The HIV/AIDS pandemic remains one of the most devastating global health crises in modern history. Since the disease first emerged into public consciousness in the early 1980s, more than 40 million people have died from AIDS-related illnesses, and tens of millions more have lived with the physical, emotional, and social consequences of HIV infection. The history of HIV/AIDS is not only a medical story, but also a story of fear, stigma, activism, politics, science, prejudice, grief, and survival.
Understanding the rough history of the pandemic requires looking beyond statistics and medical terminology. It means understanding how entire communities were transformed, how governments often failed vulnerable populations, and how ordinary people fought for dignity and life in the face of overwhelming loss.
The Origins of HIV
Scientists now believe that HIV originated in Central Africa, most likely in what is now Cameroon or the Democratic Republic of Congo. The virus is thought to have crossed from chimpanzees to humans sometime in the early twentieth century through the hunting and butchering of bushmeat. The simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV), found in primates, mutated into a human form that became HIV. (cdc.gov)
For decades, the virus spread quietly and largely unnoticed. Researchers later identified evidence of HIV infection in human blood samples dating back to the 1950s. One of the earliest confirmed cases was a blood sample collected in the Belgian Congo in 1959. The virus likely spread slowly at first through urbanisation, migration, colonial trade routes, prostitution, contaminated needles, and changing sexual networks across Africa. (nih.gov)
By the 1970s, HIV had reached several parts of the world, including Haiti, the United States, and Europe, although nobody yet knew the virus existed.
The Mysterious Illness Emerges
The world first became aware of AIDS in June 1981, when the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported unusual clusters of rare illnesses among young gay men in Los Angeles. These men were suffering from a rare pneumonia called Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia and unusual cancers such as Kaposi’s sarcoma, diseases normally seen only in people with severely damaged immune systems. (cdc.gov)
Doctors quickly realised something unprecedented was happening.
Healthy young people were developing catastrophic immune failure. Patients became vulnerable to infections that the body would normally defeat easily. Many deteriorated rapidly and died within months.
At first, the disease had no official name. It was referred to in the media as “gay cancer” or GRID — Gay-Related Immune Deficiency. Because many early cases appeared among gay men, society often viewed the illness through the lens of prejudice and moral judgement rather than medicine.
This stigma would become one of the defining horrors of the epidemic.
Fear, Stigma, and Panic
During the early 1980s, fear surrounding AIDS spread almost as quickly as the virus itself. Much of the public did not understand how HIV was transmitted. Some people believed they could catch AIDS through touching, casual contact, sharing utensils, or simply being near an infected person.
Gay men were heavily demonised. Religious conservatives described AIDS as divine punishment for homosexuality. Families abandoned sick relatives. Funeral homes sometimes refused bodies. Employers fired workers suspected of infection. Children with HIV were bullied or excluded from schools. (history.com)
The disease also affected intravenous drug users, haemophiliacs who received contaminated blood products, sex workers, and eventually heterosexual populations worldwide. Yet many governments were slow to respond because the earliest victims belonged largely to already marginalised groups.
In the United States, President Ronald Reagan did not publicly mention AIDS for several years despite the rapidly growing death toll. Activists later accused governments around the world of indifference and neglect. (reaganlibrary.gov)
The Discovery of HIV
In 1983, scientists at the Pasteur Institute in France identified the virus responsible for AIDS. The following year, American researcher Robert Gallo confirmed the discovery. The virus eventually became known as Human Immunodeficiency Virus — HIV. (nih.gov)
The discovery allowed scientists to develop blood tests to detect infection. This was a crucial breakthrough, particularly for blood banks. Before HIV screening existed, thousands of haemophiliacs and transfusion recipients were infected through contaminated blood products.
Testing also introduced new fears. Many people avoided HIV tests because a positive diagnosis was widely viewed as a death sentence.
The Grim Reality of the 1980s
The 1980s were marked by enormous suffering. There was no effective treatment for AIDS, and infection often led to death within a few years. Hospitals in cities such as New York, San Francisco, London, and Sydney filled with dying patients.
The symptoms could be horrifying. Opportunistic infections ravaged weakened immune systems. Kaposi’s sarcoma caused dark lesions across the skin. Severe weight loss, known as “wasting syndrome,” left many skeletal and frail. Dementia, blindness, and neurological damage were common in advanced cases.
Entire friendship groups disappeared.
Within the gay community especially, the emotional toll was catastrophic. Men in their twenties and thirties attended funeral after funeral. Some lost dozens of friends and lovers within a few years. Survivors later described living in a permanent state of grief and terror.
At the same time, communities mobilised in extraordinary ways.
Grassroots organisations formed to care for the sick when governments often would not. Volunteers delivered meals, cleaned homes, raised money, sat beside hospital beds, and comforted the dying. Lesbian women played a particularly important role in caring for gay men abandoned by families or institutions during the crisis.
Activism and ACT UP
As frustration with government inaction grew, AIDS activism became a powerful force. One of the most influential groups was the ACT UP, founded in New York in 1987.
ACT UP organised dramatic protests demanding faster drug approval, better healthcare access, increased research funding, and an end to discrimination. Activists disrupted government meetings, shut down Wall Street, occupied pharmaceutical company offices, and used confrontational tactics to force public attention onto the epidemic. (actupny.org)
Their activism fundamentally changed the relationship between patients, governments, and medical researchers. AIDS activists demanded a voice in scientific research and healthcare policy, helping accelerate the development of treatments.
AZT and Early Treatments
In 1987, the drug AZT became the first medication approved for HIV treatment. It offered hope but also controversy. The drug could slow viral replication, but early doses caused severe side effects including nausea, anemia, and fatigue. Many patients still died despite treatment. (britannica.com)
Other antiviral drugs followed, but HIV mutated quickly and developed resistance when drugs were used alone. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, treatment remained limited and imperfect.
Still, for many people, even a few extra months of life mattered enormously.
The Global Spread
Although AIDS initially gained attention in wealthy Western nations, the pandemic increasingly devastated poorer regions, especially sub-Saharan Africa.
By the 1990s, HIV infection rates in some African countries had reached catastrophic levels. In nations such as Botswana, South Africa, and Zimbabwe, entire generations were affected. Life expectancy plummeted. Hospitals became overwhelmed. Millions of children were orphaned after losing parents to AIDS-related illnesses. (unaids.org)
Poverty, limited healthcare infrastructure, stigma, gender inequality, and lack of access to medication worsened the crisis.
Women became increasingly vulnerable to infection, particularly in regions where economic dependence and sexual violence limited their ability to negotiate safe sex practices.
The Breakthrough of Combination Therapy
A major turning point came in 1996 with the introduction of Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy (HAART), commonly known as combination therapy or the “drug cocktail.”
Instead of using a single medication, doctors combined multiple antiretroviral drugs that attacked HIV in different ways. This dramatically reduced viral levels in the body and prevented the virus from developing resistance as easily. (hivinfo.nih.gov)
The results were extraordinary.
Death rates dropped sharply in countries with access to treatment. Patients once preparing for death suddenly regained health and began rebuilding their lives. HIV gradually shifted from a near-certain fatal disease to a manageable chronic condition for many people.
For survivors of the epidemic’s worst years, the change felt almost surreal. Hospital wards that had once been full of dying patients began to empty.
Yet treatment remained inaccessible to millions in poorer countries due to high drug prices and patent restrictions.
The Fight for Global Access
During the late 1990s and early 2000s, activists pushed for affordable HIV medications in developing nations. Pharmaceutical companies faced intense criticism for charging prices far beyond the reach of many African countries.
International programs eventually expanded treatment access. Organisations such as the World Health Organization, UNAIDS, and the Global Fund helped distribute lifesaving drugs worldwide.
Generic medications dramatically reduced treatment costs. Millions of lives were saved through expanded access to antiretroviral therapy.
HIV in the Modern Era
Today, HIV is no longer automatically a death sentence in countries with access to modern healthcare. Antiretroviral therapy can suppress the virus to undetectable levels, allowing many people with HIV to live long and healthy lives.
Scientific advances have transformed prevention as well.
PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis) allows HIV-negative individuals to reduce their risk of infection dramatically through daily medication. Public health campaigns now promote the principle of “Undetectable = Untransmittable” (U=U), meaning people with undetectable viral loads cannot sexually transmit HIV. (cdc.gov)
Yet the pandemic is far from over.
Millions of people worldwide still lack adequate treatment. Stigma continues to affect those living with HIV. In some countries, discrimination against LGBTQ+ people, sex workers, and drug users undermines prevention efforts.
The social scars of the epidemic also remain profound.
The Cultural Impact of AIDS
The AIDS pandemic transformed art, politics, medicine, and culture. Countless musicians, actors, writers, activists, and ordinary individuals died during the crisis.
Figures such as Freddie Mercury, Rock Hudson, and Arthur Ashe brought public visibility to the disease. Their illnesses forced many people to confront the reality that AIDS could affect anyone.
The epidemic also reshaped LGBTQ+ identity and politics. Many historians argue that the AIDS crisis radicalised a generation of activists and permanently changed public discussions around sexuality, healthcare, and human rights.
Books, films, plays, and memorials continue to document the emotional devastation of the era. The AIDS Memorial Quilt remains one of the largest community art projects in history, commemorating tens of thousands of lives lost to AIDS.
Lessons from the Pandemic
The history of HIV/AIDS reveals both the best and worst aspects of human society.
It exposed how prejudice can deepen suffering during a public health emergency. Marginalised communities were ignored, blamed, and stigmatised when compassion and science were desperately needed.
At the same time, the epidemic demonstrated remarkable courage and solidarity. Patients, activists, healthcare workers, researchers, and caregivers fought relentlessly for survival, dignity, and truth.
The scientific achievements that emerged from HIV research transformed modern medicine. Advances in virology, antiviral drugs, and public health strategies continue to influence treatment for many other diseases today.
Perhaps most importantly, HIV/AIDS taught the world that silence and stigma can be deadly.
The pandemic is not merely a chapter in medical history. It is a human story of loss and resilience that continues into the present day.
The move to Dr. David Austin at Holdsworth House was a good move, made on recommendations from friends. The practise was well located in Darlinghurst, David himself was young, handsome, HIV/AIDS knowledgeable…and gay, as were all the men in the practise, which made communication easy.
The one good thing about David was that he was willing to make me an equal “partner” in my health management. This far down the line, I wanted more control over decisions made in regards to my health. When it came time to change my combination therapy, David would pick out a number of combinations, give me the run-down on them…efficacy, potential side effects…then I would choose the one that suited me.
Between late 1999-2001 I applied for several trials, but was disallowed due to having had CMV. A lot of my focus changed to controlling the ongoing pain from my peripheral neuropathy (which eventually became numbness), I tried acupuncture… through 407 Medical Practise in Bourke St…went to a reflexologist in Queenscliff, who was running a research project with subjects with ongoing PN. I then had regular sessions with Greg Milan, a reflexologist associated with Holdsworth House. Despite some minor improvements using these alternatives, nothing worked in a major way, and it became obvious that it was permanent, and I just had to deal with it…right up until now, where it affects my mobility and balance, controlled through exercise physiology.
Also in late 1999 I started part-time work at the HIV Prescribers Project, thanks to Lavinia Crooks (RIP) at ASHM (Australian Society for HIV Medicine) who managed it at the old (now long gone) Royal South Sydney Hospital, in Zetland. This project ran training courses for doctors wishing to expand their HIV knowledge, and become S100 Prescribers. In mid 2000 the project moved from Zetland, to the ASHM offices in the Albion St Clinic building. I helped to collate the training manuals etc for the courses which were run several times a year.
From photo shoot for The HIV Book Project at Sydney Park
In late 2000, David…my partner, not my doctor…and I decided to do a two week trip through the Red Centre while the Sydney Olympic Games were on. We caught The Ghan from Sydney (back then it alternated between Sydney and Melbourne) to Alice Springs…the end of the line back then…via Adelaide, then coached it up to Darwin. A truly awe-inspiring holiday, away from the madness of Sydney. On returning to Bondi, I then decided to legitimise my writing with a degree in writing from UTS…I was writing regularly for Talkabout then…and applied under the exceptions granted to mature age and disabled students, and was accepted. I quit my job at HIV Prescribers, and entered into a period of educational advancement.
I applied to do a Batchelor of Writing degree, though found university not to my taste. It reminded me a lot of school…which I hated…and many of the first year subjects had nothing to do with writing, which frustrated me. For the second and third years, I juggled subjects around to fit with what I wanted, and at the end of that period I had enough subjects passed to get a Graduate Certificate of Writing, which I settled for. While at UTS I had several articles published in “Vertigo”, the university newspaper, and was office-bearer for the Disability Collective. Dealing with student bureaucrats drove me crazy, and I wrote a number of heated letters blasting the Student Union for not offering reduced costs in fees to disabled and pensioner students. Naturally, all to no avail.
