Celebrating Gay America's 'Heroic Legacy' in the AIDS Plague

I've spent 25 years -- about half my life -- reporting and documenting what I call "gay America's heroic legacy in the AIDS plague."

But since doing dozens of interviews to update my book Victory Deferred: How AIDS Changed Gay Life in America, I've been concerned by how quickly our heroic legacy is being forgotten.

A big reason I committed myself to reporting on AIDS goes to the heart of why I chose, 30 years ago, to accept the fact that I am gay.

Back then, when I was a boi of 22 - -of course, we weren't "bois" then, but simply young men -- I concluded, after a lot of reading and anguish, that the feelings for other males I'd had since boyhood were in every way equal to my straight male friends' attractions to females.

This fundamental belief in the legitimacy, validity, and full-fledged humanity of same-sex-loving people is precisely why I have always reported on the HIV/AIDS epidemic as a natural disaster inflicted upon the human race rather than as some kind of punishment of any one group.

That belief and my reporter's zeal for facts are why I haven't accepted for a minute that the epidemic was anything other than a tragic example of what happens when a microbe, formerly contained in a limited area of the world, is given the opportunity to expand its range worldwide.

Stating facts, in my view, is not the same as assigning blame. Blame requires a moral judgment. As a reporter, I try to stick to the facts.

Among the many facts of the AIDS epidemic is the fact that many gay men, together with our lesbian and non-gay friends, families, co-workers, and all who stood by and with us, have been heroes in the truest sense.

Heroes are ordinary people who step forward to do what has to be done -- simply because someone has to do it. Albert Camus, the Nobel-Prize-winning French author, wrote in his novel The Plague that the essence of heroism is caring for others as "a matter of common decency."

We have a great deal to be proud of in our people's valiant efforts to address AIDS over the past three decades:

• We showed how to be effective advocates for our own health care and medical decisions.
• We demanded, and won, a place at the decision-making tables of the nation's biomedical research institutions.
• We challenged the federal government over the right to access experimental medications, and won.
• We created volunteer-run community programs to provide low-cost care and support for very ill people in their own homes.
• We showed in the AIDS Memorial Quilt how to publicly mourn our lost loved ones as individuals who were also part of a massive, shared, terrible tragedy.

A people are defined largely by their sense of having a shared history. Our individual stories are part of the bigger story of gay history, American history, even world history. Whether non-gay Americans, or anyone else, accepts the full equality of our suffering and achievements in the AIDS plague, we must claim and honor our own history.

I plan to continue doing what I can to live out my belief in the full equality of LGBT people by helping to ensure that our history is preserved for future generations. How will you celebrate our heroic legacy in 2012?

 

 

 

Follow John-Manuel Andriote on Twitter: www.twitter.com/JMAndriote

Comments

[wait500]

08:55 PM on 01/03/2012

So let me get this correct: gays aren't to be "blamed" for this "disaster" to the "human race" but gays are to be only honored as heroes for "doing what has to be done"? You like to write that you face facts but all you've done is spin this to try to avoid the FACTS that gay men were infected at incredibly high rates compared to the rest of the human race all due to their behavior but that behavior is ignored and all you do is focus on the behavior of some gay people who made quilts, became medically informed and vocal - all out of self-interested necessity to stop their own deaths through their own behaviors.

That is not heroics - that avoidance of reality. This is the whackiest attempt at self-congratulations that I've seen in a long time. This is one man glossing over reality. Please stop writing.

[John-Manuel Andriote]

01:39 PM on 01/04/2012

Correct. Neither gay men, nor anyone else for that matter, is to "blame" for the fact that a deadly virus was able to break free of its limited scope and cause a global pandemic. It's true that gay/bisexual men were, and still are, at greater risk than most people because of their sexual practices. But making unwise choices isn't, in my book, grounds to condemn an entire segment of the human race. If it were, we'd have to condemn everyone who suffers from Type-2 adult-onset diabetes or any other medical problem associated with behavior. But we don't do that--except, it seems, where it comes to people whom we personally don't like or approve of. As I said, I try to keep the moral judgments out of it.

[rockysparks]

07:09 PM on 01/03/2012

Beautiful article. Thank you. If it were not for increased public awareness of gay people in American society, I probably would not have been approved to be a foster dad for my nephews and I certainly would not have been able to adopt two of my seven children.

It's unfortunate that it took so much struggle --- against both bigotry and disease --- for gay Americans to reach the point where they are allowed to marry and have families, but this article reminds us that our glasses are no longer empty, if not quite full.

I've known many people, gay and straight, who have succumbed to AIDS over the years. Yet I also know people who are living with the disease, some defying all odds. I've been blessed by luck of the draw, I suppose, that I continue to be HIV-negative. And it makes me feel the responsibility of carrying the torch of awareness for friends and relatives who are no longer here except in our memories.

[raker]

06:08 PM on 01/03/2012

The thing is, no matter the observer's point of view, no disease is a ever punishment. Likewise, good health is never a reward. If only it worked that way. HIV is a virus, and in the US gay men had the rotten bad luck of having it land among them.

I've worked on an HIV hotline, and it's alarming how many people think that HIV infection is a consequence of what they imagine to be transgressive sex. They know about the virus called HIV, but they still think in terms of sex acts, not in terms of a virus getting from one person's blood stream into another. Moralistic thinking keeps people vulnerable to HIV infection, and perpetuates irrational fear of people who are HIV positive.

Over in the HuffPost Religion section, I see posts that pat churches on the back for the AIDS support they allegedly spearheaded from the beginning. That's not how I remember it. I was there, and it was indeed gay men who created the support infrastructure, much of which is still going strong. Except for medical professionals, whom I observed to be caring and helpful (if sometimes overly cautious), fear of homosexuality and an aversion to thinking about gay sex kept many otherwise compassionate people from jumping in at the start. Better late than never.

I'm glad to see this post give credit where it's due, to the hard work of caring and compassionate gay men and women who took action while others were still afraid.

[klwarner]

05:32 PM on 01/03/2012

The work you've done will touch the lives of more than you'll ever know. Thank you for your great contributions and insight into the history of fighting this terrible disease.

[John-Manuel Andriote]

01:33 PM on 01/04/2012

Thank you for the kind words. I feel such a strong sense of duty to share what I've observed over the past 25+ years, especially with young LGBT people. As Ginny Apuzzo, director of the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force early in the AIDS epidemic, put it, "We fought hard and paid dearly for the pride we share."