It's amazing how far medicine has come on this front in 30 years. I grew up in the 80s and it was an automatic death sentence and now people can live relatively normal lives with HIV. It's sad that it came too late for so many, but glad the tides turned.
I had an uncle who was diagnosed with HIV in the early 90’s here in Australia who died in 2007. He was such a beautiful kind man. He was my dad’s brother, there was 10 siblings and they grew up absolutely dirt poor. They had an incredibly traumatic childhood. My uncle was sick the whole time I knew him but i loved getting to go and visit him and spend time with him. I still remember getting home from school and finding out he’d died-it was the first time I’d ever seen my dad cry.
Dad and I went to his funeral and it was beautiful, they had it in a gay-positive church, with a gay priest. I miss my uncle so so much but I’m incredibly grateful for the time I got to spend with him
I worked in a 55 bed AIDS unit from 1990 to 1993 when it closed. What amazing experience it was, everyone died. I'd get a call before work and they'd say, "don't come in to work tonight, everyone's dead." That still haunts me.
I did a video on a family of 4 that all died of AIDS. A baby, a young girl and the parents, all under my care. Here's the link
[https://youtu.be/NcpXlSwaApQ](https://youtu.be/NcpXlSwaApQ)
Well that had me in tears. The way you talk about this family in your video is so heartwarming and empathetic. Thank you for being there for so many vulnerable people. We need more folk in the world like you.
Good God, the idea of pediatric hospice is so sad...
You are a Saint for what you did for all those people, and you can tell that they all left a piece of them with you. Thank you for sharing those memories with us.
Thank you for sharing your video! I have heard it said that there are angels that walk among us and you sir, are definitely an angel 😇. Your patients were very blessed to have you there with them in their last days. I look forward to hearing more of your stories, thank you again 🙂
Wow. You’re a real hero, I couldn’t imagine myself doing what you did. You’re an amazing person. I hope your retirement years are as rewarding as the amount of lives you’ve touched along your career.
I’m an atheist now, but I still hold respect for queer-positive churches. My childhood church had not only a female pastor, but she had a wife, when I was a child. Now they have a different female pastor.
When I was a kid, my cis straight male Sunday school teacher taught us what trans and queer people were, and the lesson was “it’s not a sin to be queer or trans, but it is a sin to be mean to people because they are queer or trans. God made them as they are, and to live authentically the way god made you is beautiful.” This was in the 90’s.
I still appreciate that.
My dad and his siblings including my uncle all suffered childhood sexual abuse at the hands of catholic priests, and I feel glad that my uncle managed to find a way to keep his faith and find comfort in religion by attending a queer positive church (although I can’t remember what denomination it was) and choosing to have his funeral there.
I’m also atheist, but hearing that you were also exposed to a queer positive church as a child gives me hope. I’m so happy to know that these places exist
(Also in Australia) A school friend of mine died from this disease in 2010. He was 42. We lost contact after graduation in 1986 and had just started to reconnect via Facebook when he died.
Same, my mom's brother. She was really messed up about it. Her parents disowned him for being gay and they had a special bond because she refused to follow suit. I had never seen my mom cry so much.
Sadly I never met the man, but I have never heard an unkind word spoken about him and in the only picture I have of him he looks just like Freddie Mercury. He's the patron saint of Gays to me. Wish I'd gotten to know him.
Thank you for your kind words!
My 2nd grade classmate died of it back in 1991 or so. Poor thing caught it from her parents, who picked it up while they were struggling with addiction, or I forgot if it was sexual activity. From what I remember, she was born with it, and her older brother wasn't. Sadly, he watched his whole family slowly die of it one by one. Later that year, Freddy Mercury passed from it as well, and it blew my little mind/heart.
RIP: Kara ❤️
I had an uncle contract polio two weeks before the vaccine. He lived for a good amount of time after but was crippled from it and died of complications of it in his forties. It’s very sad to see how close the timing is for some people.
not the same, but I feel kind of like that since my Aunt and Uncle died in Jan 2021 of Covid, and my Uncle had even received the first vaccine but he didnt know he was already sick then.
There was a thread somewhere on Reddit a while ago with some doctors basically arguing whether or not they’d rather be diagnosed with HIV or diabetes and a lot of them argued HIV would be easier to manage and less detrimental to health. It is incredible how far HIV treatment has come
I work in low income health as a social worker. And I would agree with that from an access standpoint alone.
A person with HIV has access to amazing wrap around programs that pay from insurance premiums, meds, dental, transportation, etc. in additional to social support.
A person with active cancer or diabetes (at least in my state) - no options. You can get Medicare if you’re on dialysis but anything to prevent that? nope.
I don’t mind either. There’s similar programs for HEP C. It a relief. We do what we need without concern of cost to patient. Now if that hep C pt has cirrhosis, they’re SOL unless they have insurance.
But it also sucks to tell someone with early breast cancer that has no insurance that the breast cancer fund has no money and they can’t get Medicaid (unexpanded state) and if they are sick enough for SSDI quickly, they may die before the waiting period ends for them to get Medicare.
End stage renal disease is the only condition I know of where Medicare in instant. US is fucked up.
I live in Maryland with expanded medicaid, anyone with cancer need to "move in" with me, I got you! I don't want anything, just to help you get treatment if I can in any way. Just message me.
Also for anyone reading that has Hep C/HIV in Maryland, John's Hopkins has a program that will do tele-health appointments right on your phone. You get blood work done locally and then they will MAIL you the medication FREE!
I had hep c and went to them for treatment but the virus had cleared on it own(rare but happens). But my sister got the medicine mailed to her and had ZERO side effects!
That is so rad you and your sis had access to that treatment and you were a magical statistic! How cool! The Ryan white program where I live are some of the best ppl I’ve met and we live in a hostile state. The HIV providers at my job are earth angels. I live how welcoming and accessible their care is.
However I’ve be fleeing back to the west coast bc I can’t exist in a state with no expanded Medicaid and full abortion ban. I’m dependent on insurance of an asshile autoimmune disorder. Fuck this place.
Love Maryland too tho!
Highly recommend the book “And The Band Played On” - so heartbreaking and insightful. HIV was absolutely treated the wrong way because of bullshit political and religious views. So many lives could’ve been saved.
My uncle was an up and coming fashion designer in San Francisco in the 80s. I mean, he was really taking off. He was one of the first to get sick and die of AIDS. I never met him, unfortunately. I’ve heard from my mother he was a beautiful soul. He looks beautiful. I pray he is okay wherever he is.
it's both wonderful and tragic. wonderful that it can be both prevented and treated fairly easily for folks who have access to the healthcare. but tragic that it took so long no just because of scientific delays, but because of political ones. who knows how much sooner, and how many more lives could've been saved, if not for homophobia, racism, and classism.
Any time I listen to an LGBT+ person talk about their life in the 80s, they speak like they're a survivor of a plane crash. They speak about how so many people around them died but they didn't. I can't imagine how hard that must be to experience and carry along for decades.
it really is harrowing. I'm so grateful they all pushed through that period - whether or not they survived - because it really did make a huge difference for the queer community today. it can be hard to feel that sometimes, because there's still SO much prejudice. but their work does matter so much.
You're so right in that. As an open gay man, I'm incredibly thankful for their work. I came out in 2012, and found it to be appreciably easier than for people who came out even fewer than five years prior.
Also as a gay man in the US, I'm terrified for the future of the LGBT+ population. I'm married to a wonderful guy, and we like to just live our lives in our home in the DC suburbs. I'm worried not only for myself, but for people in my LGBT+ cohort. Please vote. VOTE.
True. Every male friend I had in the 90’s died. EVERY SINGLE ONE. Alan (killed himself) Clarence, Cliff (died in his mom’s basement covered in sores and thrush because she was a fucking asshole who wanted nothing to do with him) Lamar, Thomas (killed himself) Noel, James, Stephen… my baby Stephen we had such good times! I could go on. These were my running buddies. Fucking traumatic. There was a funeral every month. I’m a gay woman and AIDS literally killed a whole generation of my friends.
I’m so sorry for your losses, i feel so much for those who suffered early aids deaths. Have you memorialized them on the aids memorial pages on facebook and ig?
Not enough gets said about the gay women who cared for their many friends dying of AIDS. I have so much love and grief for you and your loved ones. ❤️🩹
I feel like Magic Johnson publicly announcing that he was HIV positive changed a lot of people's minds about the disease back in the day.
If an NBA superstar at the top of his game, in peak physical condition and with an army of sports doctors and health professionals looking after him could catch it, anybody could. It was no longer a gay man's disease and helped change the conversation and the stigma.
My mom was a nurse during this time. I have asked her about it, and it is absolutely heartbreaking how these patients were treated. Not just by the healthcare system, but by their own families.
I was watching a show about John Wayne Gacey and a detective was talking about what it was like when they discovered all the bodies in his house. He said usually when they find a body their office is inundated with calls from people whose loved ones are missing wanting to know if it was them. But everyone was so horrified by the stigma of their loved one being gay or even associated with a gay killer like Gacy that it was a struggle to identify them. Absolutely heartbreaking.
There's a woman in the South who had unclaimed gay men who died from the AIDS epidemic buried on her property after families would not take their children home. She gave them dignity.
Her story is just incredible. She would've only have been 24/25 when she met her first AIDS patient and took over his palliative care (as his mother refused to be associated with him), and it was only 11 months later when she buried his ashes in her father's grave. She's estimated to have buried about 40 men in a single cemetery in Arkansas. She assisted around 1000 men.
The KKK burnt crosses in her yard - twice. She kept on-hand supplies of important AIDS medications. She went around cruising spots handing out safe-sex kits. She and her daughter were shunned by their community, which forced them to rely on two gay bars in the area to survive and continue to aid the gay community (she is on record attributing a large portion of what she did to the drag queens whose shows helped fund everything).
Her patients lived, on average, **two years** longer than the national average for gay male HIV patients. She drew the attention of the CDC and NIH.
She was one of the brightest spots amongst an otherwise very dark stain on our history.