Midway through 2003, while finishing my writing degree, I started at East Sydney TAFE to get my chef’s credentials. Apart from writing, my other passion was cooking. Unlike UTS, I loved TAFE. The students were more down-to-earth, and genuinely loved the learning experience, not being hindered by the strictures of university. I also embarked on a correspondence course to get my Catering Certificate. So, by 2004 I had three new credentials under my belt.
Back to 2001, I went onto my second-last trial…and it was a doozy that I got paid $650 to do. It was called the Caprine Antibody HRG214 trial…more commonly known as the Goat Serum antibody trial…Phase 1. It was done by infusion at St. Vincent’s, followed by a two month observation period. Again, at the end of it, nothing was achieved except a sore arm from the 12 attempts to get a cannula in it, and an all-over skin rash at the end of the second month.
From photo shoot for The HIV Book Project at Sydney Park
The last trial was in 2004, and both David and myself were involved in it. Back in 2000 I was knocked back from doing the T20 trial due to my CMV, but the criteria was made less stringent as time went on, and so in 2004 we both got into the T20 trial. This was an injectable drug vaccine trial that was seen as the possible future for drug regimes. The drug was administered into an area of body fat using a pneumatic gun. Initially, it was great…pretty well pain-free, quick, easy, and very effective according to pathology results. However, because you had to do it twice a day, it soon became notable that injection sites got painful, and you soon ran out of them. It could also cause serious bruising which put an injection site out of action until the bruise cleared. We both got about halfway through, then quit. Evidently a lot of others had similar problems.
Other events for that year were (A) my 50th birthday, a truly big event that I dragged out for two weeks. Highlights included David taking the wrong batch of…cookies…to Palms, and getting banned from The Colombian Hotel in Darlinghurst, due to my tendency to stagger. They later apologised for the behaviour of their bouncers (B) I wanted to open a business, but had no idea about how to go about it. I decided to go through a BGF return-to-work course, to see where it would lead. Fortunately, I ended up with Marie Crosbie as my advisor. She soon clicked that I didn’t really need what the course provided, and asked me what I really needed. Between the two of us, we put together the bare bones of starting a business and (C) we decided to move to a house in Dulwich Hill so we could have room to rescue dogs. We are both Jack Russell Terrier lovers, and that love of rescuing them exists right up to today. There is a notable lack of HIV information at this stage, as everything was now running smoothly, and it was moving further and further into the background of my life.
Dulwich Hill, with our two Jack Russell’s, provided a new approach to many things. I started a high-end catering business called Alderman Catering. This lasted about two years, before exhaustion finally ended it. Catering is a youngish persons business. It takes three days to put a functions finger food together. A day for shopping, a day for prep work, and a long day of cooking packing and serving. It really wears you out. I rejigged my business plans, and fell back into my old retail career, as it was something I knew, and was successful with…but I leapt onto a retail format that is only mew really popular…an online store (I could run it from home with minimal start-up expenses, and minimal overheads) called Alderman Providore, specialist in non-perishable Australian made food products from small, unknown niche suppliers. It was incredibly successful with a constant yearly growth, and then the addition of another specialist store called TeaCoffeeChocolate. What brought it all to an abrupt end was the Global Financial Crisis in 2009/10. Online businesses were the first to crash. I put the business up for sale, and sold it to a woman in Queensland.
From the photo shoot for The HIV Book Project in Sydney Park
It was soul destroying.
Around the same time I started having problems with my blind left eye. It was constantly irritated, like there was something in it that wouldn’t come out. I went to the eye clinic at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital at Camperdown. They found that the eye didn’t realise it was blind, and had created a new capillary network to feed the eye. This in turn caused the eye to swell, thus the irritation. They gave me steroid drops, and referred me to the Sydney Eye Hospital. After a consult, they decided to inject a cancer serum (Avastin), that stopped blood flow to tumours, to stop the blood vessel growth. It was successful, however over time, the eye changed colour, giving me two different coloured eyes. Talk about attention grabbing!
Also in 2009; I got out of the shower one morning, caught sight of myself in the mirror, and thought “who is that fat person in here!”…yep, it was me. So off to a local gym, and a new love affair with Les Mills Body Pump classes. The weight burnt away, and started me on an ongoing love of fitness which still goes on today, though in a more senior person way. Fit, healthy, active is my mantra now;
In 2011 we decided to move to Brisbane. No particular reason why…just because we could! So we packed up our home, got a removalist, filled the car, grabbed the dogs and moved to Ashgrove, a suburb of Brisbane. I had been told back in 1996 that due to all the scar tissue in my right eye, due to the CMV, it was highly likely I’d have a retinal detachment at some stage. No sooner had we gotten to Ashgrove than the retina decided it was time. So, into Royal Brisbane hospital for an operation to reattach it. The ophthalmologist also scraped down the scar tissue before reattaching it.
Leap forward to early 2015, and problems with my left eye continued. In the intervening years, all the eye’s internal workings had collapsed, so I made a decision to have the eye removed. Another operation, and it was gone. Shortly after, David and I returned to Sydney…we had split amicably in 2014, and are still close friends…and it was here that I had my prosthetic fitted.
In 2017 I was interviewed and photographed for a chapter in the HIV Book Project. It was here, for the first time, that I revealed my rather radical approach to HIV drug dosing In 2011. In an era where we were still dosing on 3-4 drugs twice a day, and guys were opting for drug holidays despite the risks, I opted…without disclosing to anyone…for a different approach. It was risky, but done with close observation to blood test results. Sick of pills, sick of side effects, I halved my daily dosing to once a day, and no pills on weekends. If my CD4s fell, or my viral load rose, straight back to my old routine. In the 5 years I did this, my CD4s continued to rise and my viral load remained undetectable. Interesting, isn’t it! Read my chapter in the book to find out my true feelings about this.
Apart from an extremely painful run-in with shingles in 2014, which has left me with neuralgia and partial numbness in my left arm and hand, and 5 weeks of radiation on a large Basil Cell Carcinoma behind my left ear last year, life is really great. My Jack Russell, Flash, and I live very happily in a social housing villa on the Central Coast of NSW. I’m on a category 3 home support package…with the addition of Assistive Technology funding…so have some cool technology to help me see to do hobbies. Someone comes in to clean, and helps me with shopping. My Exercise Physiology gym is a 2 minute walk away. Friends are close by, and I have great neighbours.
I obtained my Certificate III in Fitness back in 2012, and ran seniors exercise classes locally until 2 years ago, when I got my villa. I avoided COVID, and apart from writing about it, HIV could not be further from my mind. These days, ageing…the one concern I once thought would never happen…is, at 72, my biggest concern. I now use a walking stick to control my meandering feet, and only take antivirals once a day. I’m happy, and content. What else does one need!
So what have I learnt about myself over the last 43 years…and even earlier than that? Well, I’m certainly resilient! I’m an independent guy, and an individual. I’ve retained a sense of humour…though somewhat dark and sarcastic. I’m glad I’ve always been an out gay man, and I am what I am, and where I am, doing the things I love due, in large part, because I’m HIV, and had AIDS. There is a kind of perversity in that! If I had my time over, would I walk the same road? That is a very good question! And one I’ll leave you to ponder. Thank you for reading a very long rant. It is most appreciated. Now, pack it away, and get on with your life.
One of the major problems that concerned both my doctor and myself was my weight. Having dropped to 48kg when admitted to Marks Pavilion, and being of slight build, I was having trouble putting it back on. Fortunately for me, the Albion Street Clinic started running a Deca-Durabolin (an injectable anabolic steroid) trial at this time to attempt to counter the effects of Wasting Syndrome, a common problem within the AIDS demographic. I’m not sure this far down the line of it’s duration, but I think it was 6-8 weeks, with a weekly injection, and weigh-in. What I do remember about it was the drastic change to my eating habits. For the period of the trial, I was obsessed with eating! From the moment I woke up, to the time I went to bed…all I thought about was food! I was continually planning my next meal, my next snacks! The (successful) end to this was a meteoric weight gain in a very short period of time. My usual weight was around 64kg…by the time the trial ended I was at 84kg. On going out for dinner with friends I hadn’t seen for a while, one guy exclaimed “What have you done…you look like a teddy bear!”. To be honest, I was thrilled to have put so much on, especially seeing how I had seen myself in the low, and scary, weight range. I’m thankful to say that after the trial ended, my weight dropped back to my usual range.
There is a big problem with surviving AIDS, and spending 18 months recovering and keeping busy with doctors, clinics, hospitals, peer groups, and treatment compliance sessions…and having a lot of same either end, or become more spread out…BOREDOM! Sitting at home watching “Days of Our Lives” and “The Bold and the Beautiful” daily is not a fulfilling experience! But what to do was the big question. Not fit enough to return to full-time work, and not wanting to return to my old profession in retail. As frightening as the whole AIDS experience had been, its lasting legacy was the overwhelming desire to change my life direction. It made me realise how much of my life I’d wasted doing work I hated, and never being brave enough to take the leap to follow my dreams, to step into the unknown with confidence! This was the point where everything changed, where I finally found enjoyment and fulfilment in my life’s choices.
But the question still remained…how to take the first step? I had been receiving “Talkabout” for some time, and recollected that I had seen an ad for volunteering at the…then…PLWHA office in Darlinghurst. A phone call, and a meeting with another volunteer in the Oxford Street offices…and I found myself on the reception desk, initially one day a week, but it was a fun office to be in, so I started turning up daily. This was also my first encounter with computers (other than my experiences in the 80s with owning a Commodore 64). This pushed me to do courses in basic computing, and the Microsoft Office Suite. Around the same time I did a Peer Group Facilitator course with ACON, brought about by me having done a HIV/AIDS survivor group with them. I went on to facilitate some groups.
After around 6 months on reception, Jo Watson…the then Research Officer…asked me if I’d like to work with her as an assistant research officer. The office manager (Ryan McGlaughlin) interviewed me and I got the job. It was here that I wrote my first article for “Talkabout”, a quite humorous piece on my doctor, Cassy Workman. Though not named, it was obvious (by those who knew her, or were patients) who it was about. From this point I became a regular contributor to Talkabout, and 28 years later, I’m still writing for the magazine…with occasional breaks! I also became a member of the Talkabout Working Group. Like many occasions in community groups, funding dried up, and I had to move on.
It was just after this that I was informed that a research position was opening up with another community-funded project called Positively Working. Having survived AIDS, and now being in a position to orientate myself to new work experiences…outside what I had been doing post AIDS… it was a position I slotted into quite neatly. At Positively Working, we were compiling a report (I was working with Sonia Lawless) on the return-to-work needs of guys like me who had survived AIDS, and we’re now faced with the very real situation of…what do I do now; and where the hell do I go now! I personally interviewed a number of the guys, and it was quite eye opening! Once again, after six months the funding dried up. We got the report out, and once again I was faced with what to do!
There was one very interesting…and disturbing…occurance that resulted from my time there. Several of the guys I interviewed mentioned that they had used the “services” of a supposed HIV/AIDS employment service on Oxford Street called “Options”. Evidently Options had been using guys attending there as a free workforce in the office under the guise of “work experience”. I was very angry to hear this, and decided, as a writer for Talkabout, to investigate and expose this issue. I approached the office as a return-to-work client. Not only were they using their clients as an unpaid workforce, they were also not providing the services they were touting, to help guys break back into the workforce. Clients were being placed in front of computer screens with the usual run-of-the-mill employment services, and told to find a job. Contrary to their name, Optoons provided no options.
I wrote a scathing article on them for Talkabout. The editor forwarded the draft onto them, basically saying this is about to come out! Well, didn’t the shit hit the fan! The manager, Peter somebody, demanded to see me. I turned up at his office, and he tried the good old sweet talk! Naw, didn’t sway me. The threats came next, to sue Talkabout, the editor, and me! I was amused! Anyway, to calm the waters, and ensure no action was taken, the editor did a rewrite. I wasn’t happy about it, but at least wanted Options thrown into the spotlight, so allowed a very, very watered down piece to be published. Several months later, Options closed. I just smiled!
I undertook Positive Speaker Bureau training in 1998. My first gig was to a group of nurses at the Albion Street Centre. At the end of the talk, I opened the floor to questions. The final question floored me, as training hadn’t prepared me for this one…did I have survivor guilt? I did…after a long pause…give an answer. Yes, I did! I spent 12 years as a PSB speaker, being quite in demand with community groups, universities, and nurse training talks. I had no problems filling an hour. I was also on the PSB working group.
Two of our major community groups instigated return-to-work groups, but in many respects they missed the mark. The Positively Working report pointed out that one of the major requirements of AIDS survivors contemplating how to move on, or approach a return to the workforce, was choices, be it returning to their previous profession, or taking up education or training, or a myriad of other options such as opening a business, or moving a hobby to a business. What they were finding in the groups that were set up was a repeat of information that wasn’t new to them, or of no use at all. There needed to be more options than resume writing, or interview techniques. One project that did have a different approach was “Reconstruction”, a group facilitated by Pene Manolas. In my own time, I did a number of talks at these group meetings, encouraging guys to follow dreams and desires to find more fulfilment in lives now “reset to zero” and going off in new directions.
