Positive Women’s Network-USA tweeted, “Why didn’t include #women living with #HIV in their coverage of #HIVat40? Cis & trans women would like to know! We are here & available to answer your questions & connect you with amazing women living with HIV who can tell you how they’ve been impacted by the epidemic.” Women living with HIV and their allies expressed anger over the lack of representation of cisgender and transgender women in the segment and posted about their feelings on social media. While the news report was informative, many people (myself included) wondered how the Today show could release an entire report on HIV and not include cisgender and transgender women. Later in the segment, four men from different generations were interviewed about their lived experience with HIV, the anguish of the early years of the epidemic, scientific advances-including undetectable equals untransmittable (U=U)-and HIV-related stigma. Well-known men with HIV were mentioned, including Rock Hudson, Magic Johnson, and Pedro Zamora. “People who lost their whole entire family network, who had found family and formed family through friendships, and how devastating that is…and how real that is for people to still carry.On June 2, the Today show released a six-minute video news report titled, “40 years since first AIDS cases, men living with HIV share their perspectives.” In it were old news clips from the early years of the epidemic showing imagery of hospitals, clinics, and ill-appearing men in beds. “It’s important to recognize the trauma that survivors are carrying,” says Ordeñana. The AIDS epidemic has had lasting effects on the LGBT community, especially in San Francisco. “A group of community members came together in the 90s to really think about constructing a community center that would serve as a beacon of hope for the community, because it had obviously been devastated by the AIDS epidemic, particularly in San Francisco.”
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“The idea for the Center was born out of the AIDS epidemic,” says Ordeñana. The creation and establishment of organizations such as the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the SF LGBT Center was, in many ways, a by-product of the call to action evoked by the AIDS epidemic. The survival of the LGBTQ community in the face of AIDS was a testament to the community members’ ability to advocate and protect one another. The first and largest AIDS Walk was organized in San Francisco in 1987. AIDS activists strove to transform personal grief into a collective political voice while maintaining the dignity of people living with HIV, according to Why We Fight.Ī combination of the power of protest in addition to large-scale fundraising worked to call attention to the AIDS epidemic. The efforts of AIDS activists commonly focused on stigmatization of the disease, the promotion of safe sex practices, and clean needle exchanges.
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“Government was failing our community at the time, and the community actually said ‘no, we are going to take care of each other, we are going to be there for each other, and we are going to curtail the spread of this disease in really amazing and creative ways,’” says Roberto Ordeñana the Deputy Executive Director at the SF LGBT Center. In response to the effects of HIV and AIDS felt amongst the LGBTQ community, the emergence of AIDS activism helped bring attention to multiple systems of injustice. Enduring and ultimately surviving the AIDS epidemic brought people of differing identities together: lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals formed what we know today as the LGBTQ community. Individuals with AIDS not only struggled to find medical care and treatments, but also endured the menacing effects of socialized stigma surrounding the disease.
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The association of the disease with marginalized groups hindered the development of prevention and treatment strategies.” ( Why We Fight: Remembering AIDS Activism) “From the start of the epidemic, those most affected by HIV/AIDS were among the most stigmatized populations in American society: gay men, injection drug users, and immigrants. Once researchers realized the disease was not gay-specific, GRID became known as AIDS. During the initial discovery of AIDS, it was commonly referred to as GRID (Gay-Related Autoimmune Disease), which worked to create early and everlasting associations between homosexuality and AIDS. The disease was found in gay men living in major metropolitan areas, such as San Francisco.
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The AIDS epidemic in San Francisco began in the 1980s with the first documented case occurring in 1981. The emergence of AIDS activism helped bring attention to multiple systems of injustice