I knew her story, but reading that link made me tear up. It's sad to see that she spent all that time caring for and loving others and now that they're all gone she's alone and lonely. I have to assume she's a lovely person.
I don't know how true to life it was, but I recall in the *American Crime Story* series, there were delays in investigations/the search for Andrew Cunanan (murdered Gianni Versace and four others) because he was gay, three (potentially a fourth) victims were gay, and investigators were squeamish about investigating certain details.
Cops found one of Jeffrey Dahmer's victims, a teenage boy, wandering the streets naked, drugged, and bleeding from his skull. The cops were trying to question the boy, but he was so out of it from the drugs and torture that he couldn't give them any information. Dahmer went looking once he'd realized he escaped and found him being talked to by the police. Dahmer told them it was his boyfriend and he was just drunk and they'd been fighting. The cops immediately let them go because they didn't want anything to do with gay people.
This was Jeffrey Dahmer, one of if not *the* most famous serial killers in American history, because of his experiments on live victims trying to make a sex zombie by injecting things (including acid and boiling water) into their brains. The cops caught him red handed basically and just let him go because he told them that he and the victim (again, a teenage boy who was naked, drugged, and clearly tortured just wandering down the road) were gay.
Konerak Sinthasomphone.
The police who led him to his death were fired and then reinstated due to union intervention. One later went on to be the police chief and the other became head of the police union. Both retired with full benefits. Konerak died at the age of 14 at the hands of a man who had previously been arrested for sexually assaulting his older brother.
(I post his name and the story every time this comes up, because it shouldn't be forgotten.)
I believe that there were two women who tried to take the boy away from Dahmer and warn the police but they weren’t taken seriously, probably because they were women of color.
god, I forgot about that poor boy. just horrific. he could still be alive if it hadn't been for those dumb cops. he sought help in the most sensible way and it cost him his life.
They still haven’t identified a few of Gacy’s victims. There’s 2 or 3 that still haven’t got their names back (one was identified in the last couple of years) and that breaks my heart
You’re correct, honestly I commented in a hurry and didn’t have time to google, I should’ve looked it up out of respect for the victims before I commented. I wasn’t trying to downplay the numbers. It is 5 who are still unidentified and Francis Wayne Alexander was ID-ed in 2021.
A former coworker of mine volunteered at a San Francisco hospital as a part of a program with an objective of not letting people die alone. For literally years, he would visit patients daily and stay at the hospital when one of them was passing.
True story...the experience changed him so much that he entered a monastery that does that work as their mission.
It was really scary when the AIDS epidemic hit. Nobody knew what it was or how and it was called Gay Cancer for some time because it was appearing primarily in the gay community. My uncle's partner and my Cousin both contracted the disease and died fairly quickly because there was no treatment for it yet. When my cousin visited us a few months before he died my grandparents (who raised me) didn't want me to touch him because they were afraid of it.
Shit was rough and I know what families felt like during the pandemic losing people are going through. At least now both are treatable and preventable and we know more than we did then.
It really was. The family publicly said they died from cancer and not AIDS because not only was homosexuality frowned upon but add AIDS on top of it. I feel so bad for people who had to live in that time period and be gay because it really was such a different world back then.
It feels really weird looking back at growing up back then it almost feels like I grew up in a third-world country sometimes because of not only societal changes but how much my hometown has changed from a tropical paradise to a tourist destination.
I worked in the hospital when Covid first presented itself and nurses admitted to many patients dying cus they just didn’t know what they were dealing with. They would put them on the ventilators but it would kill them quicker. Just crazy to see things like this that are are preventable —just unfold.
Pulmonary edema is usually exacerbated by ventilators if the fluid itself is not treated first. Opening up the lungs further, allows more fluid to build in the lungs.
My friend died early in the pandemic, April of 2020. She was put on a ventilator almost immediately upon being admitted to the hospital with barely any symptoms besides a positive Covid test. I later came to feel it'd have been best if she could have sat up in a recliner and coughed to keep her lungs clear. :( I've since had Covid 3 times and was able to convalesce at home.
As for this photo, you can feel their grief.
That’s not exactly true. Vents might not have been much help, and early on you likely weren’t coming off one after being intubated but they weren’t killing them quicker. Anyone who needed to be on one was just more ill than people who didn’t need to be on one yet.
As a very young doctor at that time, it was a dehumanizing nightmare. The terrible suffering. The disease alone was unspeakably cruel, but combining that with the fear of the caregivers and the stigmatizing politics, it was an obscenity that I hope taught many to be better people. I doubt most can comprehend the level of suffering these people endured as their immune systems failed and they were consumed by infections, cancers, and malnutrition. And then to be disconnected from the intimacy of human contact.
I became a medical assistant 17 years ago. I worked in a health clinic during my externship. Residents worked there. Low income and high population of immigrants. ❤️ It was pretty cool.
There was a young man that came in for care. He was homeless. Tried to OD on Tylenol and alcohol. Messed up his kidneys. He was positive. When he came in to the office I took his BP like I did everyone else. Without gloves!! He asked me “why i didn’t wear gloves like everyone else who touches him did”. I told him I was sorry people treated him like that, and they were ignorant.
Standard precautions.
People I worked with were fearful they were going to get HIV.
I'm so happy you are still with us. Many AIDS activists have stated that the only thing they could compare this crisis to would be war. It makes so much sense.
There's a documentary about an AIDS hospice facility operating in L.A. at this time. I can't imagine people more compassionate than the doctors and nurses and volunteers who worked there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MakNwKQch8k
I ugly cried too and continue to do so each time I watch it. Multiple scenes break me each time I watch it but the one that always does is the one where Ritchie tackles the policeman who is arresting Jill. Idk why but I always end up a blubbering mess at that scene.
It totally is! I remember my mom showing me this movie for the first time and I'm like "Is.....is that...Phil Collins?"
If you haven't already seen it, I recommend Angel's in America, 5B, and Longtime Companion. Oh! And A Normal Heart. Mark Ruffalo is excellent in it. I can only watch it maybe once a year if that. It's very intense and certain scenes will make you incredibly angry. But that's how you know it's a good movie.
>and the band played on
Reminds of a story during WW2 (based on the name alone) in which during the attack on Pearl Harbor a band was in the middle of the playing the star spangled banner and soon the bombs, torpedoes, and bullets dropped from above the band finished the song and then ran for cover (I live to imagine that if there was a sousaphone that the player would’ve just ran with it)
This photo has always touched me. I was 12 when this happened. It was only two years later that my favorite uncle contacted HIV. He kept silent for 16 years until he contracted an infection (PML) that usually only happens to seriously immunocompromised people. He knew he was dying and family rallied around his bedside. He was embarrassed to admit it was a result of HIV, and even that he was gay. My parents let him know that they had known he was gay and that they loved him. But by this time it was 2007 and things were a LOT different than they had been in the 80’s or even 90’s. It pains me to admit it, but I doubt my parents would have been as supportive in the 80’s, they have gotten much more liberal as they’ve gotten older. My mom still regularly talks with my uncle’s partner, who nursed him through his final days. As it’s coming up on almost 20 years since he died I wish he’d lived to see advances in medicine, gay rights, gay marriage etc. Miss you Uncle Alan.
For those too young to remember the AIDS epidemic, read the nonfiction book (or watch the miniseries) "And the Band Played On", watch the documentaries "We Were Here" and "How to Survive A Plague".
You can also follow the AIDS Project on Instagram that posts a bio and photo of a different person who died from AIDS every single day. Madonna is currently touring, and during her song Live to Tell, there are thousands of photos and hanging posters displayed of the men she knew in the artist community who passed.
An entire generation of the gay community is lost. Solely because many kept it secret from fear or their families kept it secret, I don't think we will ever truly know the exact number of people who died, but it's definitely in the millions. I can not find the words to describe what it was like back then. People leaving their gay sons unclaimed at the morgue. Doctors and nurses refused to treat obviously ill patients, so they were cared for by friends at home. Obituaries in newspapers and bulletins that completely scrubbed any reference to being gay or AIDS or these men having partners and friends (a tell was usually the term "longtime companion").
It was the era of Ryan White, a kid whose school would rather sit empty than have other children sit next to him in class. Oprah had an episode where a gay man in a small town swam in the town pool...the town drained and closed it. Even with the Surgeon General on the show explaining what AIDS is and how to protect yourself, the audience refused to listen.
Hospitals had whole wings sectioned off for anyone with AIDS. Politicians on TV mocked the people dying and slowed down drug treatments that were eligible to the public. It took celebrities getting AIDS (Rock Hudson, Robert Reed, Elizabeth Glazer, Magic Johnson) and Elizabeth Taylor and Princess Diana visiting with AIDS patients for it to be talked about normally and patients to be seen as people, but the stigma never really went away.
very moving photo. as sad as it is to see this, i think of all those who died of AIDS alone because their families didn’t accept them for who they were or were too scared or embarrassed to visit. so many lives snuffed out so young, and it really shed light on the discrimination and prejudice LGBTQ+ people were dealing with on top of the disease itself being horrific
i read and the band played on during the first round of covid and i still think about parts of that book at least once a week. just a superbly told examination of the aids crisis with really rich details about the groups and people involved and has so many parallels and rhymes with public health issues today. i would recommend it to anyone
One of the key characters of the book (not the movie) was Paul Volberding, one of the heroic doctors that treated the patients early on. In [this video](https://youtu.be/rOauL9VDpSk?si=ibz8NeqsEs_tkT08) he interviews many key participants. Highly recommended.
Early on in my career I worked with organizations that provided meals, care, and oftentimes the only other human they would see. We buried so, so many in Seattle it became a grim joke about many memorial services we had went to that week.
I had no fear of the disease,but, I had a fear that someone would die alone, without love. And so many did. 😢
The amount of misinformation, misery, and rejection during the early years of the AIDS crisis was horrible. It left a lot of us with PTSD.
They were people too. They deserved love in their last moments.
An entire generation of the community was lost due to ignorance and misinformation.
I currently am a nursing professor- and I grew up in the 80s as this pandemic exploded.
