Stories of Activism

Vito Russo was a film historian who did pioneering work about the portrayal of LGBT people in film, television, and other media.

Vito was the author of the landmark 1981 book The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality and the Movies, which was adapted, after his death, into a documentary directed and written by me, Rob Epstein, and my co-director/co-writer Jeffrey Freedman, along with co-writers Armistead Maupin and Sharon Wood.

The narrator of the film is Lily Tomlin, who helped us raise money for the project by headlining a fundraising show at the Castro Theater, along with Robin Williams, Harvey Fierstein and drag performer Lypsinka. After years of trying to get the project off the ground, Lily, who was a good friend of Vito’s, pushed HBO to get behind the film, and when they finally did, we had a movie.

Released in 1995 it was nominated for four Emmy awards, won one for directing, as well a Peabody Award and the Freedom of Expression award at the Sundance Film Festival.

Vito’s book and our documentary were based on lectures and clip presentations that Vito would give at universities and theaters around the world for about ten years before the book was published.  At these events, several of which I attended, Vito would captivate audiences with his wit and his joyful, ferocious personality.  These were community gatherings, like an LGBTQ church, at a time when we had few opportunities to gather collectively. Not only was Vito opening our minds, educating us, entertaining us, and motivating us to act, he was building our community.

As a friend, there was no one more loyal, more caring, or more generous.  When I was struggling to get my film project about Harvey Milk launched back in the early 1980s, Vito hosted a fundraiser at community hall in New York City.  He filled the room, hundreds us sitting on the floor, as he showed clips from his bootleg Judy Garland collection, regaling us with stories.  This was the very first fundraiser for what became the Oscar-winning The Times of Harvey Milk.

Vito wrote some of his book at my flat in San Francisco, escaping New York winters.  With each visit we looked forward to the night Vito made his famous lasagna dinner; he was Italian after all, from New Jersey. He had a laugh always at the ready, smoked Marlboroughs, never shaved his moustache, and was everyone’s best friend.

In 1985, in response to the New York Post’s homophobic and sensational reporting about AIDS, Vito and others founded the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, known as GLAAD.  GLAAD organized protests, campaigns, and showdowns with media executives. In 1994 it became a national organization.

Gradually, newspapers, magazines, movie studios and TV networks paid attention. Coverage of LGBT-related news changed, and LGBT stories emerged from the margins of our culture and into the mainstream. The annual GLAAD Media Awards honors the films, TV shows and other productions that portray LGBT people in a fair, balanced, and diverse way.

Vito was also won of the founders of ACT UP, the activist group that changed the course of HIV/AIDS history by demanding the government and medical establishment pay attention.

Vito died of AIDS in 1990 at the age of 40.  At Vito’s request, by his bedside in his hospital room was the Oscar for our film Common Threads: Stories from Quilt, in which he was featured.

In 2019, Vito was one of 50 listed on the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor at the Stonewall National Museum in New York City at the Stonewall Inn. In his honor, GLAAD bestows the annual Vito Russo Award to an LGBT person who works to fight against homophobia in the media.

Vito Russo: a true pioneer, a hero, and a dear friend.

In his 30-year career as a U.S. Senator from North Carolina, Jesse Helms was known as “Senator No.” He vehemently opposed the end to racial segregation. He fought against other civil rights legislation including voting rights. He led a filibuster against making Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday a national holiday. He was against abortion and opposed the United Nations.

When he felt threatened by a Black candidate running for his Senate seat, Helms’ campaign released a video showing a pair of white hands crumpling a rejection letter while the narrator said, “You needed that job, but they had to give it to a minority because of a racial quota.”  So, this was a hateful guy who would do anything to stay in power and to stop the march toward equality and justice for minorities and women.

I’m Peter Staley. My career as an AIDS activist began in 1987 when I joined the organization ACT UP. There, I became an active member. I planned and participated in protest actions and got arrested 10 times. In 1991, I founded a spin-off of ACT UP called the Treatment Action Group, or TAG for short.

The LGBT community was another target of Helms’ hatred. He was the most vocal opponent in the Senate for federal funding for AIDS research and treatment.

Speaking about the LGBT community, he said, “It’s their deliberate, disgusting, revolting conduct that is responsible for this disease.”

He called us “perverted human beings.” In 1988, he introduced a so-called Helms Amendment, proposing to amend legislation that funded AIDS research and treatment. The amendment prohibited the use of any federal funds to ”promote, encourage, or condone homosexual activities.” It passed with only 2 objections in the Senate and only 47 “no” votes in the House.

Bigotry prevailed against sensible public health policy. An effective HIV prevention campaign for the LGBT community, which was the group most impacted by HIV and AIDS, would have included materials about how to have safe sex. Helms’ amendment endangered more lives — gay, bi and straight — because he didn’t want the government to fund anything that would recognize LGBT sexuality or even our existence.

I’d had more than enough of this bigoted, small-minded man.

