Untitled

nnnnn-…

ummm…his cat’s name was uhhhh…

this was a trending question on yahoo answers

This is a request.

Learn your queer history. Learn about AIDS. Learn about how the leadership of this country looked away and did nothing to help our community for years. Learn about how they joked AIDS was god’s punishment for being gay. Learn about how, in the community, everyone was touched. Everyone lost someone. Learn how the AIDS crisis gave birth to the modern gay rights movement. Learn about how that crisis brought the community together after two decades of infighting. Lesbians took care of gay men who were dying. Found families were everywhere. Our history is too important to allow our politicians to sweep the horrible awful legacy of inaction under the rug. 

Learn about how bi men were blamed for the epidemic by both straight and gay people, and especially for its “leap” to those innocent straight people.

Learn about how Newsweek publicly blamed bi men for the epidemic in 1987, calling them “the ultimate pariahs” and “amoral and duplicitous and compulsive.” How Cosmo did the same two years later, promoting the popular stereotype of bi men as dishonest spreaders of AIDS.

Learn about how bisexual activists like David Lourea and Cynthia Slater were at the cutting edge of safer sex education, bringing it into bathhouses and BDSM clubs in San Francisco in 1981, when doctors were still calling it “a rare gay cancer”. Or like Alexei Guren, in Florida, organizing healthcare outreach to Latino married men who have sex with men.

Learn about how it took two years of campaigning to get even the San Francisco Department of Public Health to recognize bisexual men in their official AIDS statistics (the weekly “New AIDS cases and mortality statistics” report),

Learn about the women who got HIV, both cis and trans, who often had no resources or support. And the incredibly high risk trans women faced for HIV even in the late 1990s, and how difficult it still was for them to access healthcare.

Learn about how bisexual activists like Venetia Porter, of the Prostitute’s Union of Massachusetts and COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics), were the ones who first advocated for both cis and trans women, and injection drug users, with AIDS.

Learn about how Cynthia Slater, who by then was HIV-positive, organized the first Women’s HIV/AIDS Information Switchboard in 1985.

Look up Ryan White, an 11-year-old boy who got HIV through a faulty blood transfusion in the days before reliable testing and was denied an education out of fear he’d infect other kids.

Do you know what AIDS was, in those dim days? My mom worked in a hospital. An AIDS patient was brought in and immediately put in the same isolation room they’d use for stuff like SARS, smallpox, and anthrax. Entering his room required that you enter another room first and take off all your clothes. A fresh set of scrubs would be given to you. Then you had to triple-glove, double-boot, double-mask, double-gown–yes, a surgical gown just to enter the room–and when you left you did all this in reverse and then got a decontaminant shower. Nobody knew how this disease was spread.

And the people. In charge. Did NOTHING.

Half of faggots have over 500 sex partners over their lifetime. 

It is no wonder faggorty was curbed for so long.

This is a request.

Learn your queer history. Learn about AIDS. Learn about how the leadership of this country looked away and did nothing to help our community for years. Learn about how they joked AIDS was god’s punishment for being gay. Learn about how, in the community, everyone was touched. Everyone lost someone. Learn how the AIDS crisis gave birth to the modern gay rights movement. Learn about how that crisis brought the community together after two decades of infighting. Lesbians took care of gay men who were dying. Found families were everywhere. Our history is too important to allow our politicians to sweep the horrible awful legacy of inaction under the rug. 

Learn about how bi men were blamed for the epidemic by both straight and gay people, and especially for its “leap” to those innocent straight people.

Learn about how Newsweek publicly blamed bi men for the epidemic in 1987, calling them “the ultimate pariahs” and “amoral and duplicitous and compulsive.” How Cosmo did the same two years later, promoting the popular stereotype of bi men as dishonest spreaders of AIDS.

Learn about how bisexual activists like David Lourea and Cynthia Slater were at the cutting edge of safer sex education, bringing it into bathhouses and BDSM clubs in San Francisco in 1981, when doctors were still calling it “a rare gay cancer”. Or like Alexei Guren, in Florida, organizing healthcare outreach to Latino married men who have sex with men.

Learn about how it took two years of campaigning to get even the San Francisco Department of Public Health to recognize bisexual men in their official AIDS statistics (the weekly “New AIDS cases and mortality statistics” report),

Learn about the women who got HIV, both cis and trans, who often had no resources or support. And the incredibly high risk trans women faced for HIV even in the late 1990s, and how difficult it still was for them to access healthcare.

Learn about how bisexual activists like Venetia Porter, of the Prostitute’s Union of Massachusetts and COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics), were the ones who first advocated for both cis and trans women, and injection drug users, with AIDS.

Learn about how Cynthia Slater, who by then was HIV-positive, organized the first Women’s HIV/AIDS Information Switchboard in 1985.

Look up Ryan White, an 11-year-old boy who got HIV through a faulty blood transfusion in the days before reliable testing and was denied an education out of fear he’d infect other kids.

Do you know what AIDS was, in those dim days? My mom worked in a hospital. An AIDS patient was brought in and immediately put in the same isolation room they’d use for stuff like SARS, smallpox, and anthrax. Entering his room required that you enter another room first and take off all your clothes. A fresh set of scrubs would be given to you. Then you had to triple-glove, double-boot, double-mask, double-gown–yes, a surgical gown just to enter the room–and when you left you did all this in reverse and then got a decontaminant shower. Nobody knew how this disease was spread.

And the people. In charge. Did NOTHING.

Half of faggots have over 500 sex partners over their lifetime. 

It is no wonder faggorty was curbed for so long.