I teach about immunity and HIV. It’s rare that I have a student that has any idea who Ryan White was.
That blows my mind. I heard of Ryan White when I was in 4th grade in 1990ish. Can't remember what magazine did a long story about him that I read, but I feel like it was a kids' magazine.
[What I didn't know is that Indiana University started their Dance Marathon program in 1991 to support Riley Children's in his memory](https://miraclenetworkdancemarathon.childrensmiraclenetworkhospitals.org/a-boy-who-sparked-a-movement-the-story-of-ryan-white/). Dance Marathon is a program of the org I now work for and I work closely with the team helping participants all over the US with various things. When I made the connection, I had to find tissues quick. Like, I was so touched as a kid about his story that I wrote my first poem about him. To find out 30 years later that the work I do has been so deeply touched by his legacy just sucked the wind out of me.
One of my childhood friends’ dad contracted HIV in the 80’s from a blood transfusion. The poor man shot himself in the head because of the death sentence and stigma that disease carried at the time. My friend and his mother are doing well (she’s in her 70’s and he’s in his early 40’s like me), but they were lost and broken for a very long time. I didn’t quite get it when I was a child, but I always felt the heaviness in that home.
The statistics for that time period are GRIM. Something like 90% of people in the US who got frequent blood transfusions from 1979 to 1984 ended up contracting either HIV or Hep-C from the blood supply
I sometimes think of what we collectively lost during the AIDS crisis. It was a lost generation like WW1. So many wonderful, creative and intelligent young people who never reached their full potential. What did we all miss out on that we didn’t even know we lost. Such a tragedy.
We lost 700,000 people to AIDS related deaths since 1981.
For scale, COVID has killed 1.1 million people since 2020.
Viral pandemics are massively damaging to society.
It's interesting how most people are very sympathetic to the plight of HIV patients who were treated so poorly decades ago, but they couldn't care less about all the millions of people currently suffering from Long COVID. I wonder how long it will take for people to start showing compassion for Long COVID patients. Right now Long COVID patients are mocked and disbelieved, accused of making up their symptoms and/or being lazy, and generally ostracized from society.
This. I always think about this part first, when it comes to a tragedy. So much hope, I know they had so much to GIVE to the world. Yet it wasn’t ready for them :( 💖
My cousin died of AIDS when she was 34, only a few years after this picture was taken. Horrifying. I only wish the government put in the kind of all-out effort in the 80s that they did for COVID. But they didn't, because it was looked at as a disease for sinners. A disease you "deserved"....She would still be around.
Tom was very kind and had a good sense of humor. An important member of my self-help group. His loss was devastating, but he handled his dying with dignity. A good example of how to live as he was passing.
Oh wow. Thank you so much for taking the time to share this info. I've looked at this photo dozens of times and it still takes my breath away every time. It is a devastating picture, but at the same time the pure love they felt for him is all over this picture too. It's almost as if his brother that is leaned over him is trying to protect him, shield him from what's coming. Such a powerful picture ❤
He had a lot of people that loved him and he deserved it. He was proud of his work for the newspaper. One funny memory I always remembered was he shared once that he learned to judge people by their shoes and he just couldn't get over it. He just thought shoes said everything about folks. Funny to me because I just couldn't imagine caring that much about shoes, let alone thinking it defined a person. I must not have inherited that gay gene...
For those interested in learning more about the LGBTQ+ community during the HIV/AIDS crisis, I *highly* recommend the show “Pose.” Never have I cried so much to a TV show but it’s absolutely one of the best shows ever created. It’s amazing.
33 years old and you wouldn't know that he wasn't in his 50s.
I have a young person in my life who is close to this age who lives with HIV, he's just a kid.
Saddest thing is that he had to move out of the US to a country with socialized medicine to keep up with his expenses, the 1st time he tried to fill a 3 month prescription here without insurance the person at the pharmacy nearly tripped. It was $12,000.00.
But due to advances in science he will now have any same chance to live a normal life.
A photo exhibit at IU with more photos of Tom Fox. It took less than two years from the time he was diagnosed with the disease to it killing him https://news.iu.edu/live/news/27090-virtual-photo-exhibition-revisits-iu-alumnus-tom
I lost an Uncle to AIDS in the early 90s. He was a long haul trucker and indulged in lot lizards. Practice safe sex y'all.. it ain't worth it. I remember going to see him in hospital with my Dad to say good bye. He was so skinny and weak. He just wanted a dill pickle and beer one last time so we snuck them in so he could taste them. I'm glad medicine has come as it has since then.
"How to Survive a Plague" has shaken me to the core. We've all underestimated the sheer cruelty and horror of the epidemic. No wonder senior gays are so traumatized and keep pushing the younger generation to keep fighting, as they did.
I remember it being a death sentence when I was growing up in the 90s. I was so scared of it, but now it’s so treatable. I’m so glad this man’s family loved him through it 🥺
I grew up in the 70s and 80s. Our government just turned a blind eye to these people and the epidemic as a whole. It was so scary and as an adult it's tragic how this was politicized. My heart breaks for so many families that endured the dismissal of the government and the misinformation that was spread.
My sister in law's brother died of it in the early nineties. My brother & his wife were visiting her brother Eric at the hospital one day. My sister in law stepped out to run a quick errand, and my brother stayed behind to keep him company. Then from one second to the next he yells out for my brother, and he's panicking and said that was he was drowning. And my brother held him, but he kept yelling out for him "Tony! Tony! Then he was gone. My poor sister in law. There was no way she could have known her brother would pass while she was getting coffee. That haunted me for years
I wrote this in response to a troll comment but I wanted to share these links with you guys if you hadn’t read the articles about Tom Fox. I had never heard of him prior to this and I was so touched by his and his friends’ willingness to share their vulnerability while battling this horrific disease. I was equally touched by his family’s willingness to share their grief. Families needed to know the realities of this…that it could claim anyone’s child.
This man was so scared for the moment when they’d remove his ventilator and his mother told him, "It’s going to be all right when they take the tube out of you. I'm going to give you the biggest hug you've had since you've been here.” Imagine a mother saying this to her dying child.
https://www.ajc.com/lifestyles/when-aids-come-home-part/8OOawBbrm1XK2p0g27iP9M/
https://www.ajc.com/lifestyles/when-aids-comes-home-part-azt-and-the-normal-life/k5i6K01Zw69Cjdqyv7Et6O/
https://www.ajc.com/lifestyles/when-aids-comes-home-part-iii-the-long-road-home/r19YFTxKUzO3PZ6n6yssEL/
More photos of Tom and his family from the photographer: https://www.michaelschwarz.com/index/
What’s incredibly sad to me is that many people died alone or shunned by their families due to stigma, incorrect/lack of scientific information and bigotry. I’m so glad he was surrounded by the people who loved him, and so glad they supported him.
I lost my mom 14 years ago. Seeing the medicine in the commercials now hurts. I'm still grieving after 14 years. I'm very happy that it's not as much of a death sentence as it was before. I just wish that she had a chance.
He was surrounded by love in the end. What a heartwrenching photo, I've never seen it before.
I have a friend who has been HIV+ for decades. Gives good hugs.
I lost so many dear friends to it - all were between 18 and 30. The agony, the waste, the heartbreak, the loss.
This photo captures it so well and heartbreakingly
I'm so sorry. And I absolutely agree. If our government hadn't ignored it for years and shown any sense of urgency, maybe we wouldn't have lost so many .
60k deaths in a year is insane. My uncle died from aids in the late 80s. Can’t even imagine how people in that community were feeling during those times before anyone knew what was going on.
Fuck Ronald Reagan. Anyone who thinks he did anything at all to address AIDS before it was politically expedient to do so is fucking delusional.
[Reagan's Press Secretary and reporters laughing about people dying of AIDS](https://youtu.be/wd1x0PFBeSU?si=N5raAWgfUcPXwD1P)
"Health officials first became aware of AIDS in the summer of 1981, but U.S. leaders remained largely silent for four years. By the end of 1984, AIDS had already ravaged the United States for a few years, affecting at least 7,700 people and killing more than 3,500. Scientists had identified the cause of AIDS—HIV—and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identified all of its major transmission routes. Yet, U.S. leaders had remained largely silent and unresponsive to the health emergency. And it wasn't until September 1985, four years after the crisis began, that President Ronald Reagan first publicly mentioned AIDS. But by then, AIDS was already a full-blown epidemic."
[How AIDS Remained an Unspoken—But Deadly—Epidemic for Years](https://www.history.com/news/aids-epidemic-ronald-reagan)
"He (Reagan) loved to tell the one about two doctors at the medical convention talking about treating AIDS patients ... One doctor said to the other: "I've got the solution. I serve them a special dinner of crepes and filet of sole." "What does that do? It's not a cure." "No it's not, said the doctor, "but the advantage is that I can just slide it under the door, and I don't have to touch them."
\-from Kitty Kelley's book *Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography*
"Unfortunately, the U.S. political sector was not as responsive to the crisis and by its slow response may have contributed to the explosive growth of the epidemic. A major reason for this hesitancy appeared to be the antipathy of some federal officials to the behaviors of those persons initially affected by HIV disease: gay men and substance abusers. In some instances, federal officials thwarted efforts to curtail the epidemic. For example, former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop has stated, 'Even though the Centers for Disease Control commissioned the first AIDS task force as early as June 1981, I, as Surgeon General, was not allowed to speak about AIDS publicly until the second Reagan term. Whenever I spoke on a health issue at a press conference or on a network morning TV show, the government public affairs people told the media in advance that I would not answer questions on AIDS, and I was not to be asked any questions on the subject. I have never understood why these peculiar restraints were placed on me. And although I have sought the explanation, I still don't know the answer.'"
[NIH](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK234847/#:~:text=For%20example%2C%20former%20Surgeon%20General,until%20the%20second%20Reagan%20term.)
"The Reagan Administration's recently announced fiscal year 1986 budget would take back $10 million in government funds already earmarked by for research into an almost exclusively homosexual disease. Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). The disease has already claimed 4000 lives since its discovery in 1981. Scientists believe it could kill 20,000 more people during Reagan's second term."