In 1999, I was on a very unpleasant…understatement…liquid protease inhibitor called Retonavir. It was very effective, but disgusting to take. Cassy Workman supplied her patients on it with gel capsules and a dropper. Putting it into the capsules made it a lot easier to take. I made an appearance on a popular television series at the time called “Healthy, Wealthy & Wise”, who were doing a segment on HIV and it’s impacts. I can be seen sitting in a park in The Rocks, and filling gel capsules with Retonavir. I guess that was my 15 minutes of fame!
Also in 1999, following my stint with the Positively Working project, I briefly returned to my old retail career…but as a cash office supervisor this time, with Angus & Robertson booksellers in the city. The manager there had a large group of gay friends, so when, during my interview, I explained a long absence from employment on AIDS and recovery, she understood exactly what was going on. It wasn’t why I got the job, but my long retail background on cash handling.
1999 was another busy, and scary, year. I noticed I was having problems walking a straight line up the footpath. It wasn’t neuropathy, as at that stage it wasn’t as bad as now. As I walked, I drifted to the left of the path, and had difficulty getting myself back to the centre. Over a few weeks, it got progressively worse. At one stage I was using a walking stick to maintain balance. Cassy sent me to see Bruce Brew, a well known neurologist at St. Vincents. He was baffled, as was Cassy. At one stage he sent a letter to Cassy saying he suspected it may be PML (Progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy is a rare, severe, and often fatal viral brain infection characterised by progressive white matter damage. It is caused by the JC virus (JCV), which lies dormant in most adults but activates in individuals with severely compromised immunity. Common in HIV/AIDS, cancer, or patients on specific immunosuppressants, it causes rapid neurological decline). A very scary prospect! AIDS dementia was another possibility.For her part, Cassy ordered up a raft of tests…iron, folate, B12, cortisol, thyroid, CT scan, gallium scan, Addison’s disease. The last resort was an MRI! And there it was! THE VIRUS…on my brain! It could frightened be seen in the scans! During a drug combination change, it had picked a small opportunity when the new combination was starting to kick in to cross the blood/brain barrier, and up into my head. The solution was actually very simple…when the new combination kicked in, it kicked the virus out.
I was at A & R’s for about 4 months…and encountered the difficulties other guys had of obtaining meds from hospital pharmacies during lunch breaks, and fitting in doctors appointments…when I got a phone call from Bill Whittaker (now deceased) to help out doing data entry for the AIDS Research Initiative, which was run out of Cassy’s medical practice in Little Oxford Street (called Ground Zero Medical, as it was on the site of the original Club 80). So I returned to Darlinghurst!
It turned out to be a double job. On days I wasn’t working for the ARI, I was doing reception work in the medical practice. It was here on a working day in the practice that I developed excruciating pain in my back, in the kidney area. Cassy diagnosed Indinavir sludge, a build up of Indinavir in the kidneys. I was told to drink a lot of water…it didn’t help! I spent a good part of the day in the nurses station with Janice (the practices nurse) unable to keep still because of the pain, which just wouldn’t let up! Cassy checked on me a couple of times, but didn’t suggest I go to A & E. By mid afternoon, Janice took it upon herself to call a taxi to take me to St. Vincent’s. I needed to have a stent inserted in my kidneys to drain the sludge.
I was so disappointed that Cassy had been so blasé about it that I quit her practice. And her as my doctor!
A new relationship started with Dr David Austin, at Holdsworth House Medical Centre.
Before diving into the 90s, a brief note on sub-cultures (Tribes) within the gay community at this time…or to be more exact, how I placed myself within the community as far as lifestyle went in the 80s and 90s. After coming out in 1980, I intentionally positioned myself in the Clone sub-culture. It was a Tribe I felt comfortable in, and adopted it with ease. It was a badge I wore with pride pretty well for the duration of my active life on the scene. The short hair, big moustache, white or black tee-shirts (and flannelette shirts during winter), Levi 501 jeans and boots were, in my eyes, the look that defined gay masculinity. I was, at times, known to dip into the leather world, but my interest in leather was never sexual! I just liked its look, so never saw myself as a leatherman. For a number of years I was an active member of the Dolphin Motor Club (DMC), and member of a gang known by the acronym G.O.D. (Girls/Guys of Disgrace) which was established by the girls who founded Wicked Women, and whose purpose was to peruse the scene at night, and report any potential problems…problems which had escalated since the advent of HIV/AIDS thanks to the media, and societal homophobia. This morphing between scenes meant I could indulge my fun-side by doing what was known as “gutter drag”…a sort of respectful parody of drag itself, using huge wigs, over-the-top make-up, big frocks…and no removal of facial,or body hair. Cleo’s “reputation” and antics still live on amongst my friends. My life revolved around the Oxford Hotel, and the Midnight Shift night club.
By the 1990s, what I call the Great Diaspora of the gay community began, starting, in many eyes, the slow demise of the gay ghetto. People fled to the far flung suburbs, the north and south coasts, to the hinterlands, to the bush, and even interstate, and overseas. Some from fear, some to get away from the relentless deaths and illnesses, some to find peace and quiet, some to die.The scene has never recovered.
So we enter the 90s! Little did we know that the apocalyptic start to the decade, with death notices filling page after page in the gay rags, and with no end in sight, would morph into a decade of great hope by the time we hit 1996. It was at its start, a time of monotherapy, and trials. At the start of 1990, I had a CD4 count of 453…and going down! Two of my ex-partners died of AIDS. Damien evidently returned to his family in Victoria, and died in 1991. I found out quite some time later, when running into a mutual acquaintance in the Oxford Hotel one might, just as I was about to attend a DMC dinner. Frank…my first Sydney partner, if I don’t count the psycho who dragged me back to Sydney from a happy Melbourne life…I ran into when leaving my hairdressers (Kulture In Hair) in Goulburn St one day in 1994.I hardly recognised the figure slowly shuffling up the street. He died a short time later.
Personally, I had a fleeting relationship with Anthony. My sex lifestyle was pleasantly fulfilled with three fuck-buddies. Paul I met in the bottom bar of the Midnight Shift in the very late 80s and would have had a serious relationship with him if he wasn’t already married to his job. Graeme I met when he and his partner Peter took me home…after picking me up in the Midnight Shift…for a threesome. The next morning I found myself in the middle of a domestic abuse (verbal) situation. It was like I wasn’t even there. Graeme drove me home, and when I asked him up for a coffee, he told me Peter would have him on the clock for his return. Shortly after, they thankfully split up, and Graeme and and I saw each other regularly for a couple of years. Gregg I met at the Oxford late one night. He wore way too much after-shave, and he had a wife and two daughters in Forbes. One of those marry-to-cover-up-being-gay situations. He came to Sydney every month to tutor on computers at Sydney Uni. We saw each other very regularly for about 2 years…until I started to get serious with him.
I quit my managerial job at Numbers Bookshop, and moved to a managerial position with Liquorland in 1990, whose store was situated under Numbers. This job was to be my last for quite some time. Not only was I out as a gay man, but also out as a HIV+ man. To my thinking, a gay man running a business on the gay strip was a no-brainer. Obviously I had the contacts in the community to bring in business…and I did. Under my management, the store shot up the rankings from 43 to 18. However, not everyone was happy with my presence! More on this shortly.
Healthwise, in 1992 I started seeing Dr. Marilyn McMurchie as my HIV specialist, and she started monitoring my CD4 and CD8 counts, and percentages. At that time, my CD4 count was <350 My greatest fears were realised…I was diagnosed as stage 3 HIV infection, and started on AZT (my thoughts on this have already been mentioned.There was a slow decline in my CD4 counts once I started on it. Having been taken off AZT briefly, I was asked to go on a trial using another monotherapy drug called 3TC (lamivudine). A short way into the trial, it was found that nearly all participants had haematological toxicity and become anaemic, so the trial was stopped. I also went on the p24-VLP (Very Light Protein) trial around this time. It was an injectable, and the theory was that by stimulating the p24 antigen, it may stop the decline to AIDS. It did nothing!
It was also the year I had viral pneumonia in my upper right lung. It was pretty serious, and something I may have shaken off more quickly if I wasn’t a chain smoker. It pretty well crippled me for a couple of weeks, and I pretty well took up residence on the lounge, in front of the tv. Recovery was very slow, and my holiday pay in advance saw me through.
In 1993, I went onto DDI (didanosine). I was reluctant to take ddC due to side effects. DDI was vile. The huge chalky tablets (jokingly called horse tablets) had to be ground down to a powder in a mortar & pestle, then you mixed them into whatever liquid made them palatable…in my case, Nestles chocolate Nesquik. Even then, you had to hold your nose when downing it! It was a nightmare to prepare in the workplace…which was only one of several problems I encountered at Liquorland.
When I started there in late 1990. The area manager was a wonderful man, who believed in inclusion and treated all the staff with respect. He left in late 1991, and replaced by Rowan, pretty well his exact opposite. Not only homophobic, but as it turned out…HIVphobic as well. For the next 18 months I was subjected to relentless bullying, by an expert. Always out of earshot of staff, the smallest thing was picked on. With no witnesses, so a his-word-against-mine situation, knowing from experience that head office would take his side. Things came to a head in late 1993 when he installed an assistant manager at the same pay grade as me. With me working 50-60 hour weeks, smoking and drinking heavily, and with a bad diet…I’d had enough. My health was already in decline, and I was losing weight. I arranged a meeting with Rowan to request that I step back to a position of assistant manager to reduce my work load. At the time of the very uncomfortable meeting, he said to my face…”You should consider quitting. You’ll be dead in a couple of years anyway!”. As it turned out, an assistant manager position opened up at the Surry Hills branch. I then went on 2 weeks vacation. Rowan would not confirm the transfer despite a number of calls. A day before I was due to return to work, he confirmed the transfer…he had been hoping I’d quit in the interim. As an act of planned revenge, I turned up at the Surry Hills store…and handed in my 2 weeks notice. Rowan said not one word to me over that period…not even a farewell!
I had started to indulge in my passion for dance music by becoming a resident DJ at The Oxford Hotel in 1990. I DJd there until 1996, and also at the Stronghold Bar (in the basement of the Clock Hotel in Surry Hills) from 1990-1994. This proved to be a handy source of additional income as time went on.
I met John at The Oxford one night just before quitting Liquorland. A gentle, artistic man (his mother thought I was too old for him) we were together for about 8 months. With my health slowly declining, I pushed him away. I didn’t want him (he was HIV-) to have to nurse me through, what I saw at that time, the inevitable end.
In 1993, Carol Ann King started the Luncheon Club and Larder, providing cheap meals and grocery items to HIV+ boys on pensions. Though never attending the club myself, I did become a disability pensioner that same year. Fred Oberg at ACON was instrumental in getting me onto the pension, and a SAS (Special Assistance Subsidy) with the Department of Housing, who paid a percentage of my private rental in The. Dorchester, in Darlinghurst.
At the same time, the Dental Hospital in Chalmers St, Surry Hills started providing free dental care to those with HIV (a trial). Having ongoing bouts of thrush as a result of a declining immune system, I attended there and had a number of teeth removed that were so loose I could have pulled them out. They also devised a small denture to fill a gap at the front lower jaw. I could smile again without covering my mouth to hide the gap.
Prophylaxis was another term we came to grips with. In 1992 I started on Bactrim for my reoccurring bouts of thrush, and Fluconazole to ensure I didn’t get PCP.
I had my 40th birthday 1n 1994. I considered myself very lucky to have reached this milestone, and threw a big bash at the Stronghold bar, where I was a DJ. Tim Vincent, a close friend and owner opened the bar early in the afternoon, put on a long happy hour, and was an open house until the bars usual opening hour. It was quite a crowd, and quite an afternoon.
By May that year my CD4 count was 160, and I was back on AZT! At this stage I estimated I had maybe 2 years left…if I was lucky, or a miracle happened. On the former, I was accurate, little knowing the latter would happen, and a miracle did happen!
I was lying in bed recently listening to an audiobook, part of a gay series, revolving around the staff in a gay cafe in Cornwall, England. One of the younger waiters had just met, and was having a “thing” with an older cafe patron, who was in a relationship that was just no longer working. They were having sex in the waiters home, and the author described their lovemaking in such a realistic, but romantic way that I found myself contemplating my current solo life.
I had to stop the story for a bit. W…T…F was this all about! The fact was that while listening to the lovemaking description in the book…in my head I was thinking…will this ever happen to me again…will I, at this stage of my life, ever have sex with another man again…and no, I don’t think I ever will…and I really miss it…both the sex…and the intimacy!
You see, if I had to write a formula for this stage of my life, it would be; ageing+gay+hiv=invisible!
At 71, I’m probably a bit harsh with my self-assessments!HIV+ (and undetectable)…severely vision-impaired, and with mobility problems stemming from huge doses of AZT in the early 90s, mixed in with AIDS in 1996. I no longer have my own teeth, and the proud owner of one prosthetic eye. I keep myself relatively fit, but have a bjt of fat around the middle, brought about by HIV meds, and which I can’t seem…despite some pretty intensive attempts…to get rid of.
