I witnessed the decline and death of dozens of friends and Odin knows now many acquaintances. I took off almost eight years from political and union activism to care for them. My friends and I got so used to it that we'd jokingly guess what stage of grief - denial, anger, bargaining or depression - we were in. I never got to the acceptance stage because there was always someone new who needed help.

I finally burned out and got the hell out of Dodge.

Most troubling of all is the knowledge that I lost my generation to AIDS. By the hundreds, then thousands, then millions. And all accompanied by the laughter and snickering of christians and the abandonment of families, doctors and politicians.

I didn't get the virus, didn't have night sweats, didn’t get the ‘look’ from wasting syndrome. But it still wrecked my life.

Bill-

Not only is there a generational disconnect, but there needs to be a national discussed on how AIDS, Inc. and the battle for funding streams has attributed to the silencing of passionate individuals not identified with and AIDS service or advocacy organization.

I'm going to read all the comments to this blog posting and respond in a blog item. Activists should need to voice their frustration and outraged with not only the Obama Administration but also the organizations claiming to be our voice of leadership. These organizations are overlooking the involvement of the community of people living with HIV/AIDS as an equal and creditable stakeholder.

It was recently reported to me that only a few weeks ago an executive director who is HIV- and of an AIDS service organization in south who also sits on the board of 2 organizations of significance requested of a White House official to block the participation of an "independent AIDS activists from the South" at the upcoming series of town hall meetings the White House is coordinating as part of the development of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy. Thankfully the White House official denied the request.

The community of people living with HIV/AIDS should be outraged with attempts to silence the voice of people living with HIV/AIDS - a clear violation of the Denver Princples.

I've been told repeatedly by my queer elders that we younger LGBT folk live a charmed life, built upon the shoulders of giants that paved the path before us. Reading this thread makes me realize how right they are.

Twenty-four, trans, Indianapolis, and I've never seen anyone die of AIDS.

In the mid eighties, on Gran Canaria, it seemed as if the entire gay male community withered away together.

Resort and seaport, there was a relatively sizable community at Las Palmas on GC and at Tenerife. I was more familiar with Las Palmas, living there.

One at a time, faces that I was used to seeing disappeared. Fishermen suddenly were absent from the docks, amidst murmurring and fear. Sometimes, you could guess who had slept with someone by the reaction to someone else's illness...anxiety and pain showed clearly.

Yes, I knew people who died of AIDS; too many

The navy and fisheries patrols were not immune, we had cases too...

A better part of a generation of gay men on the island vanished in a few years..

The first person I knew personally was an early lover of mine from CA that we kept in touch by Xmas cards after I moved to NYC. A friend of his in San Diego called to tell me the news of Joe's death.

Next the artist Antonio Lopez died from AIDS. I knew and admired him but we were not close friends.

My first NYC lover, Abelardo, became sick long after we parted in the late 80s. He died after a valliant struggle in the early 90s.

A sexy model guy I sorta had a crush on died in the late 80s after several hospital trips.

A handsome man I wish I could have gotten to know better died too soon in the late 80s.

The last lover I had, Sunny, is infected but living with his husband of several years.

And I now age 60, live on, taking life one day at a time, here in NYC.

A

Okay, so now that we've had this great example of community feeling and collective history, here's the billion dollar question/potential skunk at the picnic:

How can anyone after 1985 *not* practice safer sex?

What a beautiful thread, Bil! Many thanks and I hope it stays active for a long time. BIG HUGS to Robert Angelo and all the other caregivers out there. Please do take time to care for yourselves as well.

There are many thoughts, memories and ideas here to comment on and I'd like to address the inter-generational gulf, but first a bit of context.

I'm a 51 year old white gay man, currently residing in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Throughout the 80s and 90s I lived in Toronto, at the heart of the largest concentration of queers in Canada. Xtra was only just getting off the ground as a local LGBTQ paper, out every two weeks. They published a section called "Proud Lives." Initially just a few pictures accompanied by brief memorials, the segment grew until it comprised dozens of entries spread over several pages. Toronto's gay 'ghetto' was then very much a village, we lived, shopped, drank and cruised within a few city blocks. "Proud Lives" was like a casualty list in wartime and one scanned the photos for familiar names or faces of friends, lovers, or casual tricks - often discovering for the first time that they'd been ill.