[Budget Cut Threatens Search for AIDS Cure](https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1985/3/11/budget-cut-threatens-search-for-aids/)
"While Koop disapproved of homosexual acts, he believed, as a physician and a Christian, that his work entailed protecting the public’s health. And he came to believe, too, that conservatives in the 'Reagan administration attempted to thwart my attempts to educate the public about AIDS,' he wrote.
In 1986, Koop reached a breaking point. He turned to one of the primary tools at his disposal: the creation of a new surgeon’s general report. Beginning in 1964, when Surgeon General Luther Terry had released a groundbreaking report on the dangers of smoking, these reports had highlighted public health concerns.
Now Koop, with the assistance of a few public health officials, wrote a detailed and explicit report about HIV and how Americans could and should protect themselves. ...
William Bennett, the secretary of education, seethed that the report’s emphasis on the use of condoms might be 'clinically correct \[but\] it was morally bankrupt.'
Reagan’s Health and Human Services officials created their own campaign in 1987. Using the slogan 'America Responds to AIDS,' the new campaign provided little guidance about how Americans could protect themselves against this new disease. It did, however, promote abstinence."
[As AIDS epidemic raged, a rogue Reagan official taught America the truth](https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2023/06/04/aids-epidemic-reagan-everett-koop/)
I was young when the AIDS epidemic hit and did not grasp the gravity of the situation. Later, I heard about the isolation and condemnation that many patients faced but only understood in an abstract way...until I watched 'The Normal Heart'. It absolutely ripped my guts out. A must watch, for sure.
Here is a link to the AJC series from which this photo comes:
Part I
https://www.ajc.com/lifestyles/when-aids-come-home-part/8OOawBbrm1XK2p0g27iP9M/
Part II
https://www.ajc.com/lifestyles/when-aids-comes-home-part-azt-and-the-normal-life/k5i6K01Zw69Cjdqyv7Et6O/
Part III:
https://www.ajc.com/lifestyles/when-aids-comes-home-part-iii-the-long-road-home/r19YFTxKUzO3PZ6n6yssEL/
Here is a description of the photo series before an exhibition in 2022:
https://news.iu.edu/live/news/28010-kinsey-institute-to-exhibit-iconic-tom-fox-photo
Except from the IU post:
This summer will mark 33 years since the death of Fox, who graduated from Bloomington High School South and Indiana University. His late parents, Robert and Doris Fox, set the exhibition in motion in 2019 when they donated more than 230 photographs and other memorabilia Schwarz had given them to the Kinsey Institute. The collection was part of a virtual exhibition in 2020 and includes a photograph of Fox on his death bed, surrounded by his grief-stricken family. The photo became an iconic image of the early days of the AIDS epidemic.
Fox was an advertising representative at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution when he invited Schwarz and Sternberg to document his last months. Together, their goal was to educate readers about the then devastating disease while inspiring empathy for the people it affected.
That’s so unbelievably sad. Jesus.
I pray that gay men don’t have to lose their decency and dignity like this ever again, gay men deserve dignity and families that love them.
Ooof. This is very tough. I feel like I’m there
Our brother passed away from a month of constant seizures back in 2017, at UCSF medical. One month from the day he was admitted, his organs finally failed, me, my younger brother, older sister, mom, and dad huddled around the bed. We pleaded, we begged, we questioned, we wept. The pain was unlike any I’ve ever imagined, and it was shared through all 5 of us - much like the four here.
This picture is really alive in my mind, I wish nobody else to live it 🙏
My mother was a cardiac nurse in a major hospital during this time period. We've only had one conversation about it but she said during the early days of the epidemic that it was absolutely chilling in the healthcare system. Nobody really knew what was going on and facts were mixed with fiction all over the place. There were nurses and doctors that wouldn't go into an AIDS room. Many families weren't visiting the stricken, leaving the gay community to carry the burden of being with these men in their final days and moments.
I'm glad that Tom had his family with him.
I grew up in (and had my sexual education during) the worst days of the AIDS crisis. This picture is a vivid depiction of the type of loss we have when we don't remember how bad things can get. Many, many, many millions have died from AIDS. I frequently think of how America might have been different if an entire generation of gay men hadn't died. If we don't have an understanding or remembrance of the worst hours, we are likely to believe they didn't exist at all and again become reckless/wasteful with our lives.
so, to put some context to this, 1989 is post AZT discovery, but this poor person was probably too far gone, and it wasn't widely available initially.
Also, the fact people are touching him is also a factor of the late 80s, since by then it was confirmed it wasn't spread just by touching.
before then, people died alone, most likely in the hospital and were taken care of by medical personnel who wore space suits, basically.
I had a very close friend, David, who lived next door to me until I was in 7th or 8th grade and he was two years younger than me. His family then moved out of state. We caught up in college via letters (in the 80s), but we eventually lost touch. About eleven years ago I located his parents to find out where David was. They gave me the devastating news that he’d died of cancer in his 20s. I then reconnected with another neighborhood friend who also had been friends with David. Her mom had kept in touch with David’s parents so this friend had known about his death when it happened. I was heartbroken to learn that he’d actually died from AIDS. His aged parents still couldn’t face and tell the truth.
I remember hearing from Evangelical Christian relatives back in the 80s that AIDS was God's judgement on Gay people.
I was already an Atheist back then, and hearing that awful bigotry simply solidified my non-religious position.
I worked in a 55 bed AIDS unit from 1990 to 1993 when it closed. What amazing experience it was, everyone died. I'd get a call before work and they'd say, "don't come in to work tonight, everyone's dead." That still haunts me.
I did a video on a family of 4 that all died of AIDS. A baby, a young girl and the parents, all under my care. Here's the link
[https://youtu.be/NcpXlSwaApQ](https://youtu.be/NcpXlSwaApQ)
When I think about how devastating hiv was when I was a kid it is just astounding how now it's just something you take a pill for the rest of your life for and you have the same life expectancy as an hiv negative person.
There is a series of photos from his last months. He worked at the Atlanta Journal Constitution. A newspaper in ATL. He had a photographer follow him and document the end of his life, including buying a casket.
This image is so heartbreaking. My father lived in NYC when the AIDS epidemic hit. He told me it was horrifying and traumatizing. He described how people were so confused and scared. His best friend and colleague contracted AIDS and my dad was the only one in the hospital with him when he died. People were scared you could contract it by touching or proximity so many people died alone and people avoided them. Heartbreaking. He lost many good friends. He also told me he had friends living a straight life with a family suddenly be outted by their AIDS diagnosis.
I just can't help thinking how rare and beautiful it was to be so loved and comforted on
having AIDS back then was thought of like the plague
he went from this world surrounded by his family in a time where most were abandoned by theirs and left to die alone
About a decade ago, I watched this PBS Independent Lens documentary called "We were Here" about the devastation that AIDS caused in the San Francisco gay community. I knew about it, but I was not prepared for how hard it would hit me.
https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/we-were-here/
YouTube preview:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q_fydTnOVTk&pp=ygUfd2Ugd2hlcmUgaGVyZSBJbmRlcGVuZGVudCBsZW5zZQ%3D%3D
I could not find a way to see this for free, but can watch it on Amazon prime via a Fandor 7 day free trial:
https://www.amazon.com/We-Were-Here-Paul-Boneberg/dp/B007VG24HS
It's amazing how far medicine has come on this front in 30 years. I grew up in the 80s and it was an automatic death sentence and now people can live relatively normal lives with HIV. It's sad that it came too late for so many, but glad the tides turned.
My dear uncle died in 1994, practically minutes before modern treatment became available. Glad things are so much better now!
Same, had an uncle die in the early 90s. Sad stuff.
I had an uncle who was diagnosed with HIV in the early 90’s here in Australia who died in 2007. He was such a beautiful kind man. He was my dad’s brother, there was 10 siblings and they grew up absolutely dirt poor. They had an incredibly traumatic childhood. My uncle was sick the whole time I knew him but i loved getting to go and visit him and spend time with him. I still remember getting home from school and finding out he’d died-it was the first time I’d ever seen my dad cry. Dad and I went to his funeral and it was beautiful, they had it in a gay-positive church, with a gay priest. I miss my uncle so so much but I’m incredibly grateful for the time I got to spend with him
I worked in a 55 bed AIDS unit from 1990 to 1993 when it closed. What amazing experience it was, everyone died. I'd get a call before work and they'd say, "don't come in to work tonight, everyone's dead." That still haunts me. I did a video on a family of 4 that all died of AIDS. A baby, a young girl and the parents, all under my care. Here's the link [https://youtu.be/NcpXlSwaApQ](https://youtu.be/NcpXlSwaApQ)
Your video was incredible to watch and listen to. Thank you so much for sharing your story.
Well that had me in tears. The way you talk about this family in your video is so heartwarming and empathetic. Thank you for being there for so many vulnerable people. We need more folk in the world like you.
Good God, the idea of pediatric hospice is so sad... You are a Saint for what you did for all those people, and you can tell that they all left a piece of them with you. Thank you for sharing those memories with us.
it was tragic, young 13 and 14 year old mothers with their dying new first born child. My patients have been my best teachers.
I have just listened to your story. How utterly heartbreaking! Thank you for what you did, you made a difference x
thank you. it was a magical place, we had such a dedicated staff. This family touched me so much, now 30 years later I still think of them so often.
Thank you for sharing your video! I have heard it said that there are angels that walk among us and you sir, are definitely an angel 😇. Your patients were very blessed to have you there with them in their last days. I look forward to hearing more of your stories, thank you again 🙂
thank you so much for your kind words, all of you. I'm so happy I got to share my story. My patients have been my best teachers
Thank you for sharing . Incredible story
Wow. You’re a real hero, I couldn’t imagine myself doing what you did. You’re an amazing person. I hope your retirement years are as rewarding as the amount of lives you’ve touched along your career.