I live in a world that is ostensibly driven by vanity, an obsession with body image, and if you’re male… looks! I can’t get away from it! It follows me around, mocking me. It’s on Facebook, It’s on Instagram, it’s in every magazine I pick up, every television show, movie, advertisement, and gym visit (in past years). At my age, I’m supposed to be past all this, but should I be? I do question the apparent notion that I’m “past it” and if I want to have an ongoing sex life…and I laugh hysterically here…I should be labelling myself as a “Bear” or a “Daddy” or a “Silver Fox”! This is stereotyping at it’s very worst, telling me that to be desirable I have to give up being “me”.
Ageing is a bit of a convoluted thing, in my experience. One minute you are desirable…then you get hit by that reality stick whereby you go out, and no one pays attention to you, or approaches you. Guys walk past you like you just don’t exist. You sink into the wallpaper and furnishings. As a gay guy who was active on the scene, I found ageism to be rife, and was often thrown in your face by younger guys. You were made to feel that you WERE old, and thus no longer desirable. And you were often just in your 40s, so not old at all in the real world.There has always been the joke…that is not a joke on the gay scene…that once you hit 40 you are considered too old to be desirable any more! Well trying hitting 50, 60 or 70! I remember being at the bottom bar in The Midnight Shift one night with a guy who had bought me a drink. We were chatting away, and I mentioned I was HIV+. He just stood up and walked out. One of the few times I have ever felt “unclean”! It is not a nice feeling!
The one thing that drove home to me the real impact of ageism, invisibility, and HIV stigma was the sex apps…euphemistically referred to as “dating” apps! When my 16-year partner and I called it quits in 2014, these apps and web sites were new territory for me. I approached them positively, thinking…foolishly, as it turned out…they would assure me an ongoing sex life. I was totally honest in my profile…both my age (at that time), and my HIV status Well, maybe if I lied about my age, didn’t reveal my HIV status, and uploaded a not-recent flattering profile photo I may have scored a sex life! If you want to feel degraded and humiliated, these are the places to go! Honesty doesn’t reap rewards on these sites! I waited for the messages for fun times to roll in…and waited. Evidently the appeal of sex with a 60-year old didn’t appeal to many, especially someone with HIV!
As well as not going the way I planned, it was my introduction to the language of stigma…phrases like “are you clean?” and “I want you to breed me!” left me feeling deflated! Were these really gay men interacting with me! Did they not know about HIV! Or just choosing to live in ignorance! This is not language you would use with non-HIV guys, so what is it that makes HIV+ guys “unclean”…and have you never heard of undetectable viral loads? Has the entire U=U campaign gone right over your head! Gay men putting other gay men down is not cool!
So I gave up on the apps, after only one contact. And I got tired of guys lining up dates, then just not turning up…not even a message. I don’t need things that put me down!
So 10 years later, I’m living alone with my dog. I have a great social life, but I’m 71 now, and a lot of guys have their own assumptions about that. At this stage, I’m not interested in a relationship…I’ve had enough of those over my time on the scene. As mentioned earlier, it’s not the sex I miss, so much as the intimacy, the sensations of touch, the security of a cuddle. My vision is pretty bad, as is my mobility, and I live on my own…all things I can live with (curtesy of both HIV and AIDS) which brings about certain insecurities in the dating game. I would not want a stranger knocking on my door for “fun times” these days Having disabilities means I am aware of my vulnerability., that if someone attacked me, or tried to take advantage of my situation to, say, rob me, I would have put myself in great danger, and could end up beaten up…or worse! It is a scenario I’m too aware of! Already the odds of meeting people aren’t good!
So let’s drop the assumptions…I am still sexually active! I don’t feel “old”, nor do I look or dress “old”. I’m pretty well adjusted to modern living. Yes, my social circle is quite different these days, as tags such as “gay” and “HIV+” no longer define who I am. It isn’t denial…if anyone asked I’d be quite out about it…it’s more that first and foremost these days, it’s more about just being a person, an individual! Funny how things that used to be important, become less so as time passes.
However, there are still those moments where to be enveloped in another man’s arms, the squeeze, the contact, just the feel and smell of another man would be a nice way to be rocked to sleep. So let’s stop defining people by how they look, or stigmatising them because of their age, or their status, or even their sexuality. We are visible! We are thriving, vibrant, engaging, life-experienced beings, still capable of everything that once made us young and desirable, with a breadth of experience, and life, that suffocates all predetermined notions of being the person YOU think we are. Push our boundaries, and expand your own! To finish with a cliche… there is treasure to be found.
Flyer for Gay Liberation Front protest at the Examiner Building October 31, 1969, Courtesy of the GLBT Historical Society
“San Francisco is a refugee camp for homosexuals. We have fled here from every part of the nation, and like refugees elsewhere, we came not because it is so great here, but because it was so bad there. By the tens of thousands, we fled small towns where tobe ourselves would endanger our jobs and any hope of a decent life….”
Refugees from Amerika: A Gay Manifesto — Carl Wittman, December, 1969
Cover of Gay Sunshine, October 1970
By the time of the first night of protests at New York City’s Stonewall Inn, San Francisco had experienced months of demonstrations related to gay rights that would continue for the next few years.
Unlike Stonewall, the disturbances in San Francisco started over job rights, and a bar was not involved. But because the disturbances spread and issues multiplied, they would eventually include at least three bars, including Oakland’s White Horse.
The people who lit the fuse were recent arrivals. Gale Chester Whittington came from Denver in 1968 and Leo Laurence from Indianapolis in 1966.
Whittington got a job as an accounting clerk at the States Steamship Company (320 California).
Laurence was a journalist for the underground newspaper Berkeley Barb and the editor of the Society for Individual Rights magazine Vector.They met when Whittington volunteered to write for Vector.
A Vector photographer shared a photo from a shoot of Laurence and Whittington with The Barb. It was paired with an article from March 23, 1969, titled “Homo Revolt: Don’t Hide it.”
The article covered Laurence’s editorial call for gay revolution in Vector. Since the Barb had sex ads, it was read by several of Whittington’s straight colleagues at the shipping company. The day it was published, Whittington was fired. Because of the editorial Laurence was removed as editor of Vector.
Homo Revolt, Dont Hide It, Berkeley Barb, March 28, 1969
Whittington and Laurence then formed the Committee for Homosexual Freedom. Max Scheer, editor of The Barb, promised to cover their actions. On April 9, 1969 the picketing of the steamship company began with signs saying, “Let Gays Live,” “Free The Queers” and “Freedom for Homos Now.”
The protests continued for months. In May, The Advocate picked up coverage of the protests and by June the Rev. Troy Perry had begun a sympathy strike at the company’s Los Angeles offices.
Ultimately the protests didn’t succeed in getting Whittington’s job back, but because the San Francisco Chronicle, The Advocate and The Barb covered the protest (on an almost weekly basis) it spread the word nationally and CHF grew.
In Whittington’s autobiographical work, Beyond Normal: The Birth of Gay Pride, he mentions that Hibiscus and Lendon Sadler (of the Cockettes) and Carl Wittman (author of Refugees from Amerika: A Gay Manifesto) all took part in early CHF protests. Wittman read early drafts of his manifesto to the group.
By May protests spread to a second site: Tower Records. Employee Frank Denaro was fired after a security guard reported to management that he had returned the wink of a male customer. Unlike the steamship company, however, the record store was swayed by public opinion and by June the management offered Denaro his job back.
States Steamship Protest, Berkeley Barb, April 25 – May 1, 1969
Purple rain News about what was happening in San Francisco continued to spread. Berkeley Tribeprinted a letter saying Laurence’s articles, reprinted in a Minneapolis campus newspaper, had inspired a class in Homosexual Revolution from their Free University. In Beyond Normal, Whittington relates he received a telegram from New Yorkers who were at Stonewall and had been inspired by articles in The Barb. In October, both Laurence and Whittington were interviewed in the L.A. magazine Tangents.
By October 1969, Gay Liberation Front chapters opened in Berkeley and San Francisco. Two protests on Halloween show both coordination and fragmentation between new and old organizations.
At the first, called “Friday of the Purple Hand,” the Society for Individual Rights worked with CHF and both GLF groups to protest the editorial policies of the San Francisco Examiner. Earlier that week, Robert Patterson of the Examiner had written “The Dreary Revels of S.F. ‘Gay’ Clubs” which referred to gays as “semi-males” and lesbians as “women who aren’t exactly women” as well as referring to both as deviates.
Around 100 protesters picketed the Examiner building, and then had printers ink dumped on them from an upper floor by Examiner employees. The protesters used the ink to make purple hand prints all over the building (which gave the protest its name). The protesters were then attacked by the police Tactical Squad. Twelve people were injured and fifteen were arrested.
Friday of the Purple Hand coverage, San Francisco Free Press
The second event that day was a protest of the Beaux Arts Ball in the Merchandise Mart by Gay Guerrilla Theater and the Gay Liberation Coalition. Laurence reported in the Berkeley Tribe that the protest was focused on the acceptance of laws that only allowed drag on Halloween and New Year’s. He reported:
“I don’t dig drag myself (can’t imagine being a bearded lady)…but by God, I do feel the drags should have the right to do their thing; not just twice a year, but every day; not just at a drag ball, but at work, school, church and on the streets.”
This was among the first confrontations between older gay organizations and newer, more radical groups. Others included a protest of a S.I.R. dinner in February 1972 where Willie Brown was speaking on reforming sex laws (protested because of the cover charge of $12) and a takeover of the North American Conference of Homophile Organizations (NACHO) by the Gay Liberation Front in August 1970. GLF demanded that NACHO affirm its support of the Black Panther Party and Women’s Liberation and organize a national gay strike.
Clearly there was a generational difference between members of homophile organizations and the gay liberationists. Many of the younger generation had ties to the New Left and anti-war movements.
Laurence had been in Chicago for the ’68 Democratic convention and Wittman had written for the SDS before, for example. GLF members formed a gay contingent for the Nov. 15, 1969 Moratorium March Against the War. And by and large they read the underground press, not the gay press.
Demands for White Horse Protest, Gay Sunshine, October 1970
Horse sense The most dramatic confrontation between gay liberationists and gay bars came at the White Horse Bar in Oakland. Konstantin Berlandt, a long-time gay activist in Berkeley, was thrown out of the bar for selling Gay Sunshine by the owner Joe Johansen. The Gay Sunshine collective worked with the Berkeley GLF and picketed the bar. A list of demands included one that patrons be allowed to touch one another and slow dance. Within a week the bar capitulated to the protesters.
The White Horse wasn’t the only bar to raise the ire of liberationists.
Leonarda’s also refused to sell Gay Sunshineand a boycott was suggested (it’s hard to know how serious to take this, as the underground press kept reporting the bar’s name as “Leonardo’s”). The Stud also upset writers at the Berkeley Tribe by checking IDs at the door. They may, however, have just been opposed to bars as institutions. The article in the Tribesuggested:
“The bars can’t be liberated, they must be destroyed. They rip off our money, keep us in ghettos playing the same old weary games thinking that we are satisfied, and maintain all the divisions in Amerika — women and men, gay women and gay men, black and white, young and old. The Stud mentality in our heads has to be rooted out and killed too.”
Ultimately it was not the bars but the gay liberationists that disappeared as the 1970s progressed. I asked Gary Alinder, who was a member of Berkeley’s GLF, about burnout and the disappearance of Gay Lib in the ’70s.
“It evolved,” he said. “Gay liberation was a sudden uprising. Most of us were anti-organization. It was not meant to stay around for a long time. It was a burst of energy — an explosion. A second generation would come along that was more organized. But the message — to make people happy in themselves and come out — was valid.”
That burst of energy had a massive effect — it spread through LGBT organizations with programs like gay rap sessions to campuses across the country and created an explosion of new publications. Those publications and organizations did reach people. As a teen who picked up the Detroit Gay Liberator in the early ’70s, and who attended a gay rap meeting on my college campus, I can testify that those of us who followed were grateful for the work of the Stonewall generation.
Reference
From Stonewall to the White Horse: The Bay Area’s part in uprisings that changed the world, Bay Area Reporter, 26 June 2019, by Michael Flanagan https://www.ebar.com/bartab/bars//278089
Kids are often told that you can’t judge a book by its cover.
Even so, people often believe they can rely on their gut to intuit things about other people. Stereotypes often influence these impressions, whether it’s that a black man is dangerous, a woman won’t be a good leader or a fashionable man is gay.
Stereotypes related to gay men and lesbians often operate under the guise of “gaydar” rather than stereotyping. “Gaydar” (a portmanteau of “gay” and “radar”) is a term that first appeared in the 1980s and refers to a “sixth sense” for identifying who is gay. Like many purported intuitions, however, gaydar often relies on stereotypes.
While many people believe stereotyping is wrong, calling it “gaydar” merely provides a cover for using stereotypical traits – like someone’s fashion sense, profession or hairstyle – to jump to conclusions about someone being gay. Nonetheless, some researchers have published studies that, at first glance, appear to show that people have accurate gaydar.