A supposed public servant had contributed to the death of my friends and was standing in the way of fighting the disease. Someone needed to confront him, to make him uncomfortable. My goal was to criticize him and get people to laugh at him at the same time. And I wanted TAG to stage a dramatic action soon after we formed the organization. So, I dreamed big. A big condom, that is. Draped over Jesse Helms’ house.

We found his address through a gay man who worked in the Senate. We took photos of the two-story brick Colonial house. Once we knew the standard size of a door and did some fancy math, we knew how large the condom needed to be. We found companies that made huge inflatables like a big blow-up gorilla you might see in front of a car dealership. The lowest bid for the giant condom, made from parachute material, was $3,500. But we were a new organization with little money.

One day while vacationing on Fire Island, I’d had a fight with my boyfriend at the time, journalist Kevin Sessums. He thought my idea for this Helms project was too risky. Kevin went to his friend, music industry legend David Geffen for moral support. But instead of consoling Kevin, David agreed with me. Later that day on the beach, David Geffen handed me a wad of cash, $3,500, and told me to keep his involvement a secret. We had the funds we needed and ordered the inflatable condom.

After the condom arrived, we stenciled the front of it with a message we wanted to have front and center for all the TV cameras. It read: “A CONDOM TO STOP UNSAFE POLITICS. HELMS IS DEADLIER THAN A VIRUS.”

We did a practice run so that we knew how long it took to blow up the condom. We scheduled the action on September 5, 1991, during the Senate’s summer recess while Helms was out of town. We knocked on his door the night before to make sure no one was home. CNN and all the local TV stations were told we’d be doing a demonstration at a politician’s house. They were to meet us at our Arlington, Virginia motel early the next morning, and follow our rented U-Haul truck.

As news cameras rolled, we arrived at Helms’ house with our equipment: the giant condom in a large duffel bag, a heavy portable generator, a long extension cord, two ladders, rubber mallets, plastic stakes, one of those early clunky cell phones, a small cold-air blower for the ground, and a large blower with a custom-built stand for the roof.

We pushed and pulled the duffel bag and air blower up a 28-foot extension ladder to the roof. We unfurled the condom and connected it to the blowers. Other team members staked the bottom of the condom into the grass. Then we prayed the cops wouldn’t arrive until after we’d inflated it. The first police car arrived minutes later, just as the reservoir nipple at the top of the condom was rising over the house. One of the policemen got out of his car, took a look at the improbable scene in front of him, and chuckled.

After spending a lot of time on the radio with their bosses, the cops asked us for our driver’s licenses, wrote down our addresses, and told us it was up to the Senator to press charges or not. The condom stayed up for 15 to 20 minutes, and the press got all the photos and videos they needed. The cops allowed us to climb back up onto the house to take down the condom ourselves.

All we got was a ticket for parking the truck in the wrong direction. We were free to go and could take the condom with us. It’s now in Los Angeles at the One Archives.

That night, CNN and local TV stations around the country played short funny clips of the action. Senator Helms complained about it on the floor of the Senate a week later, calling us “radical homosexuals.” But he never pressed charges and never passed another life-threatening AIDS amendment.

Toward the end of his career, Helms supported increased funding to prevent mother-to-child transmission of AIDS in Africa, but he never supported more funding to fight AIDS in the U.S. He died in 2008.

Scott Smith was a longtime friend, business partner, political adviser and lover of San Francisco human rights leader Harvey Milk, famous for being the first openly gay man elected to public office in California.

Scott met Harvey Milk in 1969 in New York City, where they started a romantic relationship while working for the Broadway production of the musical Hair.  Previously, Harvey had accompanied the show’s touring company to San Francisco and fell in love with the city.

In 1972, Harvey convinced Scott, 18 years younger than him, to move with him from New York to San Francisco. Down to their last $1,000 in collective savings, Harvey and Scott needed to find a cheap place to live and a way to make money, according to Randy Shilts in his book The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk.

They decided to open Castro Camera, a photography supplies and service shop that would soon serve as Milk’s campaign headquarters. They chose the Castro District because they heard that apartments there were cheap and they knew of two gay bars that were thriving. Castro Camera opened at 575 Castro Street on March 3, 1973.

Later that year, Scott helped to orchestrate the Coors Beer boycott that elevated Harvey to prominence in the Bay Area’s political scene. One of the first public displays of power by the gay community, the boycott galvanized support behind the Teamsters against the Coors Company, which refused to employ union drivers. Harvey convinced the owners of San Francisco gay bars to boycott Coors beer and it worked — Coors caved in. In return, Harvey convinced the Teamsters to hire openly gay truck drivers, solidifying his reputation as an astute political operator.

Harvey and Scott used the success of the boycott to launch a campaign to elect Harvey Milk to public office. But three unsuccessful campaigns took a toll on their seven-year relationship, and they broke up. However, they still continued their business and political alliance.  Scott helped Harvey get elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in November 1977, a major triumph for the LGBTQ community.

When Harvey Milk, along with Mayor George Moscone, was assassinated in late November 1978, Scott was devastated.  The violent death of his closest friend sent Scott into a deep depression.