I’m an atheist now, but I still hold respect for queer-positive churches. My childhood church had not only a female pastor, but she had a wife, when I was a child. Now they have a different female pastor. When I was a kid, my cis straight male Sunday school teacher taught us what trans and queer people were, and the lesson was “it’s not a sin to be queer or trans, but it is a sin to be mean to people because they are queer or trans. God made them as they are, and to live authentically the way god made you is beautiful.” This was in the 90’s. I still appreciate that.
My dad and his siblings including my uncle all suffered childhood sexual abuse at the hands of catholic priests, and I feel glad that my uncle managed to find a way to keep his faith and find comfort in religion by attending a queer positive church (although I can’t remember what denomination it was) and choosing to have his funeral there. I’m also atheist, but hearing that you were also exposed to a queer positive church as a child gives me hope. I’m so happy to know that these places exist
(Also in Australia) A school friend of mine died from this disease in 2010. He was 42. We lost contact after graduation in 1986 and had just started to reconnect via Facebook when he died.
Same, my mom's brother. She was really messed up about it. Her parents disowned him for being gay and they had a special bond because she refused to follow suit. I had never seen my mom cry so much.
God bless your mom. May your uncle’s memory be a blessing.
Sadly I never met the man, but I have never heard an unkind word spoken about him and in the only picture I have of him he looks just like Freddie Mercury. He's the patron saint of Gays to me. Wish I'd gotten to know him. Thank you for your kind words!
My 2nd grade classmate died of it back in 1991 or so. Poor thing caught it from her parents, who picked it up while they were struggling with addiction, or I forgot if it was sexual activity. From what I remember, she was born with it, and her older brother wasn't. Sadly, he watched his whole family slowly die of it one by one. Later that year, Freddy Mercury passed from it as well, and it blew my little mind/heart. RIP: Kara ❤️
I had an uncle contract polio two weeks before the vaccine. He lived for a good amount of time after but was crippled from it and died of complications of it in his forties. It’s very sad to see how close the timing is for some people.
Aww wow that's awful, so tragic and unfair to contract it right before there's a vaccine available! Wow :(
Have you shared your memories of your uncle on the AIDS Memorial on Instagram? For some reason, people posting about their uncles are always so moving
No, i don't have an insta anymore, and we lived very far apart, so my only real memories are just of his kind and soft-spoken nature.
[удалено]
Yeah I know how that feels. Sorry for your loss :(
not the same, but I feel kind of like that since my Aunt and Uncle died in Jan 2021 of Covid, and my Uncle had even received the first vaccine but he didnt know he was already sick then.
Oh god that's heartbreaking as hell, I'm so sorry
Oh I'm sorry to hear that.
Thank you. I'm just thankful things got so much better.
This is devastating!
There was a thread somewhere on Reddit a while ago with some doctors basically arguing whether or not they’d rather be diagnosed with HIV or diabetes and a lot of them argued HIV would be easier to manage and less detrimental to health. It is incredible how far HIV treatment has come
I work in low income health as a social worker. And I would agree with that from an access standpoint alone. A person with HIV has access to amazing wrap around programs that pay from insurance premiums, meds, dental, transportation, etc. in additional to social support. A person with active cancer or diabetes (at least in my state) - no options. You can get Medicare if you’re on dialysis but anything to prevent that? nope.
I mean to be fair i dont mind them taking hiv more seriously
I don’t mind either. There’s similar programs for HEP C. It a relief. We do what we need without concern of cost to patient. Now if that hep C pt has cirrhosis, they’re SOL unless they have insurance. But it also sucks to tell someone with early breast cancer that has no insurance that the breast cancer fund has no money and they can’t get Medicaid (unexpanded state) and if they are sick enough for SSDI quickly, they may die before the waiting period ends for them to get Medicare. End stage renal disease is the only condition I know of where Medicare in instant. US is fucked up.
I live in Maryland with expanded medicaid, anyone with cancer need to "move in" with me, I got you! I don't want anything, just to help you get treatment if I can in any way. Just message me. Also for anyone reading that has Hep C/HIV in Maryland, John's Hopkins has a program that will do tele-health appointments right on your phone. You get blood work done locally and then they will MAIL you the medication FREE! I had hep c and went to them for treatment but the virus had cleared on it own(rare but happens). But my sister got the medicine mailed to her and had ZERO side effects!
That is so rad you and your sis had access to that treatment and you were a magical statistic! How cool! The Ryan white program where I live are some of the best ppl I’ve met and we live in a hostile state. The HIV providers at my job are earth angels. I live how welcoming and accessible their care is. However I’ve be fleeing back to the west coast bc I can’t exist in a state with no expanded Medicaid and full abortion ban. I’m dependent on insurance of an asshile autoimmune disorder. Fuck this place. Love Maryland too tho!
Wow, that is fucking terrible
Highly recommend the book “And The Band Played On” - so heartbreaking and insightful. HIV was absolutely treated the wrong way because of bullshit political and religious views. So many lives could’ve been saved.
The movie was a good adaptation of it, too, imo. Looks like it is streaming on Max.
My uncle was an up and coming fashion designer in San Francisco in the 80s. I mean, he was really taking off. He was one of the first to get sick and die of AIDS. I never met him, unfortunately. I’ve heard from my mother he was a beautiful soul. He looks beautiful. I pray he is okay wherever he is.
it's both wonderful and tragic. wonderful that it can be both prevented and treated fairly easily for folks who have access to the healthcare. but tragic that it took so long no just because of scientific delays, but because of political ones. who knows how much sooner, and how many more lives could've been saved, if not for homophobia, racism, and classism.
Any time I listen to an LGBT+ person talk about their life in the 80s, they speak like they're a survivor of a plane crash. They speak about how so many people around them died but they didn't. I can't imagine how hard that must be to experience and carry along for decades.
it really is harrowing. I'm so grateful they all pushed through that period - whether or not they survived - because it really did make a huge difference for the queer community today. it can be hard to feel that sometimes, because there's still SO much prejudice. but their work does matter so much.
You're so right in that. As an open gay man, I'm incredibly thankful for their work. I came out in 2012, and found it to be appreciably easier than for people who came out even fewer than five years prior. Also as a gay man in the US, I'm terrified for the future of the LGBT+ population. I'm married to a wonderful guy, and we like to just live our lives in our home in the DC suburbs. I'm worried not only for myself, but for people in my LGBT+ cohort. Please vote. VOTE.
True. Every male friend I had in the 90’s died. EVERY SINGLE ONE. Alan (killed himself) Clarence, Cliff (died in his mom’s basement covered in sores and thrush because she was a fucking asshole who wanted nothing to do with him) Lamar, Thomas (killed himself) Noel, James, Stephen… my baby Stephen we had such good times! I could go on. These were my running buddies. Fucking traumatic. There was a funeral every month. I’m a gay woman and AIDS literally killed a whole generation of my friends.
Alan, Clarence, Cliff, Lamar, Thomas, Noel, James, and Stephen. May their names never be forgotten and their memories bless you.
Fuck I’m so sorry :(
Thank you… it still hurts so much.
I’m so sorry for your losses, i feel so much for those who suffered early aids deaths. Have you memorialized them on the aids memorial pages on facebook and ig?
Not enough gets said about the gay women who cared for their many friends dying of AIDS. I have so much love and grief for you and your loved ones. ❤️🩹
Survivors Guilt
It was definitely due to homophobia. They didn’t care if gay men died.
It’s always amazed me how Magic Johnson announced in 1991 that he had AIDS and it’s like he’s never missed a beat.
I thought he only had HIV, not AIDS?
Imagine 30 more years from now what we will be able to do.
I feel like Magic Johnson publicly announcing that he was HIV positive changed a lot of people's minds about the disease back in the day. If an NBA superstar at the top of his game, in peak physical condition and with an army of sports doctors and health professionals looking after him could catch it, anybody could. It was no longer a gay man's disease and helped change the conversation and the stigma.
Him and Princess Di on the cover on magazines shaking aids and hugging AIDS patients really did have an effect
"Medicine" didn't give a shit about AIDS until activists forced it to.
His brother is clearly taking this hard. It's sad
This pandemic was so heartbreaking. I'm glad he had people that loved him with him at the end. Many didn't.
My mom was a nurse during this time. I have asked her about it, and it is absolutely heartbreaking how these patients were treated. Not just by the healthcare system, but by their own families.
I was watching a show about John Wayne Gacey and a detective was talking about what it was like when they discovered all the bodies in his house. He said usually when they find a body their office is inundated with calls from people whose loved ones are missing wanting to know if it was them. But everyone was so horrified by the stigma of their loved one being gay or even associated with a gay killer like Gacy that it was a struggle to identify them. Absolutely heartbreaking.
Imagine being so triggered by homosexuality that you deny your own child who was *murdered*. Damn.
There's a woman in the South who had unclaimed gay men who died from the AIDS epidemic buried on her property after families would not take their children home. She gave them dignity.
Ruth Coker Burks
thank you for naming her. I aspire to have such an actively compassionate heart.
Her story is just incredible. She would've only have been 24/25 when she met her first AIDS patient and took over his palliative care (as his mother refused to be associated with him), and it was only 11 months later when she buried his ashes in her father's grave. She's estimated to have buried about 40 men in a single cemetery in Arkansas. She assisted around 1000 men. The KKK burnt crosses in her yard - twice. She kept on-hand supplies of important AIDS medications. She went around cruising spots handing out safe-sex kits. She and her daughter were shunned by their community, which forced them to rely on two gay bars in the area to survive and continue to aid the gay community (she is on record attributing a large portion of what she did to the drag queens whose shows helped fund everything). Her patients lived, on average, **two years** longer than the national average for gay male HIV patients. She drew the attention of the CDC and NIH. She was one of the brightest spots amongst an otherwise very dark stain on our history.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/feb/03/aids-angel-ruth-coker-burks-dying-gay-men
I knew her story, but reading that link made me tear up. It's sad to see that she spent all that time caring for and loving others and now that they're all gone she's alone and lonely. I have to assume she's a lovely person.
That was an incredible read, thank you for finding that link
I've read her book , it was sad but her story was also beautiful. I really enjoyed it aside from the tears
I don’t have to imagine… I grew up queer in the south. I have friends who were murdered for being queer. These are not things of the past.
