Bausum - VIRAL--The Fight Against AIDS in America

BEFORE 1969 lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and the cross-dressing pioneers of the transgender movement lived in a world that sought to delegitimize their very existence. Even the term used to categorize themhomosexualdoubled as an epithet. Every religious faith condemned same-sex attraction as sinful. The medical establishment categorized it as a form of mental illness. And authorities criminalized the most intimate of private sexual acts almost uniformly across the United States, even within ones own home. Just dancing with someone of the same sex could lead to arrest. In most places, the only night when an individual could safely assume a persona from the opposite gender was on Halloween.

Such conditions pushed people deep into metaphorical closets and toward tragic self-destructive acts. Oppress people long enough, though, and they may refuse to stay confined. In 1969 those shuttered closet doors burst open during a police raid on a hot June night at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City. The raid ignited days of street protests that helped to draw gay people out of isolation and push them toward an affirming sense of community. The Stonewall riots signaled a collective rejection of past condemnations, and they fueled an embrace of the possibilities of gay liberation in the quest for freedom.

Freedom from oppression.

Freedom to embrace ones identity.

And freedom to embrace one another.

The various strands of what would become the LGBTQ community explored these freedoms in unique ways. Lesbians found strength in a sisterhood of solidarity, whether as couples or as part of the womens liberation fight against the cultures male-dominated power structure. The eras butch lesbians and male transvestites defied the biologically aligned cisgender norms of identity and paved the way for the transgender movement that would follow. Many gay men joined their lesbian, bisexual, and trans allies in an ongoing fight for increased civil and legal rights. A good number of them also pursued trails of personal liberation that often came down to one thing: sex.

Uninhibited, unrestrained sex.

All of those loves that dare not speak their names, all of those forbidden sex acts, recalled Rodger McFarlane, were free for the taking in places like New York City, as he discovered after moving there from rural Alabama. Baby boomers, that abundant population that came of age during the 1960s and 1970s, looked around and found plenty of people ready to explore territory previously shrouded by taboo. For gay men, what they experienced was not just pleasurable, noted McFarlane, it was also very liberating because it removed shame. It removed shame by the bucketfuls. It replaced shame, in fact, with great joy and self-discovery of your body and other peoples, and loving each other and, I mean, all the good stuff about free love.

Free love. The idea that it was okay to enjoy sex with or without emotional bonding, and that someone could love multiple partners simultaneously. Free love. It was heady. It was liberating. And it was fun.

It was also big business.

An urban infrastructure blossomed after Stonewall that supportedand made money frommen having sex with men. During previous decades gay communities had taken root in coastal cities such as New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles at neighborhood networks of underground gay clubs and bars. During the late 1960s and 1970s, as laws became less restrictive, these businesses came out of hiding, and they multiplied, diversified, and thrived.