Scott was executor of Milk’s estate, a job that came with the tedious process of resolving Milk’s debts and other open affairs, and he also became head of the Harvey Milk Archives, spending long hours organizing Milk’s papers, speeches, photographs and other ephemera.

Still in the throes of depression two years after Harvey’s death, Scott sought out counseling and began reconstructing his life. He converted Castro Camera into an art gallery, left the world of politics, and started afresh as a travel agent. He continued to work on the Harvey Milk Archives, earning the nickname “The Widow Milk” from his friends.

On February 4, 1995, Smith died of an AIDS-related illness at San Francisco General Hospital surrounded by friends and family. He was 46 years old.

Smith will forever be linked to Harvey Milk’s human rights legacy and life in the Castro District in the 1970s, an era of LGBTQ liberation and empowerment.

Rand Schrader was an openly gay activist who fought discrimination and homophobia to become one of the first two openly gay California municipal court judges appointed in 1980 by then-Governor Jerry Brown.  This was a time when the majority of voters in the state supported conservative Ronald Reagan for president.

I’m David Bohnett, and I was Rand’s partner for 10 years. 

As a UCLA Law School student in the early 1970s, Schrader volunteered countless hours providing legal guidance to leaders at the Los Angeles LGBT Center (then called the LA Gay Community Services Center).  Many of his cases involved police discrimination against gay men.

After graduating from UCLA in 1973, Schrader took a job with the City of Los Angeles, becoming the first openly gay staffer in the city attorney’s office.  Then-City Attorney Burt Pines was impressed with Schrader’s work, saying the young staffer was able to command respect from people across the political spectrum.  In 1980, Governor Jerry Brown appointed Schrader to the LA Municipal Court and immediately received pushback from conservative politicians expressing public outrage at the judicial appointment of an openly gay man.  Brown held firm on his decision.

In 1987, Los Angeles County established an AIDS Commission, and Schrader was among its first cohort of commissioners.  At the time, LA county had surpassed San Francisco in the number of HIV and AIDS cases.  San Francisco had established an AIDS ward at San Francisco General Hospital in 1983, but there was nothing comparable in LA County.

The Los Angeles chapter of ACT UP organized a steady stream of demonstrations at LA County Medical Center, demanding that persons living with HIV and AIDS be provided with a specialized unit that would protect them from discrimination and neglect.  As a commissioner, Schrader found himself siding with the activists and at odds with the AIDS Commission’s chairman, Rabbi Allen Freehling, who argued that patients put in a separate unit would feel isolated.  The commission formed a task force to determine a course of action, and soon it became apparent that people living with AIDS would benefit significantly from access to having their own clinic.

In 1988, the LA County Hospital finally opened a ward dedicated to AIDS healthcare.  The next year, Schrader was elected the new chair of the AIDS Commission.

When Schrader was diagnosed with AIDS-related illness in 1991, he went public with his condition and continued his work in the municipal court and on the AIDS Commission.  Two years later, the LA County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a motion to name the LA County AIDS ward after Schrader in tribute to his courage, his vision and his tenacity.

Rand Schrader died of AIDS-related illness on June 13, 1993 at the age of 48.

As I said in 1999, “When Randy died, I honestly did not know how I could go on. But I had friends. I had a family — mine and Randy’s. And we all shared our grief and comforted one another during our time of loss. But what if I had been alone in that grief?  What becomes of a man or woman when one loses a partner whom no one else knows was a partner?  What happens to people who are afraid to tell the truth about who they are and whom they love?”

While I grieved Randy’s passing and with these thoughts in mind, I created the very early social network e-commerce company GeoCities.com, where people could create free personal web pages on the internet; give voice to their hopes, dreams and passion; and find connection with one another. 

Randy’s legacy also endures in the HIV/AIDS clinic he helped to create.  Today, the University of Southern California manages the Rand Schrader HIV Clinic, where more than 40 faculty members provide primary and specialty care to more than 3,000 patients in LA County.

Rest in peace, my dear Randy.

Elizabeth Taylor was one of the preeminent film actresses of all time: the winner of two Academy Awards for Best Actress, a five-time Oscar nominee, as well as the recipient of the French Legion of Honor, the Presidential Citizens Medal and the 1993 Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences.

Married eight times, including twice to Welsh actor and frequent co-star Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor was the first actress to be paid $1 million for a movie role, assembled one of the world’s most valuable private collections of jewelry, and amassed a fortune in the fragrance business.

Some of her best-known films include Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Butterfield 8, Cleopatra, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, National Velvet, A Place in the Sun and Suddenly Last Summer (both with friend Montgomery Clift), and Giant, in which she formed a lasting friendship with co-star Ruck Hudson. Both Clift and Hudson were gay but had never publicly acknowledged their homosexuality.

