Oh, outside of California…?
We all know the story, right?
But apparently, not everything is as well explained as we thought it was. The old school gays remember And The Band Played On, or Longtime Companion, or even Angels in America. But the younglings seem blissfully unaware that many of us did survive a plague.
It goes something like this: just seven years after homosexuality had been declassified as a mental illness (!!!) a plague was killing gay men in North America. And obviously everybody wanted to know how it had started. And we all thought we knew the truth. And this is something that many younger Gay men really cannot comprehend. They are in their PreP Era and do not bother with the past. They have absolutely no idea who Patient Zero was. But do we?
XOXO
The easiest thing to do is point a finger, and America desperately wanted to point a finger.
ReplyDeleteBIINGO!
DeleteThey needed a scapegoat and the Gay foreigner that was slutty was perfect.
Goddess! The damage they caused!!
XOXO
HuntleyBiGuy:
ReplyDeleteWhat a fascinating analysis. As he mentioned, we tend to stop at the “others” in the community. But it turns out the origins ar often much further.
XOXO 👨🏼❤️💋👨🏽
It was the easiest thing.
DeleteAnd Gay men were in the middle of our own sexual revolution. It was the perfect storm. The origins go WAY BACK.
But they needed someone to blame....
XOXO
Big says,
ReplyDeleteOr "An Early Frost," which aired as a broadcast TV movie, btw. And many who survived wondered how they managed to dodge that bullet.
XOXO
Oh yes!
DeleteWith Aidan Quinn, right??? It was groundbreaking.
And people who lived through the eighties and are still with us did dodge that bullet.
XOXO
Oh I remember the Patient Zero hoopla....but I recall seeing the research on a show that they though a chimp was involved. And that it was in the 1920s.. But did not remember all the fill in the blanks part. Excellent video.
ReplyDeleteThe whole Patient Zero thing was thought to be THE origin story.
DeleteLittle we did know....
XOXO
We always have to have the bad guy to blame for everything.
ReplyDeleteI remember hearing AIDS began many many years earlier through a chimpanzee.
I remember the hate and vitriol about the Gay Cancer killing "all the right people."
xoxo
We always do.
DeleteWasn't it a bat and COVID? And the whole 'Gay Cancer' thing was homophobia at its worst.
XOXO
And Reagan sure didn't help.
DeleteReagan was, as Lilly said in 9 to 5, a "sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot."
DeleteReagan could have done SO MUCH!
DeleteHe didn't. And here we are.
XOXO