Keeping the love alive
December 1st marks World AIDS Day. Since 1988 this day has been one to remember those who we have lost, to spread awareness, and support individuals living with HIV today. This year is the 40th anniversary of when the first five cases of what later became known as AIDS were officially reported.
By Geoff Allshorn
‘Rare Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals’,
— Lawrence K Altman, New York Times, 3 July 1981, A20.
This year marks the fortieth anniversary of the discovery of arguably the world’s most socially destructive epidemic in living memory prior to COVID. Before the availability of modern medications, HIV/AIDS killed millions of people and triggered many aspects of pride and prejudice, ignorance and intolerance. First identified as a ‘gay plague’, AIDS actually attacked diverse cohorts of people, especially those who were disadvantaged and disempowered — which may explain why HIV and AIDS are largely forgotten by the world today.
“…One of the first AIDS victims to die in Australia was a bloke I knew… You know, when he died — the first AIDS victim in Victoria — his father wouldn’t even give him a funeral that his grieving friends could attend. He was buried like a junk yard dog.” — Derryn Hinch, 1987.
This was an era when male homosexuality was still criminalised in some jurisdictions across Australia, and public debate still largely endorsed the ethics of retaining heterosexist privilege within law and society. Many families rejected their LGBT+ children, many churches preached homophobia as a virtue, and varied politicians debated whether or not to tattoo or quarantine so-called ‘AIDS victims’. Some emergency services personnel hesitated to deal with cases that involved suspected homosexual clients, and newspapers frequently headlined ‘the gay plague’ long after HIV was recognised as an affliction beyond gay male cohorts. One newspaper even ran with a headline, “Die, You Deviate!” when reporting on a story of a young gay blood donor.
By contrast, there were many aspects of the grass-roots response to AIDS that highlighted the secular, humanist perspective of people from varied backgrounds and cultures coming together to tackle a common threat.
The AIDS Quilt
Given the high mortality rate among those with HIV/AIDS in the early years of the epidemic, the international chapters of the AIDS Quilt became the largest example of community art in the world, with slogans: ‘See It and Understand’, ‘Keep the Love Alive’, and ‘Remember the Names’ encapsulating their aims and objectives. Each panel was decorated with names, photos, items of favourite clothing, and/or other personalised souvenirs in tribute to the person/people being memorialised. These panels were wildly varied according to culture and individual nuance. Displays of the Australian Quilt in parks, schools, churches, libraries, and community spaces, helped to promote AIDS education regarding discrimination, diversity and compassion. There are many human stories from Quilt displays, and many people who admitted that the Quilt had changed their views about those who had died with AIDS, helping them to see them as real people and not as faceless statistics or as ‘the other’.
At one Quilt display, I recall one gentleman who stared intently at a panel for a prolonged time. Occasionally, he moved elsewhere around the hall but he always returned to this one panel. I suspect he even wept quietly at times. I went to him and chatted encouragingly. He told me that the panel was a memorial to his long-estranged son, and although it had been made by his wife some years earlier, it was the first time he had personally visited the Quilt. I realised that for this man, there was more than just a simple bond between himself and this Quilt panel. I was witnessing a reunion and reconciliation between father and son.
Candlelight Vigils
The annual Candlelight Vigil was a means of ‘outing’ AIDS to the public. We marched along public streets, often through the epicentre of Melbourne’s theatres, cinemas, restaurants and entertainments. Curious onlookers emptied from theatres, where the start of live performances had been delayed until the march had passed, and restaurant patrons and staff emptied into the streets or sat spellbound at the windows as thousands of candle-carrying mourners passed in silent testimony and stretched down the street for city blocks. Because I was walking alongside the footpath, scores of people stopped me to ask what was happening, and they nodded in silent respect when I told them that this was a memorial for those who had died from AIDS. I felt like we had achieved something significant in gaining recognition for so many casualties in an otherwise hidden war. We had taken AIDS literally into the streets; our community was helping others to recognise that AIDS was in their midst; AIDS had finally touched the personal lives of thousands of onlookers.
For one Candlelight Vigil in Melbourne, I volunteered to carry an overseas flag as part of a campaign to show that AIDS was an international problem. As I marched, I was approached by another man who asked if he could please carry that particular flag in memory of his friend who had originally been from that country, but whose obituary had been denied publication in that community’s ethnic newspaper in Melbourne because of the stigma of AIDS. Bystanders who overheard this conversation wiped their eyes silently as he took the flag and carried it with pride.