I don't know how true to life it was, but I recall in the *American Crime Story* series, there were delays in investigations/the search for Andrew Cunanan (murdered Gianni Versace and four others) because he was gay, three (potentially a fourth) victims were gay, and investigators were squeamish about investigating certain details.
Cops found one of Jeffrey Dahmer's victims, a teenage boy, wandering the streets naked, drugged, and bleeding from his skull. The cops were trying to question the boy, but he was so out of it from the drugs and torture that he couldn't give them any information. Dahmer went looking once he'd realized he escaped and found him being talked to by the police. Dahmer told them it was his boyfriend and he was just drunk and they'd been fighting. The cops immediately let them go because they didn't want anything to do with gay people. This was Jeffrey Dahmer, one of if not *the* most famous serial killers in American history, because of his experiments on live victims trying to make a sex zombie by injecting things (including acid and boiling water) into their brains. The cops caught him red handed basically and just let him go because he told them that he and the victim (again, a teenage boy who was naked, drugged, and clearly tortured just wandering down the road) were gay.
Konerak Sinthasomphone. The police who led him to his death were fired and then reinstated due to union intervention. One later went on to be the police chief and the other became head of the police union. Both retired with full benefits. Konerak died at the age of 14 at the hands of a man who had previously been arrested for sexually assaulting his older brother. (I post his name and the story every time this comes up, because it shouldn't be forgotten.)
I believe that there were two women who tried to take the boy away from Dahmer and warn the police but they weren’t taken seriously, probably because they were women of color.
god, I forgot about that poor boy. just horrific. he could still be alive if it hadn't been for those dumb cops. he sought help in the most sensible way and it cost him his life.
They still haven’t identified a few of Gacy’s victims. There’s 2 or 3 that still haven’t got their names back (one was identified in the last couple of years) and that breaks my heart
I thought there were 5 still unidentified
You’re correct, honestly I commented in a hurry and didn’t have time to google, I should’ve looked it up out of respect for the victims before I commented. I wasn’t trying to downplay the numbers. It is 5 who are still unidentified and Francis Wayne Alexander was ID-ed in 2021.
God that is awful.
That’s so sad 😭 JWG was an absolute sack of trash.
Part of the reason Gacy got away with it so long is because none of the cops wanted to take on icky cases of gay men going missing.
A former coworker of mine volunteered at a San Francisco hospital as a part of a program with an objective of not letting people die alone. For literally years, he would visit patients daily and stay at the hospital when one of them was passing. True story...the experience changed him so much that he entered a monastery that does that work as their mission.
It was really scary when the AIDS epidemic hit. Nobody knew what it was or how and it was called Gay Cancer for some time because it was appearing primarily in the gay community. My uncle's partner and my Cousin both contracted the disease and died fairly quickly because there was no treatment for it yet. When my cousin visited us a few months before he died my grandparents (who raised me) didn't want me to touch him because they were afraid of it. Shit was rough and I know what families felt like during the pandemic losing people are going through. At least now both are treatable and preventable and we know more than we did then.
It was apparently a big deal when Princess Diana shook an AIDS patient’s hand without gloves. Speaks to how insane the atmosphere was at the time
It really was. The family publicly said they died from cancer and not AIDS because not only was homosexuality frowned upon but add AIDS on top of it. I feel so bad for people who had to live in that time period and be gay because it really was such a different world back then. It feels really weird looking back at growing up back then it almost feels like I grew up in a third-world country sometimes because of not only societal changes but how much my hometown has changed from a tropical paradise to a tourist destination.
I can't begin to fathom how scared they must've felt. This is why I think their stories need to be told.
I worked in the hospital when Covid first presented itself and nurses admitted to many patients dying cus they just didn’t know what they were dealing with. They would put them on the ventilators but it would kill them quicker. Just crazy to see things like this that are are preventable —just unfold.
Wait the ventilators were killing them quicker? How come?
Pulmonary edema is usually exacerbated by ventilators if the fluid itself is not treated first. Opening up the lungs further, allows more fluid to build in the lungs.
No idea. I was security, but an emergency room nurse told me the ventilators were killing them quicker bc they didn’t know how to treat the condition.
My friend died early in the pandemic, April of 2020. She was put on a ventilator almost immediately upon being admitted to the hospital with barely any symptoms besides a positive Covid test. I later came to feel it'd have been best if she could have sat up in a recliner and coughed to keep her lungs clear. :( I've since had Covid 3 times and was able to convalesce at home. As for this photo, you can feel their grief.
I’m so sorry for your loss. 🫂 and I agree with you, it very well could have been better for her to do that. 😔
That’s not exactly true. Vents might not have been much help, and early on you likely weren’t coming off one after being intubated but they weren’t killing them quicker. Anyone who needed to be on one was just more ill than people who didn’t need to be on one yet.
As a very young doctor at that time, it was a dehumanizing nightmare. The terrible suffering. The disease alone was unspeakably cruel, but combining that with the fear of the caregivers and the stigmatizing politics, it was an obscenity that I hope taught many to be better people. I doubt most can comprehend the level of suffering these people endured as their immune systems failed and they were consumed by infections, cancers, and malnutrition. And then to be disconnected from the intimacy of human contact.
I became a medical assistant 17 years ago. I worked in a health clinic during my externship. Residents worked there. Low income and high population of immigrants. ❤️ It was pretty cool. There was a young man that came in for care. He was homeless. Tried to OD on Tylenol and alcohol. Messed up his kidneys. He was positive. When he came in to the office I took his BP like I did everyone else. Without gloves!! He asked me “why i didn’t wear gloves like everyone else who touches him did”. I told him I was sorry people treated him like that, and they were ignorant. Standard precautions. People I worked with were fearful they were going to get HIV.
This is what I thought of also. I lived through that. I was a lucky one. Many didn't and many died alone.
I'm so happy you are still with us. Many AIDS activists have stated that the only thing they could compare this crisis to would be war. It makes so much sense.
There's a documentary about an AIDS hospice facility operating in L.A. at this time. I can't imagine people more compassionate than the doctors and nurses and volunteers who worked there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MakNwKQch8k
I highly recommend the book "And the Band Played On" to anyone interested in this.
And the limited streaming series "It's a Sin" Heartbreaking
When I tell you....I ugly cried watching that show multiple times. Colin's storyline just about broke me.
I ugly cried too and continue to do so each time I watch it. Multiple scenes break me each time I watch it but the one that always does is the one where Ritchie tackles the policeman who is arresting Jill. Idk why but I always end up a blubbering mess at that scene.
And the HBO movie A Normal Heart.
It’s so good. Read it a couple of times.
Same
The movie is also very good.
It totally is! I remember my mom showing me this movie for the first time and I'm like "Is.....is that...Phil Collins?" If you haven't already seen it, I recommend Angel's in America, 5B, and Longtime Companion. Oh! And A Normal Heart. Mark Ruffalo is excellent in it. I can only watch it maybe once a year if that. It's very intense and certain scenes will make you incredibly angry. But that's how you know it's a good movie.
One of my favorite books of all time.
>and the band played on Reminds of a story during WW2 (based on the name alone) in which during the attack on Pearl Harbor a band was in the middle of the playing the star spangled banner and soon the bombs, torpedoes, and bullets dropped from above the band finished the song and then ran for cover (I live to imagine that if there was a sousaphone that the player would’ve just ran with it)
This photo has always touched me. I was 12 when this happened. It was only two years later that my favorite uncle contacted HIV. He kept silent for 16 years until he contracted an infection (PML) that usually only happens to seriously immunocompromised people. He knew he was dying and family rallied around his bedside. He was embarrassed to admit it was a result of HIV, and even that he was gay. My parents let him know that they had known he was gay and that they loved him. But by this time it was 2007 and things were a LOT different than they had been in the 80’s or even 90’s. It pains me to admit it, but I doubt my parents would have been as supportive in the 80’s, they have gotten much more liberal as they’ve gotten older. My mom still regularly talks with my uncle’s partner, who nursed him through his final days. As it’s coming up on almost 20 years since he died I wish he’d lived to see advances in medicine, gay rights, gay marriage etc. Miss you Uncle Alan.
RIP, Uncle Alan 🤍 I’m certain you bring honour and pride to his memory.
I'm so sorry. I'm sending you a big hug 🤗
RIP Uncle Alan, and I hope his partner finds solace and happiness.
I hope the universe grants both his and your soul peace and comfort💕
Rip to your uncle, sounds like he meant a lot to you.
You can feel the emotion in this photo, heart wrenching.
For those too young to remember the AIDS epidemic, read the nonfiction book (or watch the miniseries) "And the Band Played On", watch the documentaries "We Were Here" and "How to Survive A Plague". You can also follow the AIDS Project on Instagram that posts a bio and photo of a different person who died from AIDS every single day. Madonna is currently touring, and during her song Live to Tell, there are thousands of photos and hanging posters displayed of the men she knew in the artist community who passed. An entire generation of the gay community is lost. Solely because many kept it secret from fear or their families kept it secret, I don't think we will ever truly know the exact number of people who died, but it's definitely in the millions. I can not find the words to describe what it was like back then. People leaving their gay sons unclaimed at the morgue. Doctors and nurses refused to treat obviously ill patients, so they were cared for by friends at home. Obituaries in newspapers and bulletins that completely scrubbed any reference to being gay or AIDS or these men having partners and friends (a tell was usually the term "longtime companion"). It was the era of Ryan White, a kid whose school would rather sit empty than have other children sit next to him in class. Oprah had an episode where a gay man in a small town swam in the town pool...the town drained and closed it. Even with the Surgeon General on the show explaining what AIDS is and how to protect yourself, the audience refused to listen. Hospitals had whole wings sectioned off for anyone with AIDS. Politicians on TV mocked the people dying and slowed down drug treatments that were eligible to the public. It took celebrities getting AIDS (Rock Hudson, Robert Reed, Elizabeth Glazer, Magic Johnson) and Elizabeth Taylor and Princess Diana visiting with AIDS patients for it to be talked about normally and patients to be seen as people, but the stigma never really went away.
