A Quote by Elizabeth Flock

In the 1980s and the 1990s, when HIV hit its peak, the gay community was at the forefront of the fight against the silent killer. — © Elizabeth Flock
In the 1980s and the 1990s, when HIV hit its peak, the gay community was at the forefront of the fight against the silent killer.
The gay community has taken care of their issues and problems in terms of HIV/AIDS. They have done an incredible job. We as heterosexuals need to learn from the gay community because they have rallied together. They have sent a lot of information out there. They go get tested.
When I first came up, the whole AIDS epidemic was starting, and the gay community that I experienced from the beginning of my career was mostly - and overwhelmingly - concerned with staying alive. And, also, I felt really aware of the preciousness of life and time. The gay community and people who were HIV-positive were treated so badly, and I was very disturbed by things. But I also saw a lot of love and connection in the gay community at that time.
Those of us who lived through the worst of the HIV/AIDS epidemic from the early 1980s through the mid-1990s have a very special spot in our heart for home-based health care.
Most pastors railing against gay marriage have never cried out on racism, any type of injustice or police brutality. They've never once made a statement about health care. Many of them are silent on community issues. They are very silent, but they have become the leaders of this particular movement.
HIV/AIDS isn't a top priority for any of the three major LGBT groups in the U.S.: not the HRC, or the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), or the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF) - who together are somewhat pejoratively known as 'Gay Inc.'
Drug warriors' staunch opposition to needle exchanges to prevent the spread of HIV in addicts delayed the programs' widespread introduction in most states for years. A federal ban on funding for these programs wasn't lifted until 2009. Contrast this with what happened in the U.K. At the peak of the AIDS epidemic in the mid-1990s, the HIV infection rate in IV drug users in the U.K. was about 1%. In New York City, the American epicenter, that figure was 50%. The British had introduced widespread needle exchange in 1986. That country had no heterosexual AIDS epidemic.
The concept of 'peak oil' has penetrated the hearts and minds of people concerned about energy for the future. 'Peak fish' occurred around the end of the 1980s.
In the years when HIV was a killer, any parent of an openly gay person was terrified. I knew my mother well enough that she would spend every day praying that I didn't come across that virus. She'd have worried like that.
I have gay friends, I support gay rights, I have nothing against the gay community, but when I see two guys kissing, I think it's gross. And, by the way, it's gross when 99% of straight people do it, too.
I think so many doors have been opened for the gay community as far as the dangers and horrors of HIV. There is so much more out-ness now.
"Let's say we discover the gene that says the kid's gonna be gay. How many parents, if they knew before the kid was gonna be born, [that he] was gonna be gay, they would take the pregnancy to term? Well, you don't know but let's say half of them said, "Oh, no, I don't wanna do that to a kid." [Then the] gay community finds out about this. The gay community would do the fastest 180 and become pro-life faster than anybody you've ever seen. ... They'd be so against abortion if it was discovered that you could abort what you knew were gonna be gay babies."
I do not think the gay population has been all that rabid for gay marriage. Note that I do not use the words 'gay community.' Expunge that expression from your vocabulary. We are not a community.
The denial with which many African leaders and communities greeted the appearance of HIV and AIDS across the continent in the 1990s is now considered a tragic mistake rather than a purposeful pushback against lingering colonial prejudice.
When we, hijras, started our activism, we had to tell people, "We exist, we are humans. Please give us nothing but our basic dignity." The biggest misery in the world, I believe, is the feeling of being unloved, and that this community faces a lot. You're not even considered to be human. You're considered transparent. We were ignored until we started organizing, when HIV first became a factor. Even in the HIV world, people could not believe that hijras have sex. And then also we were put in the category of men having sex with men, the gay community.
I just want to recognize, the HIV epidemic was solved by the community, the HIV advocates and activists who stood up when no one was listening and got everyone's attention.
I can remember in the late 1980s and early 1990s how many men with AIDS I saw everywhere in Key West. There were hospices and medical supply stores geared to people with AIDS. It seemed that every sick man who could afford it had headed for the warmth and the tranquillity and the gay-friendliness of the island.
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