One policeman who was present as part of the crowd management strategies that year, upon being asked whether it was a nuisance to be rostered on duty for a vigil at night, replied that, to the contrary, the annual AIDS Candlelight vigils were a favourite duty of police because they contained thousands of people behaving peacefully, solemnly and respectfully: humanity at its finest.
Fighting Back
It is hard nowadays to recall the stifling atmosphere of fear and stigma that was engendered by AIDS. US historian Heather Murray observes that, “Coronavirus does not lend itself to the same kind of moralizing that AIDS did” and as one example, she cites a newsletter from the US Moral Majority, a conservative religious lobby group with political links to President Reagan. In 1983, they featured a photograph of a family wearing face masks (even though HIV was not an airborne pathogen like COVID-19) in order to stigmatise LGBT+ people as the supposed purveyors of disease. The leader of the Moral Majority, Jerry Falwell (a critic of humanism) promoted homophobia through his declaration that, “AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals; it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals.” One response to this particular brand of religious bigotry came from LGBTI+ activist and socialist Kendall (‘Ken’) Lovett, who, along with some friends in Australia, formulated a novel solution and:
“… cheekily registered the name Moral Majority — a name previously associated with Falwell and other right-wing homophobic, sexist groups. Under that name, they put out badges, T-shirts, banners, stickers and press releases, all proclaiming that the Moral Majority supported gay rights, abortion, women’s and trans rights and so on.” — Liz Ross, 2020.
Ken Lovett and his partner Mannie De Saxe later initiated the AIDS memorial garden (SPAIDS) in Sydney and were heavily involved in its counterpart at Fairfield Hospital in Melbourne. Their lifetime of activist integrity, across a broad range of social issues, reflected ‘humanistic’ views. Other AIDS activists, in groups such as the AIDS Coalition To Unleash Power (ACT-UP), expressed similar resolve in street protest and civil disobedience; for example protesters abseiled down the walls of Parliament House, and replaced flowers in Melbourne’s floral clock with crosses.
The Silent Armies
At a time when people feared catching AIDS from normal social contact, volunteers came forward to offer palliative care to stigmatised people with AIDS. Whole teams of carers (originally called ‘AIDS Mates’ and later ‘Care Teams’) provided covert support that met the medical and social needs of their ‘clients’ while also protecting the privacy of those who were living and dying with the condition. One nurse commented that the family of a patient had requested she park her car in another street, so the neighbours would not see a nurse visiting the home.
One volunteer became a friend of mine due to our shared community work. I recently wrote of her compassion that was so typical of many AIDS volunteers:
“… While others (mainly young gay men, often rejected by family and Australian society) were becoming ill and succumbing to what we now call AIDS, she donated countless hours of volunteer time to be their mum. She befriended them, cared for them, took them shopping or to medical appointments, visited them and held their hands as they lay dying in hospital, attended their funerals, and then began again with the next young man in need. She stopped counting their funerals when they reached one hundred, but she never stopped caring.” — Geoff Allshorn, 2021.
Fighting For Our Lives
Across Australia, the era of AIDS was a time for the Grim Reaper, for red ribbons, and for same-sex kiss-in protests in the street. Activists protested when the Victorian government responded to the epidemic by closing Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital. Debates raged about whether or not it was safe to share drinking glasses or crockery, use a swimming pool, give blood, get a haircut, or suffer a mosquito bite. Gay men discussed whether they should get an HIV test before there was an effective treatment, or if those who were diagnosed with HIV/AIDS should retire young and live it up for whatever time they had left. Public education confronted a culture that resisted talking about homosexuality, minority rights, condoms, safe sex, needle exchange, or voluntary assisted dying. Patients campaigned alongside doctors to demand drug trials, and activists agitated for anti-discrimination protection in employment, housing, immigration, next-of-kin and inheritance laws and relationship recognition — these last issues being a precursor to marriage equality.
HIV is now a manageable condition, but these AIDS histories — and so many others — remain a very real part of the lives of many people who were involved in a mixture of personal and political activism that involved their passions, their sense of belonging to a human community that was under siege, and their very survival. It was the first real trial of the gay liberation generation and their allies, who changed their world — but at a significant cost. Some LGBT+ people lost their entire friendship groups; others became activists for life. Such depth of feeling and memory cannot be erased, and deserves an esteemed place in our history.
Based on Geoff Allshorn’s recent postgraduate research on the social history of HIV/AIDS in Melbourne during the ‘crisis years’ of 1981–1997. This work was supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.
References available on request.
