HIV/AIDS and the ACT UP Movement-Historical/Rhetorical Context

Hope Galmarini

Dr. Brown

Eng. 306- Research Paper Pt. 1

3 November 2016

HIV/AIDS and the ACT UP Movement-Historical/Rhetorical Context

                      

Rarely can a sickness completely change a culture, but HIV/AIDS has continued to change what it means to be gay in America. The affects of the pandemic to America’s gay population was so dramatic that many oppositional AIDS activist groups found it necessary to fight for their right to visibility and to urge the scientific community to pursue research for a cure. The amount of grief and pain felt by the gay community reverberated around the world, and has made the AIDS crisis a predominant moment in history.

            Firstly, what is HIV/AIDS? HIV/AIDS is an autoimmune disorder. It begins as a virus called human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, which is spread through certain bodily fluids. If not treated properly, HIV can form into acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, or AIDS. Unlike other viruses, HIV can not be fought off naturally by the human body which makes the virus incredibly lethal. Currently there is no known cure for the disease, but with proper care one can live with HIV ("About HIV/AIDS." Center for Disease Control).

            It is important to understand the historical context in which AIDS entered gay culture in America before one can understand the ramifications of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and what the HIV/AIDS crisis meant to the American gay community, in particular, the oppositional activist groups fighting for visibility and funding for research.  The protest movement revolving around the AIDS crisis was a direct effect of the grief and pain reverberating throughout the gay community, and changed the face of the American gay community forever.

            In June of 1981 five gay men in Los Angeles, California where diagnosed with a rare condition called Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, or PCP. Two out of the five had died shortly after being diagnosed. Months later this would be recognized as America’s first encounter with AIDS (A Crisis of Meaning). Almost a year later Americans would finally understand what this disease was: HIV/AIDS. On September 24, 1982 the Center for Disease Control finally publicly releases information regarding the pandemic. However, for many it was too late. By the end of 1981, one hundred and twenty one individuals had died out of the two hundred and seventy reported cases of what was then called ‘gay cancer’. It was referred to as ‘gay cancer’ because it was so wildly misunderstood and thus far in the crisis it was affecting predominately gay men, thus causing the misconception that HIV/AIDS is a ‘gay disease’ ( A Timeline of HIV/AIDS).

            While HIV/AIDS was affecting predominately the gay community of the United States, by November of 1983 the World Health Organization held its first meeting to assess the AIDS crisis on a global scale (A Timeline of HIV/AIDS). The death toll was high and ever increasing, and still there was no solution. Research was at an all time halt, which was a direct result of the political atmosphere at the time in many nations. Back in the United States, HIV/AIDS was a topic that was not being discussed. It truly became a disease of silence. The United States government had continued to fail the dying people of America’s gay community.

            In March of 1987 ACT UP was founded in New York City by activist Larry Kramer. By this time, around 20,000 people had died of the disease. (Gould, Deborah B.. Moving Politics). New York City was home to a large gay community, and by 1987 the death toll was so high that AIDS was personally affecting many individuals. Entire social circles were diminishing. People were losing friends, lovers, and the community as a whole. ACT UP was one of the first protest groups formed in response to the AIDS crisis. By May of 1987 President Ronald Reagan made his first public speech regarding AIDS, after years of criticism for his silence and lack of administrative funding. Many link Reagan’s sudden action as a result of ACT UP’s plea for recognition and visibility. President Reagan’s decision to finally speak publicly about the AIDs crisis urged the rest of the United States political realm to start ‘acting’ on the pandemic (Gould, Deborah).

            President Reagan’s relationship with the gay community is an integral piece of the overall narrative regarding the AIDS crisis and the American gay community, since groups like ACT UP were created in direct response to his inaction. Not only did Reagan wait until 1987 when over twenty thousand gay men had already died of AIDS to publicly speak on the matter, he previously made legislative decisions that directly affected gay men in America. In 1986, a year before his notable speech, Reagan proposed a change in the federal budget: to decrease AIDS funding by 11 percent. This legislative decision led to the change of the federal budget from $95 million dollars to go to research and hospice facilities for those who were sick, to $85.5 million dollars within a year (Plante, Hank. "Reagan's Legacy”). Reagan’s behavior in response to the AIDS crisis was commonly seen as a result of Reagan’s rhetoric of the ‘New Right’.