In 1985, Elizabeth leveraged her super-stardom to raise money for and garner attention to the cause of AIDS research, education and advocacy.  1985 was the year in which Rock Hudson died of AIDS and her former daughter-in-law, Aileen Getty, was diagnosed with HIV.  In that same year, Elizabeth served as Chair of AIDS Project Los Angeles’ Commitment to Life fundraiser, which raised over $1 million.  But the fundraising didn’t come easy and lots of her friends refused to lend support.

Recalling that effort, she said: “I realized … that this town — of all towns — was basically homophobic, even though without homosexuals there would be no Hollywood, no show business!  Yet the industry was turning its back on what it considered a gay disease.”

In the same year, she and Hudson’s doctor, Michael Gottlieb, formed the National AIDS Research Foundation with $250,000 in initial funding from Rock Hudson’s estate. Later that year, it merged with Dr. Mathilde Krim’s AIDS organization to form the American Foundation for AIDS Research, known as amfAR. She served as its Founding National Chairman and leading spokesperson, bringing worldwide attention to the fight against AIDS, expanding its reach from American to international efforts, and raising huge sums of money for the cause.

Appearing in the American capital to advocate for expanded federal funding for research about HIV and AIDS, the famously outspoken Elizabeth pulled no punches: “I’m not here in Washington to make people like me.  I’m here to speak about a national scandal, a scandal of neglect, indifference and abandonment.”

In 1991, the same year her personal secretary took his own life after receiving an AIDS diagnosis, she created The Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation to fund direct AIDS services.

I’m Sharon Stone.  When Elizabeth was unable to attend an event in 1995 for amfAR, little did I know that it would be the start of a decades-long commitment to follow in her footsteps and carry on the fight for education, treatments and a cure to HIV and AIDS.

She famously quipped, “It’s bad enough that people are dying of AIDS, but no one should die of ignorance.”

My friend Elizabeth died in 2011.  Former President Bill Clinton observed: “Elizabeth’s legacy will live on in many people around the world whose lives will be longer and better because of her work and the ongoing efforts of those she inspired.”

Melvin Boozer, you deserve far more recognition that you have ever received.

I recall your memorable speech before the Democratic National Convention in 1980, as you became the first African American and first gay man to be placed in nomination for the Vice Presidency of the United States from the floor of the convention.

We were both activists in Washington in the late 1970s.  Melvin was at my home to come to meetings of the DC Coalition of Black Lesbians and Gays, but he was mostly committed to other efforts, including the Langston Hughes-Eleanor Roosevelt Democratic Club.  I hosted a meeting at my home, between the Black lesbian and gay community and the then National Lesbian and Gay Task Force’s Executive Director, Virginia Apuzzo, after he was fired and replaced by Jeff Levy.

In April 1983, Melvin was among those present at my home, when I showed the Black gay men gathered there the CDC’s “Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report” with information indicating that Black folks were identified as 20% of AIDS cases.  We were only 12% of the United States’ population. Most of the men gathered there that day, like Melvin, are no longer alive due to AIDS.

Melvin was simply brilliant, really good with words, a good speaker, with evident critical thinking ability.  There is far much more to be said about Melvin …

Somebody should.

Hi! My name is Mallery Jenna Robinson.  My pronouns are she/her/hers, I identify as an AfraCaribbean Trans woman who has been empowered in her truth for 16 years as a trans woman and over 10 years as a trans woman living with undetectable HIV. 

On May 2, 2011, I was living in Montgomery, Alabama, a junior in college and in a monogamous romantic and sexual relationship with a cisgendered male when I became violently ill and collapsed while working as a server at a local restaurant.  I was rushed to the emergency room, where a panel of tests were run including blood work.

I received a phone call from the Montgomery County Health Department on May 21, 2011 to come into the health department to receive an update regarding my recent blood work. The medical provider walked inside the door to the office where I was waiting anxiously, and informed me I was HIV positive. He then referred me to the Copeland Care Clinic, also known as The Montgomery AIDS Outreach, where I would be linked into care at the Ryan White Program to receive HIV care and management.

I was completely nervous and overwhelmed as a then 21-year-old Black trans woman who was working on my Double Bachelor’s in Biology and History, but nonetheless I was determined to not let this diagnosis deter me from living my best life. I arrived at the Copeland Care Clinic and received training on best practices to ensure I would become and remain undetectable.  I met my amazing medical provider at the time, Dr. B, and he also recognized that I had no access to hormone replacement therapy, so he also prescribed that along with my anti-retroviral medication. 

Despite my medical diagnosis, I was tenacious and determined to continue to live an amazing life and not let HIV define my existence.  I was diligent about taking my medication and, as a result, I went from lab work twice a month to lab work once every six months.

I went on to graduate with my double Bachelor’s in biology and history in May 2014.  I began teaching as a middle school science and history teacher in Duval County, Florida from August 2014 until June 2019.  I traveled to Paris, France and London, England, and finally worked up the gumption to move to Los Angeles, California.  After moving to Los Angeles, I began receiving medical care at the Los Angeles LGBT Center under Dr. V.