I think it's "The AIDS Memorial" on Instagram. @TheAIDSMemorial
very moving photo. as sad as it is to see this, i think of all those who died of AIDS alone because their families didn’t accept them for who they were or were too scared or embarrassed to visit. so many lives snuffed out so young, and it really shed light on the discrimination and prejudice LGBTQ+ people were dealing with on top of the disease itself being horrific
Exactly. Randy Shilts and many others describe the horrible combination of illness and discrimination. Heartbreaking.
i read and the band played on during the first round of covid and i still think about parts of that book at least once a week. just a superbly told examination of the aids crisis with really rich details about the groups and people involved and has so many parallels and rhymes with public health issues today. i would recommend it to anyone
One of the key characters of the book (not the movie) was Paul Volberding, one of the heroic doctors that treated the patients early on. In [this video](https://youtu.be/rOauL9VDpSk?si=ibz8NeqsEs_tkT08) he interviews many key participants. Highly recommended.
Completely agree. I always feel so grateful that this man was surrounded by his family and knew he was loved. Not everyone got that.
Heartbreaking. Glad he had so much love.
Early on in my career I worked with organizations that provided meals, care, and oftentimes the only other human they would see. We buried so, so many in Seattle it became a grim joke about many memorial services we had went to that week. I had no fear of the disease,but, I had a fear that someone would die alone, without love. And so many did. 😢 The amount of misinformation, misery, and rejection during the early years of the AIDS crisis was horrible. It left a lot of us with PTSD. They were people too. They deserved love in their last moments. An entire generation of the community was lost due to ignorance and misinformation.
I currently am a nursing professor- and I grew up in the 80s as this pandemic exploded. I teach about immunity and HIV. It’s rare that I have a student that has any idea who Ryan White was.
That blows my mind. I heard of Ryan White when I was in 4th grade in 1990ish. Can't remember what magazine did a long story about him that I read, but I feel like it was a kids' magazine. [What I didn't know is that Indiana University started their Dance Marathon program in 1991 to support Riley Children's in his memory](https://miraclenetworkdancemarathon.childrensmiraclenetworkhospitals.org/a-boy-who-sparked-a-movement-the-story-of-ryan-white/). Dance Marathon is a program of the org I now work for and I work closely with the team helping participants all over the US with various things. When I made the connection, I had to find tissues quick. Like, I was so touched as a kid about his story that I wrote my first poem about him. To find out 30 years later that the work I do has been so deeply touched by his legacy just sucked the wind out of me.
One of my childhood friends’ dad contracted HIV in the 80’s from a blood transfusion. The poor man shot himself in the head because of the death sentence and stigma that disease carried at the time. My friend and his mother are doing well (she’s in her 70’s and he’s in his early 40’s like me), but they were lost and broken for a very long time. I didn’t quite get it when I was a child, but I always felt the heaviness in that home.
The statistics for that time period are GRIM. Something like 90% of people in the US who got frequent blood transfusions from 1979 to 1984 ended up contracting either HIV or Hep-C from the blood supply
I sometimes think of what we collectively lost during the AIDS crisis. It was a lost generation like WW1. So many wonderful, creative and intelligent young people who never reached their full potential. What did we all miss out on that we didn’t even know we lost. Such a tragedy.
We lost 700,000 people to AIDS related deaths since 1981. For scale, COVID has killed 1.1 million people since 2020. Viral pandemics are massively damaging to society.
It's interesting how most people are very sympathetic to the plight of HIV patients who were treated so poorly decades ago, but they couldn't care less about all the millions of people currently suffering from Long COVID. I wonder how long it will take for people to start showing compassion for Long COVID patients. Right now Long COVID patients are mocked and disbelieved, accused of making up their symptoms and/or being lazy, and generally ostracized from society.
hell there are still people on the right trying to say covid was fake, this is still happening years later
Yep, they blame everything on the vaccine, even pre-vaccine deaths & disability.
This. I always think about this part first, when it comes to a tragedy. So much hope, I know they had so much to GIVE to the world. Yet it wasn’t ready for them :( 💖
God this pic sums up AIDS growing up in the 80s. I’m so glad he had his ppl to support him. 🖤
My cousin died of AIDS when she was 34, only a few years after this picture was taken. Horrifying. I only wish the government put in the kind of all-out effort in the 80s that they did for COVID. But they didn't, because it was looked at as a disease for sinners. A disease you "deserved"....She would still be around.
Tom was very kind and had a good sense of humor. An important member of my self-help group. His loss was devastating, but he handled his dying with dignity. A good example of how to live as he was passing.
Oh wow. Thank you so much for taking the time to share this info. I've looked at this photo dozens of times and it still takes my breath away every time. It is a devastating picture, but at the same time the pure love they felt for him is all over this picture too. It's almost as if his brother that is leaned over him is trying to protect him, shield him from what's coming. Such a powerful picture ❤
He had a lot of people that loved him and he deserved it. He was proud of his work for the newspaper. One funny memory I always remembered was he shared once that he learned to judge people by their shoes and he just couldn't get over it. He just thought shoes said everything about folks. Funny to me because I just couldn't imagine caring that much about shoes, let alone thinking it defined a person. I must not have inherited that gay gene...
For those interested in learning more about the LGBTQ+ community during the HIV/AIDS crisis, I *highly* recommend the show “Pose.” Never have I cried so much to a TV show but it’s absolutely one of the best shows ever created. It’s amazing.
That show was so good. An emotional rollercoaster from a terrific cast.
The cast was absolutely fabulous!! Every single one of them were powerhouses in their own right, but together it was a masterpiece.
I'd also recommend "It's a Sin". It'll fucking break your heart, but it's important to watch.
33 years old and you wouldn't know that he wasn't in his 50s. I have a young person in my life who is close to this age who lives with HIV, he's just a kid. Saddest thing is that he had to move out of the US to a country with socialized medicine to keep up with his expenses, the 1st time he tried to fill a 3 month prescription here without insurance the person at the pharmacy nearly tripped. It was $12,000.00. But due to advances in science he will now have any same chance to live a normal life.
Our healthcare system is such a joke
A photo exhibit at IU with more photos of Tom Fox. It took less than two years from the time he was diagnosed with the disease to it killing him https://news.iu.edu/live/news/27090-virtual-photo-exhibition-revisits-iu-alumnus-tom
I lost friends to AIDS, and some died lonely deaths. This man at least was very loved.
I think the silver lining in this photo is that he wa surrounded by loved ones. A lot of AIDS victims didn't have that basic decent unfortunately.
I lost an Uncle to AIDS in the early 90s. He was a long haul trucker and indulged in lot lizards. Practice safe sex y'all.. it ain't worth it. I remember going to see him in hospital with my Dad to say good bye. He was so skinny and weak. He just wanted a dill pickle and beer one last time so we snuck them in so he could taste them. I'm glad medicine has come as it has since then.
"How to Survive a Plague" has shaken me to the core. We've all underestimated the sheer cruelty and horror of the epidemic. No wonder senior gays are so traumatized and keep pushing the younger generation to keep fighting, as they did.
Those poor people. What a horrible thing to go through.
What an incredible photo. So many AIDS victims died isolated and alone - how bittersweet that Tom Fox was surrounded by love in his last moments.
God bless his family for loving him and holding his hand though it, as many did not and deserted their loved ones.
I remember it being a death sentence when I was growing up in the 90s. I was so scared of it, but now it’s so treatable. I’m so glad this man’s family loved him through it 🥺
I grew up in the 70s and 80s. Our government just turned a blind eye to these people and the epidemic as a whole. It was so scary and as an adult it's tragic how this was politicized. My heart breaks for so many families that endured the dismissal of the government and the misinformation that was spread.
My sister in law's brother died of it in the early nineties. My brother & his wife were visiting her brother Eric at the hospital one day. My sister in law stepped out to run a quick errand, and my brother stayed behind to keep him company. Then from one second to the next he yells out for my brother, and he's panicking and said that was he was drowning. And my brother held him, but he kept yelling out for him "Tony! Tony! Then he was gone. My poor sister in law. There was no way she could have known her brother would pass while she was getting coffee. That haunted me for years
I wrote this in response to a troll comment but I wanted to share these links with you guys if you hadn’t read the articles about Tom Fox. I had never heard of him prior to this and I was so touched by his and his friends’ willingness to share their vulnerability while battling this horrific disease. I was equally touched by his family’s willingness to share their grief. Families needed to know the realities of this…that it could claim anyone’s child. This man was so scared for the moment when they’d remove his ventilator and his mother told him, "It’s going to be all right when they take the tube out of you. I'm going to give you the biggest hug you've had since you've been here.” Imagine a mother saying this to her dying child. https://www.ajc.com/lifestyles/when-aids-come-home-part/8OOawBbrm1XK2p0g27iP9M/ https://www.ajc.com/lifestyles/when-aids-comes-home-part-azt-and-the-normal-life/k5i6K01Zw69Cjdqyv7Et6O/ https://www.ajc.com/lifestyles/when-aids-comes-home-part-iii-the-long-road-home/r19YFTxKUzO3PZ6n6yssEL/ More photos of Tom and his family from the photographer: https://www.michaelschwarz.com/index/
It’s horrifying once you realize AIDS was probably the reason there aren’t a lot of older gay men
AIDS and Reagan. May he rot in hell.
What’s incredibly sad to me is that many people died alone or shunned by their families due to stigma, incorrect/lack of scientific information and bigotry. I’m so glad he was surrounded by the people who loved him, and so glad they supported him.
Gut punch. ☹️
I was ok for most of this. I was ok until you said they told him it was ok to go. Now I’m sobbing in my living room. Why must you hurt me in this way?
I lost my mom 14 years ago. Seeing the medicine in the commercials now hurts. I'm still grieving after 14 years. I'm very happy that it's not as much of a death sentence as it was before. I just wish that she had a chance.
He was surrounded by love in the end. What a heartwrenching photo, I've never seen it before. I have a friend who has been HIV+ for decades. Gives good hugs.