            Reagan’s ‘New Right’ was a call to Americans, particularly American families, to return to ‘traditional family values’. It was the ultimate form of conservatism, and led to a new sort of cult of personality where conservatives could completely align themselves with Reagan. Reagan’s ‘New Right’ was in direct response to social movements during the 1960’s and 1970’s, this extends to homosexuality which was seen as simply a counter cultural movement. In Jennifer Brier’s book, Infectious Ideas Brier discusses this idea of the New Right, which she says directly affected Reagan’s decision making in regards to the AIDS crisis. This new world of conservatism was in direct opposition to gay and lesbian ‘lifestyles’, along with Nancy Reagan’s notable ‘war on drugs’. Reagan’s presidency called for America to go back to ‘traditional family values’, therefore many scholars agree that Reagan’s lack of response to the AIDs crisis was part of a larger conservative attack against counter cultural movements, which extended to racial, gender, and sexual minorities (Brier, Jennifer. Infectious Ideas).

            As a result of oppositional AIDS activist groups like ACT UP, President Reagan was pressured to begin making national, legislative decisions about the crisis. Many of these decisions created divides in the political realm, and led to inaction for those suffering from HIV/AIDS. After Reagan’s speech in 1987, the United States government began working to find a prevention program to educate the masses on what the disease was and how to halt the spread. Reagan’s education and religion advisors, predominately Gary Baur, William Bennett, and Carl Anderson urged the administration to take the definitive ‘New Right’ stance on the issue: shun homosexuality and teach abstinence only education. However, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop strongly disagreed with Reagan’s other advisors and pressured the administration to focus solely on rational science, and to address the issue by discussing the populous on safe sexual practices, the dangers of drug use, and to facilitate condom distribution to at risk communities. The fundamental political disagreements caused the 1986 budget cut for HIV/AIDs research, due to criticism of the administration for behaving in a way that was in direct opposition to the ‘New Right’s idea of economic conservatism. Other executive decisions made by the Reagan administration in response to the AIDS crisis, in the name of the ‘New Right’, pertained to halting immigration into the United States. (Brier, Jennifer. Infectious Ideas).

            While the United States government was struggling to come to a concise solution to the AIDS crisis, ACT UP was created in the fall of 1987. ACT UP, or the ‘AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power’, was founded in New York City. Previous to ACT UP, there was another group created by activist Larry Kramer called ‘Gay Men’s Health Crisis’. In reference to ACT UP, Larry Kramer in an interview with PBS said:

ACT UP was started in 1987. There was no way that Gay Men's Health Crisis was going to be at all political or a loud voice. It was very much a pastoral organization. All of the people who worked there were not political people; they were caregivers. It was like a church organization really. These were not people who would go out there and protest and make noise, and I got very angry at them for that. ("Interview Larry Kramer." Interview)

            ACT UP, keeping true to the name, was created directly in opposition to the political silence reverberating through the United States. Reagan waited until twenty thousand people had already died before he spoke publicly about the pandemic. On top of this, decisions were not being made in regards to educating the populous about the disease or a possible cure. Worst of all, research funding was at an all time minimal.

            When dissecting the oppositional protest movements surrounding the AIDS crisis, it is necessary to discuss what led to the creation of ACT UP and what mobilized the group. By this time in the AIDS crisis, thousands of people had died and many more were sick and afraid. In Deborah Gould’s book ‘Moving Politics: Emotion and ACT UP’s Fight against AIDS, Gould collected a large amount of research into the emotional impact the crisis had on the gay community and argues that this was particularly what motivated the creation of ACT UP. While illustrating the pain reverberating throughout the community Gould states:

We were constantly aware of the deaths that were devastating our lesbian, gay, queer communities; grief was never really absent. Still, as a movement, we did not dwell on it, and we certainly were not overwhelmed by it, at least not consciously and at least not in the early years. In the tumult of that time, we had had little time to reflect on what we were going through; we thought we only had time to act. (Gould, Deborah B.. Moving Politics)

            Time was certainly a commodity for the gay community. With so many members of the gay community dying, and many more sick, Gould states that the gay community hit a wall; there was no more time to grieve. This is how emotion motivated the creation of oppositional protest movements. Slogans like “don’t mourn, organize” were common during this time of protest. Gould, in her research found that anger in particular was the driving emotion felt throughout ACT UP members. In meetings she attended, it was common for someone to yell out in rage, “People are dying!” to truly exaggerate the intensity of the crisis. This rage felt throughout the gay community left no emotional space for grief; action needed to be taken.