Since moving to Los Angeles, I have become a transgender and HIV healthcare advocate, raising awareness to promote accessibility, visibility, and equity for all trans identities.  I work to destigmatize HIV by professionally speaking about my own journey surrounding HIV as a Black trans woman.  I’m a member of the City of West Hollywood’s Transgender Advisory Board, and work as Engagement Specialist and Service Navigator for The Transgender Health Department at the LGBT Center of Long Beach up until 2021.  I now work as the Community Advisory Board coordinator for “We Can Stop STDs LA” with Coachman Moore & Associates.

I participate in outreach efforts with other community leaders and partners to ensure that trans women of color and all trans identities in our community are being tested, and getting linked to care and remaining in care.  Far too often, individuals hear the letters H-I-V and instantly think of it as a death sentence, but it is not. You can successfully live with HIV as long as you are willing to take your medicines and practice other health and wellness strategies to ensure you are maintaining an undetectable status.

As a Black trans woman who has been living with HIV for over 10 years, I just want to say it is okay to be nervous and overwhelmed.  But dig deep and find that determination and tenacity to survive and thrive, so you, too, can motivate and inspire others to stay undetectable by staying in care.  Also, if you’re negative, PrEP and PeP services are also available, along with regular HIV testing.

Actress Amanda Blake was best known for playing Miss Kitty on the TV Western Gunsmoke for 19 years, from 1955 to 1974.

I’m Jean Smart.  I remember growing up thinking she was sort of glamorous. I don’t think I realized maybe what she did for a living, but I thought she was beautiful and a terrific actress.  I always thought it would be fun to play a character like Miss Kitty.

The red-headed Miss Kitty started as a saloon hostess at the Long Branch Saloon in Dodge City, Kansas, and soon became an owner and the saloon keeper.  The series was set in the 1870s and showed Miss Kitty as a strong single woman who had a close friendship with the lead character, U.S. Marshal Matt Dillon, played by James Arness.  There was no explicit romantic relationship between them.  And their only attempt at romance, a dinner in her room, ended when she was called away to tend to work and returned to find him fast asleep on her bed.

In real life, however, Amanda Blake married five times.  Her fourth marriage, to Frank Gilbert, was the longest lasting.  After Gunsmoke ended, she and Gilbert experimented with the breeding of cheetahs in captivity, eventually breeding seven generations of the big cat.  In her last year on Gunsmoke, she shocked the cast and crew by bringing her pet lion cub, Kemo, onto the set on a leash.

Quoted in the Toledo Blade newspaper, Blake recounted that, “We got him up on the bar of the Long Branch Saloon and he posed for the still photographer like a true ham. But we had to ban him from the set when Jim Arness and I started shooting our scenes, because every time Jim would say his lines, Keno would start to roar.”

In addition to Kemo, Amanda’s and Frank’s Phoenix ranch housed two leopards, two racoons, six dogs, seven cats, two horses, a rabbit, some pheasants, and a toucan.  She and others formed the Arizona Animal Welfare League.  She frequently appeared at events in support of the Humane Society, and she was an early funder of PAWS, the Performing Animal Welfare Society, which protects abandoned or abused performing animals such as circus animals and animals performing in film and TV.  She and Frank Gilbert divorced in 1982.

Blake unfortunately developed oral cancer from her heavy cigarette habit, and after being successfully treated for the disease, she often appeared at fundraisers for the American Cancer Society.  Her fifth and final husband was Austin, Texas real estate developer and city councilmember Mark Spaeth, who had supported and courted the gay community during his political life and was rumored to be a closeted gay man.  The marriage lasted less than a year.  Spaeth died of AIDS-related pneumonia in 1985, less than one month after filing for divorce.

In 1989, Amanda Blake passed away at age 60.  Initial reports attributed her death to throat cancer, but her doctor reported later that year that she had died of a heart attack due to liver failure and AIDS-related hepatitis known as CMV, or cytomegalovirus.

My name is John Duran, and I’m the former mayor and council member of the City of West Hollywood for 20 years, former legal counsel for ACT UP chapters here in Southern California, Clean Needles Now the needle exchange, and Medicinal Marijuana. But prior to all that work, I was statewide co-chair for the Life AIDS Lobby.

The Life AIDS Lobby was created when we defeated Lyndon LaRouche’s Proposition 64 back in 1986. And we were quite happy to beat that back 2-to-1; it would have quarantined HIV-positive people in camps, had it passed.

And once we soundly defeated Lyndon LaRouche, we thought our work was done. But within six months, the California legislature had introduced almost 200 separate pieces of legislation on HIV and AIDS, from the most progressive ideas like AIDS education in the classrooms and needle exchange, to the most oppressive and extreme draconian measures like mandatory quarantine of HIV positive people in camps — again.

So we didn’t have, you know, the luxury of dissent at that point. We were under attack.

So we ended up organizing ourselves from San Diego all the way up to the north coast of California, and put 102 organizations together at a common table. Everybody was there. All the LGBT PACs, all the Democratic clubs, all the Stonewalls and Harvey Milks and Alice B. Toklas, all the Log Cabin Republican clubs, all the chapters of ACT UP, the sober recovery community organizations, all the Pride festivals, all the LGBT publications, the California nurses, teachers, health care officers — all at a common table.