In some recent work, my colleagues and I have been able to demonstrate how the perpetuation of the gaydar myth has unintended negative consequences. We’ve also identified a mathematical flaw in some previous gaydar research, calling into question the results.
Stereotyping in disguise
My colleagues and I suspected that even people who would normally try to refrain from stereotyping might be more likely to use gay stereotypes if they are led to believe they have gaydar.
To test this idea, we conducted an experiment. We told some participants that scientific evidence says gaydar was a real ability, led others to believe that gaydar is just another term for stereotyping and said nothing about gaydar to a third group (the control).
Participants then judged whether men were gay or straight based on information ostensibly taken from social media profiles. Some of the men had interests (or “likes”) that related to gay stereotypes, like fashion, shopping or theater. Others had interests related to straight stereotypes, like sports, hunting or cars, or “neutral” interests unrelated to stereotypes, like reading or movies. This design allowed us to assess how often people jumped to the conclusion that men were gay based on stereotypically gay interests. Those who were told gaydar is real stereotyped much more than the control group, and participants stereotyped much less when they had been told that gaydar is just another term for stereotyping.
These patterns provided strong support for the idea that belief in gaydar encourages stereotyping by simply disguising it under a different label.
What’s the big deal?
In some ways, the idea of gaydar – even if it’s just stereotyping – seems useful at best and harmless at worst. But the very fact that it seems harmless may actually be responsible for its most pernicious effects. Using gaydar as a way to talk innocuously or jokingly about stereotyping – “Oh, that guy sets off my gaydar” – trivializes stereotyping and makes it seem like no big deal.
But we know that stereotypes have many negative consequences, so we shouldn’t be encouraging it on any level.
First, stereotyping can facilitate prejudice. In a study on prejudice-based aggression, we had participants play a game that involved administering electric shocks to a subject in the other room. Participants learned only one thing about this other person, either that he was gay or simply liked shopping (people tend to assume men who like shopping are gay).
In one condition, therefore, the participants knew that the man was gay and in the other they might have privately inferred that he was gay though it wasn’t confirmed, but that wasn’t known to anyone else (who might have accused them of being prejudiced).
These conditions are especially important for a subset of people who are covertly prejudiced: They’re aware that they’re prejudiced and ok with it, but don’t want others to know. We can identify these people with some well-established questionnaire measures, and we know that they express prejudice only when they’re able to get away with it.
As we predicted, these covertly prejudiced people tended to refrain from shocking the man who was confirmed as gay, but delivered extremely high levels of shocks to the man who liked shopping. If they had shocked the first man, people could accuse them of prejudice (“You shocked him because he was gay!”). But if others accused participants of prejudice in the second condition, it could be plausibly denied (“I didn’t think he was gay!”). In other words, stereotyping can give people opportunities to express prejudices without fear of reprisal.
Second, stereotypes – even innocuous ones – are troublesome for a number of reasons: They lead us to think narrowly about people before we get to know them, they can justify discrimination and oppression, and, for members of stereotyped groups, they can even lead to depression and other mental health problems. Encouraging stereotyping under the guise of gaydar contributes – directly or indirectly – to stereotyping’s downstream consequences.
But what if gaydar is actually accurate?
Some researchers say that stereotypes about gay people possess a grain of truth, which could lend credence to the idea of having accurate gaydar.
In these studies, researchers presented pictures, sound clips and videos of real gay and straight people to the participants, who then categorized them as gay or straight.
Half of the people in the pictures, clips and videos were gay and half were straight, which meant that the participants would demonstrate an accurate gaydar if their accuracy rate were significantly higher than 50 percent. Indeed, participants tended to have about 60 percent accuracy, and the researchers concluded that people really do possess an accurate gaydar. Many studies have replicated these results, with their authors – and the media – touting them as evidence that gaydar exists.
Not so fast…
But as we’ve been able to show in two recentpapers, all of these previous studies fall prey to a mathematical error that, when corrected, actually leads to the opposite conclusion: Most of the time, gaydar will be highly inaccurate.
How can this be, if people in these studies are accurate at rates significantly higher than 50 percent?
There’s a problem in the basic premise of these studies: Namely, having a pool of people in which 50 percent of the targets are gay. In the real world, only around 3 to 8 percent of adults identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual.
What does this mean for interpreting the 60 percent accuracy rate? Think about what the 60 percent accuracy means for the straight targets in these studies. If people have 60 percent accuracy in identifying who is straight, it means that 40 percent of the time, straight people are incorrectly categorized. In a world where 95 percent of people are straight, 60 percent accuracy means that for every 100 people, there will be 38 straight people incorrectly assumed to be gay, but only three gay people correctly categorized.
Therefore, the 60 percent accuracy in the lab studies translates to 93 percent inaccuracy for identifying who is gay in the real world (38 / [38 + 3] = 92.7 percent). Even when people seem gay – and set off all the alarms on your gaydar – it’s far more likely that they’re straight. More straight people will seem to be gay than there are actual gay people in total.
If you’re disappointed to learn that your gaydar might not operate as well as you think it does, there’s a quick fix: Rather than coming to a snap judgment about people based on what they wear or how they talk, you’re probably better off just asking them.
The invention of AI ‘gaydar’ could be the start of something much worse
Researchers claim they can spot gay people from a photo, but critics say we’re revisiting pseudoscience
Two weeks ago, a pair of researchers from Stanford University made a startling claim. Using hundreds of thousands of images taken from a dating website, they said they had trained a facial recognition system that could identify whether someone was straight or gay just by looking at them. The work was first covered by The Economist, and other publications soon followed suit, with headlines like “New AI can guess whether you’re gay or straight from a photograph” and “AI Can Tell If You’re Gay From a Photo, and It’s Terrifying.”
As you might have guessed, it’s not as straightforward as that. (And to be clear, based on this work alone, AI can’t tell whether someone is gay or straight from a photo.) But the research captures common fears about artificial intelligence: that it will open up new avenues for surveillance and control, and could be particularly harmful for marginalized people. One of the paper’s authors, Dr Michal Kosinski, says his intent is to sound the alarm about the dangers of AI, and warns that facial recognition will soon be able to identify not only someone’s sexual orientation, but their political views, criminality, and even their IQ. SOME WARN WE’RE REPLACING THE CALIPERS OF PHYSIOGNOMY WITH NEURAL NETWORKS
With statements like these, some worry we’re reviving an old belief with a bad history: that you can intuit character from appearance. This pseudoscience, physiognomy, was fuel for the scientific racism of the 19th and 20th centuries, and gave moral cover to some of humanity’s worst impulses: to demonize, condemn, and exterminate fellow humans. Critics of Kosinski’s work accuse him of replacing the calipers of the 19th century with the neural networks of the 21st, while the professor himself says he is horrified by his findings, and happy to be proved wrong. “It’s a controversial and upsetting subject, and it’s also upsetting to us,” he tells The Verge.
But is it possible that pseudoscience is sneaking back into the world, disguised in new garb thanks to AI? Some people say machines are simply able to read more about us than we can ourselves, but what if we’re training them to carry out our prejudices, and, in doing so, giving new life to old ideas we rightly dismissed? How are we going to know the difference?
CAN AI REALLY SPOT SEXUAL ORIENTATION?
First, we need to look at the study at the heart of the recent debate, written by Kosinski and his co-author Yilun Wang. Its results have been poorly reported, with a lot of the hype coming from misrepresentations of the system’s accuracy. The paper states: “Given a single facial image, [the software] could correctly distinguish between gay and heterosexual men in 81 percent of cases, and in 71 percent of cases for women.” These rates increase when the system is given five pictures of an individual: up to 91 percent for men, and 83 percent for women.
On the face of it, this sounds like “AI can tell if a man is gay or straight 81 percent of the time by looking at his photo.” (Thus the headlines.) But that’s not what the figures mean. The AI wasn’t 81 percent correct when being shown random photos: it was tested on a pair of photos, one of a gay person and one of a straight person, and then asked which individual was more likely to be gay. It guessed right 81 percent of the time for men and 71 percent of the time for women, but the structure of the test means it started with a baseline of 50 percent — that’s what it’d get guessing at random. And although it was significantly better than that, the results aren’t the same as saying it can identify anyone’s sexual orientation 81 percent of the time. “PEOPLE ARE SCARED OF A SITUATION WHERE [YOU’RE IN A CROWD] AND A COMPUTER IDENTIFIES WHETHER YOU’RE GAY.”
As Philip Cohen, a sociologist at the University of Maryland who wrote a blog post critiquing the paper, told The Verge: “People are scared of a situation where you have a private life and your sexual orientation isn’t known, and you go to an airport or a sporting event and a computer scans the crowd and identifies whether you’re gay or straight. But there’s just not much evidence this technology can do that.”
Kosinski and Wang make this clear themselves toward the end of the paper when they test their system against 1,000 photographs instead of two. They ask the AI to pick out who is most likely to be gay in a dataset in which 7 percent of the photo subjects are gay, roughlyreflecting the proportion of straight and gay men in the US population. When asked to select the 100 individuals most likely to be gay, the system gets only 47 out of 70 possible hits. The remaining 53 have been incorrectly identified. And when asked to identify a top 10, nine are right.
If you were a bad actor trying to use this system to identify gay people, you couldn’t know for sure you were getting correct answers. Although, if you used it against a large enough dataset, you might get mostly correct guesses. Is this dangerous? If the system is being used to target gay people, then yes, of course. But the rest of the study suggests the program has even further limitations.
WHAT CAN COMPUTERS REALLY SEE THAT HUMANS CAN’T?
It’s also not clear what factors the facial recognition system is using to make its judgements. Kosinski and Wang’s hypothesis is that it’s primarily identifying structural differences: feminine features in the faces of gay men and masculine features in the faces of gay women. But it’s possible that the AI is being confused by other stimuli — like facial expressions in the photos. THE AI MIGHT BE IDENTIFYING STEREOTYPES, NOT BIOLOGICAL DIFFERENCES
This is particularly relevant because the images used in the study were taken from a dating website. As Greggor Mattson, a professor of sociology at Oberlin College, pointed out in a blog post, this means that the images themselves are biased, as they were selected specifically to attract someone of a certain sexual orientation. They almost certainly play up to our cultural expectations of how gay and straight people should look, and, to further narrow their applicability, all the subjects were white, with no inclusion of bisexual or self-identified trans individuals. If a straight male chooses the most stereotypically “manly” picture of himself for a dating site, it says more about what he thinks society wants from him than a link between the shape of his jaw and his sexual orientation.
To try and ensure their system was looking at facial structure only, Kosinski and Wang used software called VGG-Face, which encodes faces as strings of numbers and has been used for tasks like spotting celebrity lookalikes in paintings. This program, they write, allows them to “minimize the role [of] transient features” like lighting, pose, and facial expression.
But researcher Tom White, who works on AI facial system, says VGG-Face is actually very good at picking up on these elements. White pointed this out on Twitter, and explained to The Verge over email how he’d tested the software and used it to successfully distinguish between faces with expressions like “neutral” and “happy,” as well as poses and background color.
A figure from the paper showing the average faces of the participants, and the difference in facial structures that they identified between the two sets. Image: Kosinski and Wang
Speaking to The Verge, Kosinski says he and Wang have been explicit that things like facial hair and makeup could be a factor in the AI’s decision-making, but he maintains that facial structure is the most important. “If you look at the overall properties of VGG-Face, it tends to put very little weight on transient facial features,” Kosinski says. “We also provide evidence that non-transient facial features seem to be predictive of sexual orientation.”
The problem is, we can’t know for sure. Kosinski and Wang haven’t released the program they created or the pictures they used to train it. They do test their AI on other picture sources, to see if it’s identifying some factor common to all gay and straight, but these tests were limited and also drew from a biased dataset — Facebook profile pictures from men who liked pages such as “I love being Gay,” and “Gay and Fabulous.”
Do men in these groups serve as reasonable proxies for all gay men? Probably not, and Kosinski says it’s possible his work is wrong. “Many more studies will need to be conducted to verify [this],” he says. But it’s tricky to say how one could completely eliminate selection bias to perform a conclusive test. Kosinski tells The Verge, “You don’t need to understand how the model works to test whether it’s correct or not.” However, it’s the acceptance of the opacity of algorithms that makes this sort of research so fraught.
IF AI CAN’T SHOW ITS WORKING, CAN WE TRUST IT?
AI researchers can’t fully explain why their machines do the things they do. It’s a challenge that runs through the entire field, and is sometimes referred to as the “black box” problem. Because of the methods used to train AI, these programs can’t show their work in the same way normal software does, although researchers are working to amend this.
In the meantime, it leads to all sorts of problems. A common one is that sexist and racist biases are captured from humans in the training data and reproduced by the AI. In the case of Kosinski and Wang’s work, the “black box” allows them to make a particular scientific leap of faith. Because they’re confident their system is primarily analyzing facial structures, they say their research shows that facial structures predict sexual orientation. (“Study 1a showed that facial features extracted by a [neural network] can be used to accurately identify the sexual orientation of both men and women.”)“BIOLOGY’S A LITTLE BIT MORE NUANCED THAN WE OFTEN GIVE IT CREDIT FOR.”