            ACT UP, and other oppositional activist groups fighting for visibility and funding for research during this time were set apart from other protest movements. Gould discusses this in “Moving Politics: Emotion and ACT UP’s Fight against AIDS” stating that prior to the AIDS crisis protest movements were directly in response to social changes that create a shift in the previously established social order. Meaning, that ACT UP was a revolutionary protest movement, because it didn’t hold its foundation in social and political happenings. ACT UP’s relationship to the political and social world could be seen as responsive, but Gould states that ACT UP’s beginnings were despite and because of  “…tightly constricted political opportunities”. Gould sites that the movement lacked when it came to “…meaningful access to power and influential allies, and they benefited from no significant splits in the ruling alignment or cleaves among elites” (Gould, Deborah B. Moving Politics).

            To completely understand ACT UP’s oppositional movement it is important to understand the identity of the movement. Throughout the years, AIDS predominately affected gay men and later it was discovered to have the capacity to affect women, children, drug abusers, and straight individuals regardless of gender. However, the common understanding was that gay men suffered from AIDS. In Steven Schwartzberg’s book “How Gay Men Are Making Sense of AIDS” Schwartzberg highlights the experiences of gay men, particularly gay men diagnosed with HIV/AIDS. The book begins with quotes from the five men whose narrative creates the entirety of the book. “HIV is my blessing—I thank God he gave me this blessing to help me grow. –Francis”

            Schwartzberg, while creating the identity of the HIV positive gay men in America, also describes the beginnings of AIDS oppositional protest movements. Schwartzberg described one of his first experiences at a gay pride parade, which became common during the beginnings of the AIDS crisis, as:

            I happened to be sitting on the curb when the dense throngs of the AIDS groups    marched by. The vast range of what HIV has triggered in us was, quite literally, paraded before me. A large spiritual group led the way. One hundred or so strong,             they filled the air with lovely, beatific chanting and the seductive clatter of finger-            cymbals and tambourines. On their heels ran ACT UP, storming justness of their   cause. (Schwartzberg, Steven. Crisis of Meaning)

Following this description of oppositional protest groups marching in a gay pride parade, Schwartzberg describes the variety of gay men marching in this parade. Men full of sadness and fear, and men who have found a new found capacity to enjoy life in the face of their illness. (Schwartzberg, Steven. Crisis of Meaning).

            In face of this tragic pandemic that was the HIV/AIDS crisis, the gay community remained to be a community of diversity. The AIDS crisis did affect the identity of the gay community in comparison to how it was previous to the crisis, however it created a strength very unique to the gay community especially the oppositional AIDS activist groups. Driven by their pain and anger, groups like ACT UP fought for visibility and funding for research. The identity of the gay community became more varied, now possessing strength and visibility like never before…Even in the face of HIV/AIDS.

Works Cited

"About HIV/AIDS." Center for Disease Control. U.S. Department of Health and Safety, 21 Sept. 2016. Web. 22 Oct. 2016. Scientific context. Protest Context.

Brier, Jennifer. Infectious Ideas. Chapel Hill, US: The University of North Carolina Press, 2009. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 22 October 2016. Scholarly Source.

Historical Context.

Gould, Deborah B.. Moving Politics : Emotion and ACT UP's Fight against AIDS. University of Chicago Press, 2009. 24 October 2016.

<http://www.myilibrary.com?ID=244560> Theoretical. Scholarly Source.

"Interview Larry Kramer." Interview by FRONTLINE. PBS. PBS, 22 Jan. 2005. Web. 22 Oct. 2016. Community Identity. Protest Context. Serious New Article.

Plante, Hank. "Reagan's Legacy." San Francisco AIDS Foundation. SFAF, 21 Mar. 2016. Web. 22 Oct. 2016. Historical Context. Serious Article.

Schwartzberg, Steven. Crisis of Meaning : How Gay Men Are Making Sense of AIDS. Cary, US: Oxford University Press (US), 1996. ProQuest ebrary. Web. 22 October 2016. Community/Identity. Scholarly Source.