And we would come together for quarterly meetings and debate policy, but we knew that with all the confusion and fear around HIV and AIDS, we really didn’t have the luxury of being able to disagree. We had to find a common table to hash out policy and stand united. And that’s what we ended up doing.

So we would meet with the California legislative leadership, Assembly Speaker Willie Brown from San Francisco and Senate Pro Tem David Roberti from West Hollywood, and we’d say the following 102 organizations all agree on these policies.

We would adjourn these meetings in memory of those that we had lost since the last time we met. And sometimes the adjournments would go for 30 minutes or more, as people openly wept about comrades who had fallen and people that had shared that common table with us.

And it was such a somber and sullen moment at the end of every quarterly board meeting, because we all realized, no matter what our political differences or our great diversity or gender or race or anything else — it didn’t really matter, we were all in the fight for our lives, and we were there to do what was best for the common good.

I always wondered why I was, you know, such a young man, living in Laguna Beach at the time and no more than 27-28 years old, and I’m the statewide co-chair. At the time, I was HIV-negative, and it was confided in me that they selected me, because a lot of the men who were positive or had AIDS who were elder statesmen and known and tested leadership, were sick and dying.

So it really became the story of lesbian women and our straight women allies taking the reins, along with some of the younger gay men who were recently infected or still HIV-negative, that would end up coming into leadership,  because those that came before us were very, very sick.

It was quite an extraordinary period. Our first executive director was Rand Martin, who’s still up in Sacramento, and our second was the late Laurie McBride, who was just an angel on earth.  Both such incredibly dynamic leaders that really made all the difference in crafting California’s compassionate response to HIV and AIDS — which, by the way, became a model for all the other states around the nation.

I think what gives me such a warm feeling about the Life AIDS Lobby, is remembering that there was no time for differences, no time to see something different about the person sitting next to me. We had to link arms and hands and work together no matter what, because our lives were on the line.

I’m Andrea de Lange and this is my story about what happened to me starting in 1987, when I tested positive for HIV.

I was 23. My boyfriend and I had been living together for a year, and we called each other “soulmates.” But HIV is a litmus test for whether someone really is a soul mate, and John failed miserably.

He treated me like a leper every single day! I was afraid of being single, so I tolerated his rage and cruelty for the next two years. Finally, I kicked his ass out.

All that abuse hacked away at my self-esteem. The support of my friends and family helped me through that scary and stressful time. Being a full-time college student at Cal State Northridge and doing a lot of public speaking and interviews also helped. It rechanneled my pain and fear into ways I could benefit others.

Dr. Tilkian gave me hope that I could stay healthy. I became involved in alternative treatments through holistic healers I met at Louise Hay’s weekly Hayrides and at Marianne Williamson’s Center for living. I became healthier than ever.

This helped me separate myself from all the fatalistic dogma medical sources and the media were imposing on anyone HIV-positive. We were slapped with timelines: supposedly, we could remain asymptomatic for up to five years. Then we’d get AIDS, and succumb to a nightmarish death, within two years. AZT helped fulfill that prophecy, usually much quicker than the timeline.

I got my Bachelor’s in Art, then completed a Master’s program in counseling. While doing an internship, I bought a ’52 Packard from a friend; then side-hustled as a driver and extra on the film Ed Wood. Johnny Depp’s bodyguard and driver became my husband.

Ben and I moved to Albuquerque, and I worked in the HIV field over the next four years. My career was great. But my marriage? Not so much. I ended it after three years.  And that, along with several other stressful things, led to my burn out.

I knew of the New Mexico School of Natural Therapeutics, and I completed the school’s six-month, 750-hour program for massage therapy.  I returned to LA as a nationally certified massage therapist, and picked up a permit application. It was insulting to learn LA Police Commission was in charge of certifying massage therapists – but it got worse. Applicants needed to submit a doctor’s letter stating they were HIV- and Hepatitis C- negative!

I knew the U.S. Supreme Court added HIV to the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1997. The LA Police Commission was messing with the wrong HIV+ massage therapist.

I contacted the HIV & AIDS Legal Services Alliance, and they provided me with a lawyer. The Police Commission was funded by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, so Brad Sears and I literally made a federal case about it.

Our grievance ended after a year, and we won. The commission had to remove all discriminatory wording from permit applications and send permits to anyone previously denied one because of HIV or Hep C.  Plus, they had to conduct HIV educational trainings for their staff.

Recently, Brad told me he cited our case in another discrimination case. That is one of many things that make me think it was all worth it.

Ray Navarro died on November 9, 1990. He was 26 when he died, and I loved him from the moment I met him.

His image is now often circulated, especially the fantastic one of him as Jesus, a reporter from the Fire and Brimstone Network, interviewing people at the St. Patrick’s demonstration.  But on the anniversary of his death, it’s as important to remember he was prescient in his critical analysis, and he left us with an archive of important writing.