Experts say this is a misleading claim that isn’t supported by the latest science. There may be a common cause for face shape and sexual orientation — the most probable cause is the balance of hormones in the womb — but that doesn’t mean face shape reliably predicts sexual orientation, says Qazi Rahman, an academic at King’s College London who studies the biology of sexual orientation. “Biology’s a little bit more nuanced than we often give it credit for,” he tells The Verge. “The issue here is the strength of the association.”
The idea that sexual orientation comes primarily from biology is itself controversial. Rahman, who believes that sexual orientation is mostly biological, praises Kosinski and Wang’s work. “It’s not junk science,” he says. “More like science someone doesn’t like.” But when it comes to predicting sexual orientation, he says there’s a whole package of “atypical gender behavior” that needs to be considered. “The issue for me is more that [the study] misses the point, and that’s behavior.”
s there a gay gene? Or is sexuality equally shaped by society and culture? Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Reducing the question of sexual orientation to a single, measurable factor in the body has a long and often inglorious history. As Matton writes in his blog post, approaches have ranged from “19th century measurements of lesbians’ clitorises and homosexual men’s hips, to late 20th century claims to have discovered ‘gay genes,’ ‘gay brains,’ ‘gay ring fingers,’ ‘lesbian ears,’ and ‘gay scalp hair.’” The impact of this work is mixed, but at its worst it’s a tool of oppression: it gives people who want to dehumanize and persecute sexual minorities a “scientific” pretext.
Jenny Davis, a lecturer in sociology at the Australian National University, describes it as a form of biological essentialism. This is the belief that things like sexual orientation are rooted in the body. This approach, she says, is double-edged. On the one hand, it “does a useful political thing: detaching blame from same-sex desire. But on the other hand, it reinforces the devalued position of that kind of desire,” setting up hetrosexuality as the norm and framing homosexuality as “less valuable … a sort of illness.”
And it’s when we consider Kosinski and Wang’s research in this context that AI-powered facial recognition takes on an even darker aspect — namely, say some critics, as part of a trend to the return of physiognomy, powered by AI.
YOUR CHARACTER, AS PLAIN AS THE NOSE ON YOUR FACE
For centuries, people have believed that the face held the key to the character. The notion has its roots in ancient Greece, but was particularly influential in the 19th century. Proponents of physiognomy suggested that by measuring things like the angle of someone’s forehead or the shape of their nose, they could determine if a person was honest or a criminal. Last year in China, AI researchers claimed they could do the same thing using facial recognition.
Their research, published as “Automated Inference on Criminality Using Face Images,” caused a minor uproar in the AI community. Scientists pointed out flaws in the study, and concluded that that work was replicating human prejudices about what constitutes a “mean” or a “nice” face. In a widely shared rebuttal titled “Physiognomy’s New Clothes,” Google researcher Blaise Agüera y Arcas and two co-authors wrote that we should expect “more research in the coming years that has similar … false claims to scientific objectivity in order to ‘launder’ human prejudice and discrimination.” (Google declined to make Agüera y Arcas available to comment on this report.)
Kosinski and Wang’s paper clearly acknowledges the dangers of physiognomy, noting that the practice “is now universally, and rightly, rejected as a mix of superstition and racism disguised as science.” But, they continue, just because a subject is “taboo,” doesn’t mean it has no basis in truth. They say that because humans are able to read characteristics like personality in other people’s faces with “low accuracy,” machines should be able to do the same but more accurately.
Kosinski says his research isn’t physiognomy because it’s using rigorous scientific methods, and his paper cites a number of studies showing that we can deduce (with varying accuracy) traits about people by looking at them. “I was educated and made to believe that it’s absolutely impossible that the face contains any information about your intimate traits, because physiognomy and phrenology were just pseudosciences,” he says. “But the fact that they were claiming things without any basis in fact, that they were making stuff up, doesn’t mean that this stuff is not real.” He agrees that physiognomy is not science, but says there may be truth in its basic concepts that computers can reveal.
For Davis, this sort of attitude comes from a widespread and mistaken belief in the neutrality and objectivity of AI. “Artificial intelligence is not in fact artificial,” she tells The Verge. “Machines learn like humans learn. We’re taught through culture and absorb the norms of social structure, and so does artificial intelligence. So it will re-create, amplify, and continue on the trajectories we’ve taught it, which are always going to reflect existing cultural norms.”
We’ve already created sexist and racist algorithms, and these sorts of cultural biases and physiognomy are really just two sides of the same coin: both rely on bad evidence to judge others. The work by the Chinese researchers is an extreme example, but it’s certainly not the only one. There’s at least one startup already active that claims it can spot terrorists and pedophiles using face recognition, and there are many others offering to analyze “emotional intelligence” and conduct AI-powered surveillance.
FACING UP TO WHAT’S COMING
But to return to the questions implied by those alarming headlines about Kosinski and Wang’s paper: is AI going to be used to persecute sexual minorities?
This system? No. A different one? Maybe.
Kosinski and Wang’s work is not invalid, but its results need serious qualifications and further testing. Without that, all we know about their system is that it can spot with some reliability the difference between self-identified gay and straight white people on one particular dating site. We don’t know that it’s spotted a biological difference common to all gay and straight people; we don’t know if it would work with a wider set of photos; and the work doesn’t show that sexual orientation can be deduced with nothing more than, say, a measurement of the jaw. It’s not decoded human sexuality any more than AI chatbots have decoded the art of a good conversation. (Nor do its authors make such a claim.)
Startup Faception claims it can identify how likely people are to be terrorists just by looking at their face. Image: Faception
The research was published to warn people, say Kosinski, but he admits it’s an “unavoidable paradox” that to do so you have to explain how you did what you did. All the tools used in the paper are available for anyone to find and put together themselves. Writing at the deep learning education site Fast.ai, researcher Jeremy Howard concludes: “It is probably reasonably [sic] to assume that many organizations have already completed similar projects, but without publishing them in the academic literature.”
We’ve already mentioned startups working on this tech, and it’s not hard to find government regimes that would use it. In countries like Iran and Saudi Arabia homosexuality is still punishable by death; in many other countries, being gay means being hounded, imprisoned, and tortured by the state. Recent reports have spoken of the opening of concentration camps for gay men in the Chechen Republic, so what if someone there decides to make their own AI gaydar, and scan profile pictures from Russian social media?
Here, it becomes clear that the accuracy of systems like Kosinski and Wang’s isn’t really the point. If people believe AI can be used to determine sexual preference, they will use it. With that in mind, it’s more important than ever that we understand the limitations of artificial intelligence, to try and neutralize dangers before they start impacting people. Before we teach machines our prejudices, we need to first teach ourselves.
On the night of November 18, 1901, in Mexico City, a disgruntled citizen called for the authorities to break up a party being held nearby. This party was a ball not the first, nor the last of its kind in the city, in which male elites dressed to the nines and danced the night away, oftentimes concluding the evening with a raffle in which the coveted prize was a male escort.
At this particular event, 42 men were in attendance half wore suits, the other half in expensive gowns and wigs. All but one were detained and later subjected to public ridicule; forced to sweep up the streets in dresses in plain daylight where the public was free to throw things and hurl insults at them. This would become a common punishment, not excluding police brutality, for homosexual acts. The incident was dubbed by newspapers “The Dance of the Forty-One” or “El Baile De Los Cuarenta y Uno.”
Due in large part to their social status, and overall influence on the authorities, the names of the detainees were never publicly released after the fact. In addition, all publications mentioning the event were destroyed and banned from further coverage, leaving only folklore and a vague though negative association to the number 41 and the LGBTQ community in Mexico, as well as the legend of the 42nd guest, Ignacio De La Torre y Mier, son-in-law to then-President Porfirio Díaz.
Frida Kahlo, poet Juana Inéz de la Cruz, both queer women whose contributions to Literature and art have cemented them as greats within Mexico’s vast history, are generally depicted as straight. Though tolerance for the LGBTQ community has (slowly) spread, history and religion are still seen as sacred and not to be questioned. This is especially harmful to queer kids coming to terms with their identity because it paints homosexuality as a relatively new development.
Growing up I’d heard relatives occasionally refer to the number 41 when making some kind of tasteless gay joke. I didn’t know what it meant or where it came from, but going by tone alone, I could sense it was a homophobic slur of some sort. A few weeks ago, while reading on the Mexican Revolution of 1910, one name kept peripherally popping up, and this piqued my interest. One dive into a Google black hole later, I found myself reading through every small piece of information most of it in Spanish that I could find on this guy. Significant historical figures have always been whitewashed in favor of heterosexual culture, so it’s no surprise that even people briefly connected to, say, a former President would be difficult to successfully research.
Born into a prominent family of sugar manufacturers, Ignacio De La Torre was brought up knowing only the best. He attended private schools in both Mexico and the U.S., and he was praised as a gifted student, furthermore, he was generally well-liked. At the age of 15, after his father’s passing, Ignacio took over the family business and ran it surprisingly well. The already fruitful franchise thrived further under his direction, due greatly to the tunnel vision like ambition young Ignacio possessed; a stubborn and competitive attitude toward business and finance that made him infamous for his reckless actions.
On one occasion, he even went as far as blocking a river channel that passed through his land for the sake of aesthetic, effectively causing multiple floods in the surrounding towns, yet he managed to avoid legal consequence; the incident was never even acknowledged by the authorities.
More than business savvy, however, Ignacio was known for his recreational activities, often involving alcohol, and his affinity for men. Money allowed him to live lavishly as well as shamelessly, and while Mexico’s toxic general views on homosexuality were no less inflammatory then than they are now, his reputation as a well-respected businessman was never tattered. It helped that he was admired for his charisma. He was so charming, in fact, that President Porfirio Díaz offered Ignacio his daughter’s hand in marriage despite his problematic reputation. Ignacio accepted, but the marriage quickly took a turn.
Not long after they were married, Amada Díaz and De La Torre grew apart; his drinking and dalliances leading up The Dance of The 41 proving to be too much for his bride. Eventually, the pair split up, though they remained legally married and living under the same roof, in different wings of their estate.
Only a few years after his involvement with the raid, Ignacio found himself connected to yet another public figure: future hero of the Mexican Revolution Emiliano Zapata.
Emiliano Zapata was well known amongst peasant workers and farmers as an organizer of protests against Hacienda owners and the monopolizing of land and natural resources. He was also known for his extreme dislike of queer and effeminate men. In addition, it was common knowledge that Zapata held a general dislike for Dictator Diaz, who was the personification of everything the agricultural movement was against. This was the primary source for public speculation regarding his connection to Ignacio De La Torre.
A descendant of a long line of farmers, Zapata was an expert horse trainer. As such, he was hired by De La Torre to get his horses and stables in order. The pair spent a period of six months together, alone for the most part, before abruptly going their separate ways.
Of course whatever official records that may have existed documenting their encounter will likely never be found, as is the fate of most queer history. However, pieces of their connection have been discovered elsewhere; such as in prison records indicating that on one occasion, after the overthrow of Porfirio Díaz in 1911, Zapata personally had De La Torre freed from detainment. In addition, there is an account in Amada Díaz’s personal journals citing the discovery of her husband in a compromising position with Emiliano Zapata in the stables.
Having lost his influence due to his connection to the former President, De La Torre came to realize he was no longer held in as high regard, and his shenanigans landed him in jail on several occasions. In one particular instance, he attempted to pass himself off as Emiliano Zapata in order to pull off a grain manufacturing-related scheme. Upon discovering this, Zapata had him arrested. This is speculated to have been what finally severed ties between them.
Ignacio De La Torre died in New York in 1919 of complications during a surgery relating to a severe hemorrhoid condition. He had fled prosecution in 1913 for his suspected involvement in the assassination of President Francisco I. Madero. He left behind an obscene amount of debt and a tale as colorful as the man himself.
Mexico is a country of rituals and tradition, and it is rich in culture. However, a large portion of that culture is rooted in Misogynist Patriarchal ideals and deeply religious beliefs that have heavily and negatively impacted the progression or lack thereof of LGBTQ rights. It has buried its queer history behind an antiquated belief system, and while our icons are loved and admired, their identities are nearly always erased.
Ignacio De La Torre was not a great painter or writer, and his wealth didn’t make him a philanthropist, but denying his connection to great figures does more harm than good. That being said, the extra elbow grease it takes to track down our past is all the more rewarding when it leads us to characters like De La Torre if only to assure ourselves and the world that we’ve always held a significant place in history.
Today, the national Latinx non-profit organization Honor41 is named in those who attended the dance. They work to promote “positive images of our community, creates awareness about our issues and builds an online family/community” and say that “by adopting 41 in our name, we take away the negative, oppressive power associated to the number; we educate others about this important moment in LGBTQ history; we honor their legacy, and honor our own lives and contributions to society.”