I lost my first-ever boyfriend in the late 80s. He was handsome and joyful, fiendishly sexy and tremendous fun. He took me a long way out of my closet. We'd broken up several years earlier but had remained friends. He was planning on leaving town and wanted to get together first for a drink. I didn't know he was HIV+ but a mutual friend outed his status before we met. I was devastated but put on my bravest face for our meeting. Putting back draughts at the St. Charles Tavern, I kept waiting for his 'confession' but it never came. He was bright, sarcastic, funny as always, and after an hour he had to go. We said goodbye as if we'd meet again. I sat alone for a moment, then ran out the door and caught up with him in the back alley. We hugged and I kissed him. "I love you," I whispered in his ear. He smiled. We never put it in words, but by then we didn't have to. He died within the year in hospital, loved and cared for by friends and definitely not alone. That was the late 80s and for years it just seemed to get worse. My mother had served overseas as a nurse in WW II and I remember saying to her that AIDS was our war and that we were - in every sense - fighting for our lives.

Now we're almost thirty years into the pandemic. One generation is greyer, one has grown up, and a third is coming into its own. For several years now (after years of decline) infections have been rising amongst younger gay men, and HIV stigma within the gay community remains a huge barrier to effective prevention. I also agree with Yasmin's and Alex's points (and I may be stretching them a bit here) that race and class are huge factors in determining access to basic health care, let alone effective AIDS treatment. And I love Larry Kramer for still being as cranky and single-minded as he is; that's his job! HIV/AIDS has always been and still remains an enormously complex social issue. There is no one answer to why indivduals bareback or get involved in the P & P scene, but I'm afraid I don't believe that 'peer pressure' is the most effective way to get younger queers, of whatever background, to embrace frisky, fun, and effective safer sex. Maybe we need to revisit some of the ACT UP strategies from years ago. Maybe we need to talk more about HIV and sex what they mean to today's queers.

I loved Robert Ganshorn's comment about the breakdown in communication between older and younger gay men. I remember well imbibing lots of Toronto's hidden queer history - along with a few gin and tonics - from older gay men in bars that no longer exist. Sometime those meetings were sexual, sometimes flirtatious, most times just companionable. With the decimation of a whole generation of gay men such conversations no longer seem to take place. Yet I also feel that there is a growing desire on the part of LGBTQ youth to have such a dialogue. Certainly Milk, along with being a great film, seemed to reveal such a hunger. If we elder queers can reach out to them, we might actually learn something. We have a lot to offer, it's absolutely true. But I would say to Erik that one doesn't need to have seen first-hand the "swift, ruthless killer AIDS" to be an effective activist, although we can help him visualise it. "Medically contolled" HIV is more than a mild nuisance and I firmly believe that Erik's generation will be front line fighters in the ongoing thirty-years war; we're here to help in any way we can. Love! Valour! Compassion! Much more than the title of a play, those were our, and will be your best weapons in the fight.

Bil,

Please give consideration to moving this to the top from time to time and also keeping it there a while. There is a wealth of information and encouragement to be found in these posts. Run it again just prior to various HIV/AIDS Walks, World AIDS Day (December 1st annually), the National Day of Testing, Pride Events, and so on.

Charles, HIV/AIDS is a gay disease in as much as the gay community took ownership for the disease for so many years, and in as much as many of my generation lost their lives to the disease, and in as much as 55% of those currently living with HIV/AIDS in the United States are gay and have become infected through MSM. The fact that others also become infected, and the fact that HIV/AIDS is a world-wide pandemic clearly demonstrates that the disease is a human disease, but none the less it is usually associated with sexual contact, to a lesser extent to the exchange of bodily fluids through needles and other possible exchanges. You say "luckily, it struck us first" and you reason that to be a good thing because gays are so outspoken. Surely you didn't actually mean that. I find that reasoning completely flawed. If HIV/AIDS had become an epidemic among almost any other population in the United States, there would have been major research, major panic, and possibly even a cure by now. It would not have taken Reagan six years into his term before saying HIV/AIDS aloud. I could write a lot more about this, but you get my drift. I am very proud of the gay community for taking ownership, responsibility and action because without the Larry Kramers of the world, we would not have the five classes of drug treatments that we currently have, but it wasn't easy and Larry Kramer and Act-Up and hundreds of thousand of people had to die before we reached the place we have. And, people are still dying form HIV/AIDS every single day and a new case is reported every 9.5 minutes of every single day.