Activism taught me not to put faith in government institutions that had a history of brutalizing women and all minorities, even in the name of science.īy the end of 1983, gay life underwent sweeping change. I did too, but my shelter was distrust of established authority, not reverence for it. Rich sought shelter in what was familiar. Long before AZT was hailed as our salvation, I questioned everything. Unlike Rich, after I came out, I wanted to change mainstream America - not join it. (For example, it was courageous for activists to engage in civil disobedience to pressure a pharmaceutical company to lower the price of the drug AZT, but it takes independent expertise to know if that drug may pose more harm than healing.) Now there were life and death consequences to “taking a stand” but few saw the distinction. Fighting AIDS wasn’t like fighting for LGBT rights. I’m not suggesting that the apolitical Rich and the activist in me was all that led us down different roads when AIDS began, because with all my political awareness, AIDS was foremost a medical crisis. They got the government to respond and accepted their experts without challenge. The AIDS debate in 1982-83, pitted us against gay leaders who chose a collaborationist approach.
But its also true that the community response to AIDS wasn’t just a full embrace of mainstream professionals – but the de-legitimizing of anyone who questioned them. Even our invention of safe sex became easy to marginalize: we didn’t have what people look for in experts. That angered “gay” leaders who’d championed sexual freedom. Our writing stressed that lifestyle changes in the 1970s were driving the epidemic in gay men. In June 1983, Callen and I were part of a group of 11 gay men who created the “Denver Principles,” a landmark document that refined doctor/patient relationships.
In May 1983, we self-published “ How to Have Sex in an Epidemic,” regarded as the invention of safe sex for AIDS. In December 1982, in “A Warning to Gay Men with AIDS,” we detailed the dangers of AIDS patients putting blind trust in medical experts. Under Sonnabend’s scientific guidance, Callen and I wrote articles that offered community-based solutions, a do-it-yourself approach to activism that taught us how to protect ourselves and each other. We didn’t trust the medical establishment with its history of pathologizing homosexuality even after the APA’s 1973 change of heart. Gay lib politicized Callen and me in a way that made Sonnabend’s ideas resonate. He said I had something to offer in fighting AIDS and introduced me to a like-minded patient, Michael Callen. From our first encounter at Gay Men’s Health Project, he warmed to my concerns about STIs, but I hadn’t realized that Sonnabend was an STI expert with a history of distinguished lab research. America’s National LGBT Newspaper, The ADVOCATE, Nov.