If gay life was a giant ballroom (and it kind of is), kinky leathermen have been lingering in the back, in the shadows, for generations. But thanks to the Internet and porn giants like San Francisco-based Kink.com, fetish play has stepped onto the main floor over the last decade. Regardless if you’re kinky or vanilla, knowing some basic terminology will help you navigate Scruff profiles and boost your confidence at your local leather bar. And who knows? You might stumble across a term you didn’t know existed — and something you really want to try.
1. Kink and Fetish
These are the broadest terms on this list because, colloquially, they have become synonymous for most people. But since some kinksters (kinky people) stress their difference, we will define them separately. A kink is an unconventional sexual interest — that’s it. A fetish is a bit more particular. Fetishes are generally considered nonhuman objects that enhance sexual arousal, and for some people, they may be required for sexual arousal. Simply put: A fetish is a particular stimulus (feet, gas masks, certain items of clothing), while a kink is just something you’re into (bondage, spanking, etc.).
2. S&M (also written as S/M)
This stands for sadism and masochism. Sadism is sexual arousal that arises from inflicting pain on others. Masochism is sexual arousal from experiencing painful sensory stimulation. Guys into flogging (see #19) are sadists. Guys who enjoy getting flogged are masochists.
3. BDSM
This acronym stands for bondage, domination/discipline, submission/sadism and, masochism, and is sometimes used as an umbrella term for kink. This can be misleading, however, because someone may have kinks that do not fall under these terms. For instance, a guy may be exclusively into fisting (see #13) or forced tickling. This guy is kinky — he has “unconventional” sexual tastes, at least by vanilla people’s standards — but he is not into BDSM.
4. Dom/Dominant
Most kinks are enjoyed via a dominant-submissive sexual dynamic between two (or more) people. Someone takes charge and the other person submits. The take-charge person is the Dom, or Dominant. Male Dominants usually go by Sir, and may be called Mister, Daddy, Handler, Coach, etc. Female Dominants (also called Dommes and Dominatrixes) may go by Mistress or Lady. Don’t forget to capitalize the first letter!
5. Sub/Submissive
Every particular Dom-sub (typically shortened to D/s) relationship has a slightly different power dynamic, but the sub/submissive is always the one who relinquishes control to the Dominant. Note: sub guys are not exclusively bottom, but this is definitely more common.
6. Switch
A switch is a guy (or girl) who enjoys both domination and submission — the kink version of the ever-elusive, 50/50 versatile bedmate. Naturally, switches pair up best with other switches.
7. Scene
This is a somewhat debated term in the world of kink, but most kinksters agree that a “scene” is one particular kink, the culture surrounding it, and its community of practitioners. For instance, watersports (see #17) is a scene that many people are into. Debate occurs because the term is also used to mean the actual playtime between a Dom and sub. By this second definition, a scene begins when a sub and Dom start to play. While the length of time that scenes last vary based on pre-established limits, scenes typically have defined beginning and end points. (This writer does not encourage beginners to jump immediately into extreme 24/7 scenes, which can be emotionally and psychologically damaging without ample discussion and experience beforehand.)
8. Limits
Limits are important, and every submissive guy’s limits are different. A limit is the point beyond which you do not allow Dominants to go. “Soft limits” are things that you’re mostly against, but in certain circumstances may try. For instance, drinking urine is a soft limit for this writer — an act not done in most circumstances, but perhaps for special occasions (like this year’s Folsom Street Fair). Soft limits may change over time. A “hard limit,” by contrast, is nonnegotiable. This writer’s hard limits are the presence of blood and/or feces. If either one of these appear during a scene, I’m finished, and playtime stops.
9. Safe Word
Safe words are vital for beginners and experienced kinksters alike. A safe word is a word or phrase that submissives use to stop a scene. Like hard limits, safe words are nonnegotiable. If a Dom ignores a safe word, they are considered “unsafe” and will not be welcomed in the kink community. We don’t like unsafe Doms because they can really hurt people. In kink porn, the industry standard safe word is “red,” so that’s what most kinksters use. Since being gagged is one of this writer’s biggest turn-ons, the “safe word” is not a word at all. In this case, a snap of the fingers or a slap on the thigh means “stop right now.”
10. Leather
Leather is the most popular fetishized material, with rubber as a close second. Many guys get excited by the look and feel of leather clothing, boots, harnesses, and other gear. Leather is so commonly fetishized and has been closely linked to BDSM for so many years that many people now see the “leather community” — guys all over the world who enjoy wearing leather and attend leather events and competitions — as synonymous with kink and BDSM.
11. Bondage
Bondage is probably the most basic and widely known feature of BDSM. And it’s unfailingly one of the most erotic. Bondage involves making a submissive helpless and immobilized. This can be done with rope, handcuffs, leather cuffs, chains, stocks, and mummification (see #25).
12. CBT
Cock and ball torture. This includes ball-stretching (stretching the scrotal sac so that it hangs lower by using weights and other devices to pull on it) and ball-bashing, which is exactly what it sounds like: hitting the balls with small paddles and similiar blunt objects. E-stimulation (see #14) is also commonly used for CBT — especially for cock torture.
13. FF
Fisting/fist fucking. This is the practice of slowly stretching open the anus with fingers until the whole hand is inserted. With practice, skilled fisters (guys who give fists) and fistees (guys who take them) can go all the way to the elbow and even the shoulder — or get double-fisted. Novices generally start with toys and dildos and work their way up. Fisting is not for beginners. When done incorrectly, fisting can cause severe injury. If this is something you want to try, go slowly and use lots of lube. You can’t use too much lube in fisting — lube should be everywhere by the time you’re done. While it may sound extreme, fisting is one of the most erotic and intense experiences you can have with someone (and can produce the most mind-blowing orgasms) when done correctly.
14. E-Stimulation/Electrical Play
E-stim involves using electrodes and electric shock during BDSM play. This is another kink that is not for beginners. Professionally made electrical units have to be used.
15. Puppy Play
Puppy play is one scene in the world of kink that is growing rapidly in popularity. Puppy play is part of a group of scenes that fall under the umbrella of Animal Training or Animal Play, in which submissives act like animals. Pony play and kitty play also fall into this category. In puppy play, the Dominant is called the Owner or Handler, and the submissive is called the pup. During the scene, pups stereotypically act like dogs — they bark, walk on all fours, and come when called (when they feel obedient). Handlers give pups “treats” (sexual or otherwise) and discipline them when they misbehave. While there is no standard way to do puppy play, most pups and handlers agree that the power dynamic is very relaxed and playful.
16. Slave/Master
If pups and handlers have a relaxed power dynamic, Master-slave relationships are the opposite. This scene typically involves very hardcore BDSM and domestic service from the slave, with lengthy playtimes — some slaves and Masters practice live-in, 24-7 scenes.
17. Piss Play
Also called watersports, piss play fetishizes urine. Guys into this scene enjoy getting peed on or drinking piss. Since actual (canine) pups pee on everything, a lot of guys into puppy play are also into piss play.
18. Candle Play
Candle play is hardly a scene of its own, but we’re sure that somewhere out there is a sadistic guy exclusively into using candles to drip hot wax on submissives to create a painful sensation that typically does not leave long-lasting marks or long-term damage. Typically, though, candles are used alongside other S&M practices during BDSM scenes
19. Flogging
Flogging is an S&M practice in which a Dominant whips a submissive with a flogger, which is a multi-tailed whip that is typically made out of leather. Depending on the severity, flogging can feel like anything from a back massage to an extremely painful experience. Beyond floggers, other devices commonly used are bull whips and cat o’ nine tails (see #26).
20. Edging
Edging or edge play involves dominant guys withholding orgasm from a submissive. You’ve probably done this to yourself while watching porn: masturbating and barely reaching the point of cumming and then abruptly stopping. This is one of the hottest and most intense “tortures” to experience as a submissive, especially when you are allowed to play for hours and with a skilled Dominant.
21. Nipple Torture
Nipple torture typically involves using devices like nipple clamps, suction clamps, clothespins, needles, and mousetraps on the nipples in order to create a painful sensation, but using hands and teeth work fine too. Chew and suck for hours of enjoyment.
22. Corporal Punishment
Some submissive guys really enjoy the idea of getting “punished” during BDSM scenes. Some even intentionally “disobey” and talk back to their Dominants as part of the scene in order to get punished. Corporal punishment is a BDSM practice in which Dominants use repetitive spankings and paddling (along with interrogation, see #23) to change a submissive’s behavior.
23. Interrogation
Some kinky guys get aroused watching those hot scenes in war movies and spy movies where someone is kidnapped, blindfolded, tied to a chair, and interrogated — so it’s no surprise that interrogation has become a popular practice in BDSM, and one that requires extensive amounts of creativity, imagination, and role play. Remember, however, that everything in kink is consensual. All scenes — even intense and long-lasting interrogation ones — are eroticized pretend games that Doms and subs enjoy together.
24. Chastity
You’ve no doubt seen cock cages and male chastity devices somewhere on the Internet. These devices keep a penis from getting hard, so by extension they keep you from achieving orgasm or pleasing yourself. It’s a form of control that Doms exert over their subs. Some cock cages can only be opened with a key — which naturally belongs on a chain around Sir’s neck.
25. Mummification
This is a particular form of bondage in which the whole body is wrapped in some kind of material – typically plastic wrap. Since this form of bondage is completely immobilizing, it is not for beginners.
26. Cat O’ Nine Tails
This whip — a favorite among old-school S&M practitioners — has nine strands and is known to pack an especially nasty sting.
26. Age Play
Age play is a broad term for any kinky practice that involves the submissive acting younger than they really are or pretending to be a “son,” “baby,” etc. The fetishes of diapers and children’s toys are typically involved.
27. Hanky Code
The hanky code is a longstanding sexual color code that has been around since the 1970s. Long before hookup apps like Grindr and Scruff, gay and bisexual men seeking casual sex wore colored handkerchiefs in their pant pockets indicating what kind of sex they were seeking and whether they were a dominant/top or submissive/bottom. The color code is pretty extensive and includes various kinks and fetishes, and is still used today by gay clothing brands like Nasty Pig and CellBlock 13 — and, obviously, by kinky gay men.
28. Negotiation
When you meet a kinky guy that you are interested in, it is important for you two to talk honestly and clearly discuss what kinks you both enjoy, what you are both looking to do, what limits must be adhered to, and what safe words will be used. This period of discussion is called “negotiation.” For beginners, it is recommended that you do extensive negotiation before your first play session.
29. Contract
Thanks to the cringe-worthy series Fifty Shades of Grey, which thoroughly misrepresents the kink community, many people mistakenly believe that contracts are only used for 24/7, slave-and-master style D/s relationships. This is false. Contracts cannot be legally enforced, and will not hold up in court. They are simply written documents outlining and clarifying the parameters of the relationship, and typically list what safe words and limits will be adhered to.
30. Safe, Sane, and Consensual
This slogan is the golden rule of BDSM. Play should always be safe: long-term damage or injury is not permitted among the vast majority of the international kink community. And above all else, play must be consensual. There is a difference between “rape fantasy,” which is role-play, and actual rape — something the international kink community condemns. This is why safe words and hard limits must be respected: they keep the play consensual and safe and allow submissives to stop whenever the scene ceases to be enjoyable. Keep these three words in mind and you will find yourself part of an awesome community of people into more kinks than you can possibly imagine. Welcome to the ball.
The religious anti-gay right has been knocked back on its heels by gay rights advances. But its hardest core angrily presses on
Four teenagers commit suicide in a three-week span after being bullied, taunted or outed as homosexuals. Seven students — at least four of whom had endured anti-gay bullying — kill themselves over the course of a year in a single Minnesota school district. In New York, 10 suspects are arrested for torturing three gay victims. In Covington, Ky., a series of violent anti-gay attacks shock a trendy neighborhood. In Vonore, Tenn., a lesbian couple’s home, its garage spray-painted with “Queers,” is burned to the ground. A rash of attacks hits Washington, D.C. And in Michigan, a prosecutor harasses a local gay rights student leader for months.
All of this is only a sampling of the anti-gay attacks occurring around the nation, most of it drawn from just the last few months. Although the rash of student suicides drew major media attention for a few days, the reality, gay rights advocates say, is that the LGBT world has been plagued by hate violence for years.
Responding to the wave of teen suicides — including, most dramatically, that of 18-year-old Tyler Clementi, a Rutgers University student who leaped off the George Washington Bridge in New York City in September — anti-gay leaders instead blamed those who sought to protect students from bullying.
Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association said gay rights activists “pressure these students to declare a disordered sexual preference when they’re too young to know better, [so] they share some culpability.” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, a key critic of anti-bullying programs, said gay activists were “exploiting these tragedies to push their agenda.” He said that gay kids may know “intuitively” that their desires are “abnormal” and that the claim, pushed by gay activists, that they can’t change “may create a sense of despair that can lead to suicide.” Matt Barber of Liberty Counsel said those activists want “to use the tragedies to increase pressure on the real victims: Christians.”
Anti-gay ideologues like Tony Perkins (from left to right), Bryan Fischer and Charles Colson were put on the defensive following years of sometimes vicious rhetoric.
