As the late 70s arrived, the sexual revolution movement was at its’ prime. Young people were more promiscuous than ever as they believed their self-indulgent endeavors would rid them of the negative emotions that putrefied the human spirit. Acts of experimentation were being carried out without any account for self-preservation. This debauchery conduct proved to be, for many, fatal as a threat had been lurking in the shadows.
Many thought their hedonistic behavior didn’t sustain any risks. However, that was not the case. HIV had been spreading silently in the most affluent American cities, like the venom of a vicious snake, and most of its’ victims were gay men. These men were, and still are, disproportionately impacted by this virus as the transmission rates are higher through anal intercourse.
It’s widely believed that HIV originated in the Democratic Republic of Congo around the 1920s when it crossed species from chimpanzees to humans.
This cross-over happened due to cuts and injuries hunters sustained during their quest for the primates. Blood from these animals seeped through these wounds, contaminating the hunters’ bodies. Most of them would fight off the SIV virus. However, on a few occasions, the virus adapted itself within its’ new human host and became HIV.
Up until the 1980s, it’s not known how many people were infected with the virus. However, as 1981 arrived, more cases of rare forms of pneumonia and cancer were being reported in the USA. Vanity and a feeling of invincibility, prevalent at the time, had allowed the virus to spread amongst young LGBTQ men.
More and more active gay men started to turn up at the hospitals. Not much was known about what these victims had, just the fact that they were being treated for a disease that soon enough gained the label of Gay-Related Immune Deficiency (GRID), as it was believed to only affect homosexual men. As the nation’s attention turned to these victims, the virus began replicating itself in the bloodstreams of hemophiliacs and injection drug users.
In 1982, health workers began using the term acquired immune deficiency, or AIDS, to describe these sudden cases of sarcoma or pneumonia in previously healthy people.
Many people still took it upon themselves to call this disease “The Gay Plague” and used it as an opportunity to discriminate, once more, against the LGBTQ community who had just recently managed to make progress in the civil rights movement. It took years for the decriminalization of sodomy in only a few states to finally happen, and, yet again, those human rights were being threatened.
The year after, it was reported that female partners of men who had the disease were also being diagnosed with it, suggesting AIDS could be transmitted through vaginal intercourse. The usage of contraceptive pills, after its’ invention in 1960, as a substitute for condoms aided this dissemination of the virus since the population was not well informed. Many didn’t worry about their sexual health since sexual education in the 80s was vague or nonexistent.
To this day, AIDS continues to demise the community, being the causer of more than 35 million deaths as of 2017 and having infected an estimate of 77 million people around the world.
Sources:
https://www.nbcnews.com/feature/nbc-out/lgbtq-history-month-early-days-america-s-aids-crisis-n919701
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