In his Outweek obituary, Gregg Bordowitz, Catherine Gund and I wrote:

“Ray always identified AIDS as a crisis among people of color even when ACT UP, the media and most other people — including people of color — hadn’t absorbed that reality.”

We quoted from one of Ray’s essays, the powerful “Eso, Me Esta Passando.” In that essay, he addresses how homophobia remains a significant obstacle in designing effective public health policies in Latino communities in the U.S. His voice is so moving, and his efforts to shift the prevailing discourse of victimhood never ceased until the moment he died.

Ray wrote:

“I am an HIV-positive Chicano gay man from Simi Valley, California. By looking at me, you may not be able to see any of those things. You will also not be able to tell I am college educated, a video maker and scared to death of my own culture. For the last several years, I have grown comfortable with my gay identity, I have marched in the streets, go-go danced in bars, and wept at the death of people I respected who have died of AIDS. So now I am also an AIDS activist. Full time.”

And in conclusion Ray wrote:

“My intention in presenting these works [AIDS activist videos that he curated, created specifically for Latinos] is to provoke my community into action. Here are political analyses, protest images, sexy scenes, angry young men, defiant feminists, and gente. You will be hard pressed to find an ‘AIDS victim.’ Rather, we are Latinas and Latinos living with AIDS.”

After graduating from college, I moved to Atlanta, Georgia for my first real job and I began volunteering for AIDS Atlanta.

This is a picture of myself, with seven of the best friends I ever had, taken in September of 1990. We were trained in an outreach project that gave talks about HIV/AIDS and safe sex.

We spoke at churches — if they would have us.  We spoke to schools, civic organizations, local groups — any group that would let us in the door. We came up with a whole routine that had both humor and a very serious aspect to it.

I share this very scared picture of mine, my friends, my “Band of Brothers.”  We were having a cook-out that night and waiting on all of our other friends to arrive when someone snapped this pic. It’s old, it’s not in great shape — but it means the world to me.

We were listening to Roxy Music that night, and the songs “Avalon” and “More Than This” can still take me back to every detail of that evening.

I have “ghosted” my friends’ images so that those who are too young to remember the early days of AIDS epidemic can maybe understand, just a bit, what it’s like to be the last one left.

In this picture are two high school teachers, one attorney, one in law school, one hairdresser, one college student and one carpenter. They each have their own, unique story. By 1997, all had succumbed to AIDS, including my best friend, Phil, and I was the last one left. The only one alive.

I left Georgia after this, taking a position in south Florida. I found that you can change your surroundings, but you still carry the hurt, the loss, and the grief wherever you go.

As Richard Berke wrote in The New York Times Magazine in 1993: “President Clinton learned a valuable lesson when he appointed Bob Hattoy to work in the White House: Never hire a dying man; he has nothing to lose.”

Bob Hattoy served as Associate Director of Personnel in the Clinton White House, but that title didn’t capture the fact that he was the LGBT community’s highest-ranking member and representative in the Clinton Administration. When he took the stage at the 1992 Democratic National Convention, he signaled a sea change in the attention that AIDS would get if Bill Clinton were to be elected President. Bob had learned only a few weeks earlier that his HIV had progressed to AIDS-related lymphoma.

Directing his anger to then-President George Herbert Walker Bush, he didn’t mince words: “We are part of the American family, and Mr. President, your family has AIDS, and we are dying, and you are doing nothing about it.”

“I don’t want to die,” Bob said. “But I don’t want to live in an America where the president sees me as the enemy. I can face dying because of a disease, but not because of politics.”

I’m Jeremy Bernard. I was at the convention when Bob spoke. I was working with David Mixner doing fundraising for Clinton and interacted with Bob throughout the campaign.

Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign was the first one to publicly seek and recognize support and donations from the LGBT community. That evening, like many, I wore a black armband to honor our friends who died of AIDS. When Bob spoke, he gave hope to people with AIDS that someone with the President’s ear was in their court, part of their tribe, and might help usher in an era when the federal government actually gave a damn about fighting AIDS. Bob also helped dozens of LGBT people get positions in the Clinton Administration.

Hattoy’s job as an unofficial LGBT representative in the White House was a thankless one. To many of those on the outside, he seemed like a political sell-out who couldn’t get them what they wanted. To those in the White House, he was an annoyance who was never satisfied with progress on LGBT issues.

Bob was a thorn in the side of the White House when they struggled with the unpopular “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy regarding gays in the US military. He publicly criticized that policy, comparing it to telling gays they could only be florists and hairdressers. As a result, Hattoy was moved out of the White House personnel office and relegated to being the White House liaison to the Interior Department. That job built upon his work for the Sierra Club, where was regional director for California and Nevada, and his service as Clinton’s leading campaign advisor on environmental issues.

Bob relished his role as an agitator in the administration. In his words, “I didn’t come to Washington to be a faceless federal bureaucrat. I came to Washington to be a bureaucrat in your face.”