In fact, the chief target of these anti-gay ideologues — the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) — has been working to get protection from school bullying for a wide range of racial, religious and sexual minorities, not only LGBT students. It’s extremely hard to see how their efforts are exploitative, or how the “real” victims of bullying are Christians. GLSEN’s mission statement says that it “strives to assure that each member of every school community is valued.”
What’s more, bullying is only the beginning of the violence experienced by gays in American society. The reality is that homosexuals or perceived homosexuals are by far the group most targeted in America for violent hate crimes, according to an Intelligence Report analysis of 14 years of federal hate crime data. The bottom line: Gay people are more than twice as likely to be attacked in a violent hate crime as Jews or blacks; more than four times as likely as Muslims; and 14 times as likely as Latinos.
A Changing Landscape Remarkably, most Americans today seem to have a sense of the violence that the LGBT community is regularly subjected to, or in any event are increasingly rejecting extreme religious-right narratives about the alleged evils of homosexuality. An October poll by the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute found that 65% of Americans believe “places of worship contribute to higher rates of suicide among gay and lesbian youth” (33% said “a lot” and 32% said “a little”). Seventy-two percent said places of worship “contribute to negative views of gay and lesbian people” (40% said “a lot” and 32% said “a little”). (At the same time, the survey found that 44% of Americans still view same-sex relations as a sin.)
This was not always so. In 2003, the legalization of same-sex marriage in most of Canada, plus the U.S. Supreme Court’s striking down of anti-gay sodomy laws in 13 states and a court decision in Massachusetts against gay marriage bans, produced a major backlash. By 2008, fueled by the anti-gay rhetoric and political organizing of religious-right groups, at least 40 states and the federal government had adopted constitutional bans or laws against same-sex marriages.
Since then, the record has been mixed. But it’s clear that public support for same-sex marriage — and opposition to its religious opponents — is on the rise.
Five states now allow same-sex marriage, and another three recognize such unions from other states. California allowed them for some months in 2008, but the Proposition 8 referendum ended that — until a federal judge this fall overturned the proposition, saying it discriminated unconstitutionally against homosexuals. A 2006 federal bill that would have prohibited states from recognizing same-sex marriage failed. By this August, according to a Roper poll, a majority of Americans supported same-sex marriage for the first time. The poll found that 52% said the federal government should recognize such marriages (up from 46% in 2009), and 58% said same-sex couples should be entitled to the same benefits as other couples.
An earlier Gallup poll, released in May 2010, had similar results. It found that Americans now see gay relationships as “morally acceptable” by a 52% to 43% margin — compared to a 55% to 38%unfavorable view just eight years earlier. Every demographic group within the data set grew more accepting — Catholics, for instance, polled as 62% favorable, compared to 46% four years ago.
This fall’s mid-term elections were the first since the 1990s with no measures to ban gay marriage on any state ballot, according to The Associated Press. And although same-sex marriage was an issue at press time in four gubernatorial races, the AP reported, Democratic candidates in Rhode Island and California were vying to become the fourth and fifth openly gay members of Congress.
“We’ve reached a tipping point this year,” said Wayne Besen, founder of TruthWinsOut.com, which monitors the anti-gay right. “The religious right is losing some of its steam. We’re going to win this issue quicker than people think.”
When Focus on the Family pastor Jim Daly made conciliatory moves toward gay activists, the hard-line Illinois Family Institute’s Laurie Higgins accused him of talking like a “homosexualist.”
When Focus on the Family pastor Jim Daly made conciliatory moves toward gay activists, the hard-line Illinois Family Institute’s Laurie Higgins accused him of talking like a “homosexualist.”
It may not be only gay rights advocates who think so. Last February, after founder James Dobson retired and pastor Jim Daly took over,Focus on the Family — for years, the powerhouse organization of the anti-gay religious right — markedly softened its anti-gay rhetoric. Daly began meeting with gay rights activists, ended the ministry’s controversial “reparative therapy” for gays and lesbians, and even suggested that legalized same-sex marriage might not be a disaster.
“I will continue to defend traditional marriage, but I’m not going to demean human beings for the process,” Daly told an interviewer. “I want to express respect for everyone, all human beings. It’s not about being highly confrontational.”
Digging In It is in just such situations — when long-held societal notions about blacks, Latinos, Catholics, homosexuals or other minorities are shifting — that violent backlashes often set in. As groups like Focus on the Family have moderated their positions on homosexuality, a hard core of anti-gay groups, sensing they are being politically marginalized, seem to be growing angrier and more radical still.
The reaction of Laurie Higgins of the Illinois Family Institute, may be illustrative. Upon hearing of Daly’s moves, she said the Focus on the Family leader was showing “surprising naïveté,” adding that he instead “better figure out how to stop the pro-homosexual juggernaut.” As to his comments about refusing to “demean human beings,” Higgins said, “The language employed by Mr. Daly here is the kind of language commonly employed by … homosexualists.”
“True conservatives,” Higgins added tartly elsewhere, “need to rethink their cowardly refusal to address the inherent immorality of homosexual practice and their deeply flawed strategy of calling for a moratorium on ‘social issues.’”
A leading criminologist and sociologist of hate crimes, Jack Levin of Northeastern University, sees evidence of the growing radicalization of the fringe in other ways. He says perpetrators of anti-gay hate crimes appear to be getting older. No longer are they dominated by teens engaging in thrill-seeking with predatory gangs of their peers. More and more, he says, lone adults are committing what Levin calls “defensive hate crimes” — crimes carried out in reaction to sweeping social changes that they see as threats to their home, family, religion, culture or country.
The shrinking size of the most virulent parts of the anti-gay religious right was much in evidence at the August “Truth Academy” staged outside Chicago by Peter LaBarbera and his Americans for Truth About Homosexuality. The three-day gathering immediately followed what to many anti-gay activists was a kind of nuclear disaster — the overturning by a federal appeals court judge of Proposition 8, which had temporarily ended gay marriage in California.
And what better motivator than a “homosexual judge” canceling out some 7 million votes against same-sex marriage? But that turned out not to be the case. Subtracting speakers, family members, volunteers and at least four interlopers who attended only to monitor events, the tally of those who paid to hear LaBarbera and the others speak during the first day was almost certainly fewer than 15.
Nevertheless, for many hard-liners, fighting homosexuality is a biblical imperative. They regard being forced to accept uncloseted gays as tantamount to being persecuted as Christians. If same-sex marriage becomes universally legal, the Family Research Council’s Perkins told the “Call to Conscience” rally held in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 4, “In one generation, we will have gone from banning the Bible in public schools to banning religious beliefs in society.”
As a result, the hard core of the anti-gay religious right is digging in. They have gravitated toward three particular tactics: “love the sinner” rhetoric; secular validation; and depicting gays as a global threat.
The Hard-Liners’ New Lines Not long ago, anti-gay propaganda was remarkable for its vulgar and wild-eyed tone — depicting homosexuals as immoral, feces-eating, disease-ridden pedophiles. And some of that tone, particularly the idea that gays seek to “recruit” children in school, remains in certain quarters. But that kind of approach doesn’t resonate much with younger audiences, who grew up with positive images of openly gay actors, musicians, artists, politicians and business leaders. As gays came out of the closet, others increasingly found they had gay friends and relatives.
Now, more and more groups on the religious right are framing their arguments with words that are meant to show respect for gays and lesbians. There is no better example of that than the Manhattan Declaration, drafted in 2009 by Watergate conspirator-turned-evangelist Charles Colson, Princeton University professor Robert P. George and Beeson Divinity School Dean Rev. Timothy George.
The declaration framed opposition to same-sex marriage as part of seeking an end to the “glamorizing” of promiscuity and infidelity generally. It emphasized that “our rejection of sin, though resolute, must never become the rejection of sinners.” It conceded that “there are sincere people who disagree with us … on questions of sexual morality and the nature of marriage.” “And so,” it concluded, “it is out of love (not ‘animus’) and prudent concern for the common good (not ‘prejudice’), that we pledge to labor ceaselessly to preserve the legal definition of marriage.”
That kinder, gentler language drew the support of many, but not as many as the religious right was used to getting. After setting a goal of obtaining 1 million signatures within 10 days of its Nov. 20, 2009, release, organizers said this Aug. 3 — almost nine months later — that they had amassed 463,000 signatures.
Another emphasis has been in seeking secular validation for anti-gay arguments — scientific evidence of the alleged pitfalls of homosexuality. Many on the religious anti-gay right now frame their arguments almost entirely around the idea that homosexuals present various dangers to children, that they will live short and unhappy lives, that they are more vulnerable to disease, and so on.
Paul Cameron of the Family Research Institute has been the source of many of the falsehoods touted by the anti-gay religious right.
The clearest statement of this may have come in late 2008 from Paul Cameron of the Family Research Institute: “We can no longer rely — as almost all pro-family organizations do today — on gleaning scientific ‘bits’ from those in liberal academia… . [W]e must subvert the academy by doing original, honest research ourselves and use this to advance the historic Christian faith.”
There’s just one trouble with this approach. Almost all the “facts” trotted out by the religious right about gays turn out to be false or misleading. And no one does more to create these myths than Cameron, whose work has been repudiated by three scholarly associations. (Others who are commonly cited as “researchers” by the anti-gay right include Joe Dallas, John R. Diggs, Joseph Nicolosi and the late Charles Socarides.) In addition, many scholars who do serious work in the area of sexuality say their work is misused by anti-gay groups. In fact, at least 11 legitimate scientists have recorded video statements saying their work was being mischaracterized by the religious right.
Related to this effort has been the creation of “ex-gay” therapies — programs run by the religious right that claim, against the weight of scientific evidence, to be able to turn homosexuals into heterosexuals. The problem is that so few people seem to have made the change — and so many who supposedly did later repudiated it.
A final new emphasis being used by many of the hard-core anti-gay groups is the charge that homosexuals make up, in effect, an active conspiracy whose agenda includes the destruction of Christianity and, ultimately, Western civilization. Sometimes, their propaganda sounds noticeably like Nazi descriptions of Jewish plots.
In a Feb. 6 column headlined “The bitter fruit of decriminalizing homosexual behavior,” for example, the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer paraphrased another writer, agreeing that decriminalizing homosexuality had left society facing “a powerful, vicious, and punitive homosexual cabal that is determined to overthrow completely what remains of Judeo-Christian standards of sexual morality in the West.” Fischer adds that, “as [the writer] points out,” gays have received “special protections … which come at the expense of religious liberty, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech and freedom of association and lead to the punishment, intimidation and harassment of any who oppose their agenda.”
For his part, reflecting on “the rise of gay power in the culture,” Americans for Truth About Homosexuality’s LaBarbera sounded a similar theme during a radio broadcast last summer, saying, “The homosexual activist movement has very strategically insinuated itself into every sphere of power in our society.”
And at the Chicago-area Truth Academy, Robert Knight of Coral Ridge Ministriescited a 2008 Timemagazine article that he said “makes the case that the Democratic Party is a fully owned subsidiary of a group of homosexual billionaires.” (In fact, the article discussed a group of wealthy gay men and their effect on pro-gay politics.) Knight then went a few steps further, saying that homosexuals in the nation’s capital have “blackmail power.”
How is that? So many gays work in the hospitality industry, Knight claimed, that “they see congressmen dallying with their secretaries. They see them with their mistresses, and they let them know if they step out of line on the gay issue, it just might find its way into the wrong hands.” He offered no evidence.
“The gay Mafia in Washington,” he concluded. “It’s very real.”
Facing the Future In the end, many legal observers have suggested, same-sex marriage — or “marriage equality,” in the words of its backers — may well be legalized across the United States, whether through the actions of the courts or the legislatures. But that doesn’t mean that the hard core of religious resistance is about to disappear.
Frederick Clarkson, an independent journalist who has written about the American religious right for a quarter of a century, notes that the social conflicts set off by Roe v. Wade and Brown v. Board of Education continued for decades after the Supreme Court ruled. Moderating public attitudes toward homosexuality, he says, are viewed by the religious right as “symptoms of a society that has fallen away from God’s laws, seriously enough that God is ready to smack the country down.”
After all, to the hard core of that anti-gay religious right, Clarkson says, “homosexuality is a profound capital offense against God’s order.”
The upshot, in all likelihood, is that violence, hatred and bullying of those perceived as homosexual will continue into the foreseeable future. Although leaders of the hard core of the religious right deny it, it seems clear that their demonizing propaganda plays a role in fomenting that violence — a proposition that has sparked a number of Christian leaders to speak out in the wake of the latest series of tragedies.
“The recent epidemic of bullying-related teen suicides is a wake-up call to us moderate Christians,” the Rev. Fritz Ritsch, pastor of St. Stephen Presbyterian Church, wrote in October in the Fort Worth, Texas, Star-Telegram. “To most unchurched Americans — meaning most Americans — the fruit of the church is bitter indeed. … [T]he bullying crisis has put a fine point on the need for moderates to challenge the theological bullies from our own bully pulpits. We cannot equivocate. Children are dying. We need to speak up. If not now, when?”
timalderman 