Bob Hattoy died of complications from AIDS in 2007. At his request, his friends preserved his ashes in a Martini shaker.

In the late 1980s and early 90s, I volunteered with an organization that placed volunteers in hospitals and group homes to work with children with HIV/AIDS.

I met Aaron when he was 9 months old and cared for him until he died at the age of 18 months. This photograph was taken on his first and only birthday.

The women who were full-time caregivers at the home used to call me Aaron’s father because of our bond. Both his parents had already died. The women used to say he seemed jealous if he saw me holding another child.

Aaron was very sick. His lungs filled constantly with mucus. I was often asked to gently pat him on the back while he was given medication through a nebulizer. I could tell how much stress it caused his tiny body. Seeing him suffer was not easy.

When I spoke, Aaron would put his little hand against my jaw as if he was feeling the words as they formed in my mouth. On his first birthday, I brought him some presents and we had a little party on the ward. He was healthier than he had ever been before. He didn’t need to remain attached to tubes. I was told I could take him up to the rooftop garden.

I walked Aaron around the garden, holding him like I am in this photo. Just him and I, alone outside under a beautiful blue sky. An airplane flew overhead and he looked up. I told him about airplanes. I showed him flowers, rubbed them against his cheek so he could feel them. I just kept talking to him. He held my jaw as I spoke the entire time, feeling the words as they formed.

When Aaron died months later, the women at the home told me that was the only day of his life that he went outside other than for trips to the hospital.

Aaron was moved to a hospital for his last few days and placed in an oxygen tent. I went every day after work. While I was not present when he died late one night, I leaned in under the tent whenever I was there and never stopped talking to him.

Aaron was one of the reasons that I joined ACT UP. His memory fueled my activism. We lost so much in this epidemic. So much suffering. So much death of those far too young to die.

With so many tributes to loved ones who fell victim to HIV and AIDS, I want to pay tribute to one man who has devoted his life to caring for those with HIV and AIDS.  This one person has made such a positive impact on the LGBTQIA community and has literally ministered to thousands of men who were alone and lost. This man is Reverend Bernárd Lynch.

During the AIDS crisis of the 1980s and ‘90s, Bernárd was a tireless voice in the New York City community and traversed the difficult road of illness and death.  His leadership served as a beacon of light to those of us lost in the sea of dying faces we could not save.  Bernárd took up a fight of which many other men shied away. This man used every ounce of his being to provide care to those who died and to those of us living and blindsided by AIDS.  Bernárd’s faith in God never wavered.

Bernárd is an out and proud Roman Catholic priest who has marched in the Gay Pride parades of New York and London for the past 30 years.  He has touched the hearts of gay men and lesbian women from the shores of the United States to England to his homeland of Ireland.  Few men living can be called icons, but I certainly would call Bernárd an icon.

Bernárd’s list of accomplishments is long and varied.  He has worked for the betterment of the LGBT community worldwide.

Father Lynch first came to notice in New York City in 1982 when he formed the first AIDS ministry in New York City with the Catholic group Dignity.  It was this same year that he was drafted to work with the then-New York City Mayor Koch’s Task Force on AIDS.

In 1984, Father Lynch publicly backed Executive Order 50 in New York, which forbade discrimination from employers who did business with the city or received business funding.  At the height of the AIDS pandemic in 1986, he used his voice to publicly speak up against Cardinal O’Connor in New York City Council chambers for Intro 2, that guaranteed lesbian and gay New Yorkers the right to work and housing without prejudice against their sexual orientation.

Accusations of sexual abuse were lodged against Rev. Lynch in a criminal case in 1989, in which
he was found not guilty and acquitted.  Some, including Rev. Lynch, believe that the prosecution
was part of a smear campaign against him by Cardinal O’Connor and his allies in the church and
government.  A 2019 civil lawsuit against the Catholic Archdiocese of New York, in which Rev.
Lynch was accused of sexual abuse, was dismissed for lack of evidence.

His work related to HIV and AIDS and his persecution in New York were profiled by Channel 4 in
three documentaries: AIDS: A Priest’s Testament, Soul Survivor, and Priest on Trial.  He
received the AIDS National Interfaith Network Award for Outstanding Contribution to HIV and AIDS
Ministries in 1990.  In 1992, Father Lynch was the first priest of any denomination to march in
London’s LGBT parade dressed as a priest.  In 1993, he founded a support group for priests who
are gay.

His autobiography, A Priest on Trial, was published in 1993.  In 1996, the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence canonized Father Lynch outside Westminster Cathedral in London.  In 2006, Father Lynch became the first legally married and legally valid priest in the world to have a civil partnership with his partner and husband, Billy Desmond.

In 1986, he received the Magnus Hirschfeld Award for outstanding services to the cause of Irish LGBT freedom.  Father Lynch was welcomed in 1995 to the Palace of the President of Ireland by her Excellency President Mary Robinson.

Never in my life have I met, or been privileged to know, a man who represents the LGBT community so well.