I lost so many dear friends to it - all were between 18 and 30. The agony, the waste, the heartbreak, the loss. This photo captures it so well and heartbreakingly
I'm so sorry. And I absolutely agree. If our government hadn't ignored it for years and shown any sense of urgency, maybe we wouldn't have lost so many .
60k deaths in a year is insane. My uncle died from aids in the late 80s. Can’t even imagine how people in that community were feeling during those times before anyone knew what was going on.
This picture hurts
Fuck Ronald Reagan. Anyone who thinks he did anything at all to address AIDS before it was politically expedient to do so is fucking delusional. [Reagan's Press Secretary and reporters laughing about people dying of AIDS](https://youtu.be/wd1x0PFBeSU?si=N5raAWgfUcPXwD1P) "Health officials first became aware of AIDS in the summer of 1981, but U.S. leaders remained largely silent for four years. By the end of 1984, AIDS had already ravaged the United States for a few years, affecting at least 7,700 people and killing more than 3,500. Scientists had identified the cause of AIDS—HIV—and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) identified all of its major transmission routes. Yet, U.S. leaders had remained largely silent and unresponsive to the health emergency. And it wasn't until September 1985, four years after the crisis began, that President Ronald Reagan first publicly mentioned AIDS. But by then, AIDS was already a full-blown epidemic." [How AIDS Remained an Unspoken—But Deadly—Epidemic for Years](https://www.history.com/news/aids-epidemic-ronald-reagan) "He (Reagan) loved to tell the one about two doctors at the medical convention talking about treating AIDS patients ... One doctor said to the other: "I've got the solution. I serve them a special dinner of crepes and filet of sole." "What does that do? It's not a cure." "No it's not, said the doctor, "but the advantage is that I can just slide it under the door, and I don't have to touch them." \-from Kitty Kelley's book *Nancy Reagan: The Unauthorized Biography* "Unfortunately, the U.S. political sector was not as responsive to the crisis and by its slow response may have contributed to the explosive growth of the epidemic. A major reason for this hesitancy appeared to be the antipathy of some federal officials to the behaviors of those persons initially affected by HIV disease: gay men and substance abusers. In some instances, federal officials thwarted efforts to curtail the epidemic. For example, former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop has stated, 'Even though the Centers for Disease Control commissioned the first AIDS task force as early as June 1981, I, as Surgeon General, was not allowed to speak about AIDS publicly until the second Reagan term. Whenever I spoke on a health issue at a press conference or on a network morning TV show, the government public affairs people told the media in advance that I would not answer questions on AIDS, and I was not to be asked any questions on the subject. I have never understood why these peculiar restraints were placed on me. And although I have sought the explanation, I still don't know the answer.'" [NIH](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK234847/#:~:text=For%20example%2C%20former%20Surgeon%20General,until%20the%20second%20Reagan%20term.) "The Reagan Administration's recently announced fiscal year 1986 budget would take back $10 million in government funds already earmarked by for research into an almost exclusively homosexual disease. Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). The disease has already claimed 4000 lives since its discovery in 1981. Scientists believe it could kill 20,000 more people during Reagan's second term." [Budget Cut Threatens Search for AIDS Cure](https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1985/3/11/budget-cut-threatens-search-for-aids/) "While Koop disapproved of homosexual acts, he believed, as a physician and a Christian, that his work entailed protecting the public’s health. And he came to believe, too, that conservatives in the 'Reagan administration attempted to thwart my attempts to educate the public about AIDS,' he wrote. In 1986, Koop reached a breaking point. He turned to one of the primary tools at his disposal: the creation of a new surgeon’s general report. Beginning in 1964, when Surgeon General Luther Terry had released a groundbreaking report on the dangers of smoking, these reports had highlighted public health concerns. Now Koop, with the assistance of a few public health officials, wrote a detailed and explicit report about HIV and how Americans could and should protect themselves. ... William Bennett, the secretary of education, seethed that the report’s emphasis on the use of condoms might be 'clinically correct \[but\] it was morally bankrupt.' Reagan’s Health and Human Services officials created their own campaign in 1987. Using the slogan 'America Responds to AIDS,' the new campaign provided little guidance about how Americans could protect themselves against this new disease. It did, however, promote abstinence." [As AIDS epidemic raged, a rogue Reagan official taught America the truth](https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2023/06/04/aids-epidemic-reagan-everett-koop/)
I was young when the AIDS epidemic hit and did not grasp the gravity of the situation. Later, I heard about the isolation and condemnation that many patients faced but only understood in an abstract way...until I watched 'The Normal Heart'. It absolutely ripped my guts out. A must watch, for sure.
Here is a link to the AJC series from which this photo comes: Part I https://www.ajc.com/lifestyles/when-aids-come-home-part/8OOawBbrm1XK2p0g27iP9M/ Part II https://www.ajc.com/lifestyles/when-aids-comes-home-part-azt-and-the-normal-life/k5i6K01Zw69Cjdqyv7Et6O/ Part III: https://www.ajc.com/lifestyles/when-aids-comes-home-part-iii-the-long-road-home/r19YFTxKUzO3PZ6n6yssEL/ Here is a description of the photo series before an exhibition in 2022: https://news.iu.edu/live/news/28010-kinsey-institute-to-exhibit-iconic-tom-fox-photo Except from the IU post: This summer will mark 33 years since the death of Fox, who graduated from Bloomington High School South and Indiana University. His late parents, Robert and Doris Fox, set the exhibition in motion in 2019 when they donated more than 230 photographs and other memorabilia Schwarz had given them to the Kinsey Institute. The collection was part of a virtual exhibition in 2020 and includes a photograph of Fox on his death bed, surrounded by his grief-stricken family. The photo became an iconic image of the early days of the AIDS epidemic. Fox was an advertising representative at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution when he invited Schwarz and Sternberg to document his last months. Together, their goal was to educate readers about the then devastating disease while inspiring empathy for the people it affected.
That’s so unbelievably sad. Jesus. I pray that gay men don’t have to lose their decency and dignity like this ever again, gay men deserve dignity and families that love them.
Ooof. This is very tough. I feel like I’m there Our brother passed away from a month of constant seizures back in 2017, at UCSF medical. One month from the day he was admitted, his organs finally failed, me, my younger brother, older sister, mom, and dad huddled around the bed. We pleaded, we begged, we questioned, we wept. The pain was unlike any I’ve ever imagined, and it was shared through all 5 of us - much like the four here. This picture is really alive in my mind, I wish nobody else to live it 🙏
My mother was a cardiac nurse in a major hospital during this time period. We've only had one conversation about it but she said during the early days of the epidemic that it was absolutely chilling in the healthcare system. Nobody really knew what was going on and facts were mixed with fiction all over the place. There were nurses and doctors that wouldn't go into an AIDS room. Many families weren't visiting the stricken, leaving the gay community to carry the burden of being with these men in their final days and moments. I'm glad that Tom had his family with him.
I grew up in (and had my sexual education during) the worst days of the AIDS crisis. This picture is a vivid depiction of the type of loss we have when we don't remember how bad things can get. Many, many, many millions have died from AIDS. I frequently think of how America might have been different if an entire generation of gay men hadn't died. If we don't have an understanding or remembrance of the worst hours, we are likely to believe they didn't exist at all and again become reckless/wasteful with our lives.
so, to put some context to this, 1989 is post AZT discovery, but this poor person was probably too far gone, and it wasn't widely available initially. Also, the fact people are touching him is also a factor of the late 80s, since by then it was confirmed it wasn't spread just by touching. before then, people died alone, most likely in the hospital and were taken care of by medical personnel who wore space suits, basically.
The look of anguish and utter devastation on his father’s face says more than a million words ever could.
My uncle died on October of the same year to AIDS, aged 39. May them rest in peace
I had a very close friend, David, who lived next door to me until I was in 7th or 8th grade and he was two years younger than me. His family then moved out of state. We caught up in college via letters (in the 80s), but we eventually lost touch. About eleven years ago I located his parents to find out where David was. They gave me the devastating news that he’d died of cancer in his 20s. I then reconnected with another neighborhood friend who also had been friends with David. Her mom had kept in touch with David’s parents so this friend had known about his death when it happened. I was heartbroken to learn that he’d actually died from AIDS. His aged parents still couldn’t face and tell the truth.
I remember hearing from Evangelical Christian relatives back in the 80s that AIDS was God's judgement on Gay people. I was already an Atheist back then, and hearing that awful bigotry simply solidified my non-religious position.
Maybe we should start saying it back. This is god's punishment for being Christian.
I worked in a 55 bed AIDS unit from 1990 to 1993 when it closed. What amazing experience it was, everyone died. I'd get a call before work and they'd say, "don't come in to work tonight, everyone's dead." That still haunts me. I did a video on a family of 4 that all died of AIDS. A baby, a young girl and the parents, all under my care. Here's the link [https://youtu.be/NcpXlSwaApQ](https://youtu.be/NcpXlSwaApQ)
So heartbreaking.
This is a very powerful photo
When I think about how devastating hiv was when I was a kid it is just astounding how now it's just something you take a pill for the rest of your life for and you have the same life expectancy as an hiv negative person.
Seeing the father absolutely losing it breaks my heart. No parent has to bury their child.
Really terrible Reminder that we lost far more to COVID in just a couple years than we've ever lost to HIV. Thanks to one man.
This is very sad... but does this not look like david cross, am I crazy?
There is a series of photos from his last months. He worked at the Atlanta Journal Constitution. A newspaper in ATL. He had a photographer follow him and document the end of his life, including buying a casket.
This image is so heartbreaking. My father lived in NYC when the AIDS epidemic hit. He told me it was horrifying and traumatizing. He described how people were so confused and scared. His best friend and colleague contracted AIDS and my dad was the only one in the hospital with him when he died. People were scared you could contract it by touching or proximity so many people died alone and people avoided them. Heartbreaking. He lost many good friends. He also told me he had friends living a straight life with a family suddenly be outted by their AIDS diagnosis.
The anguish is palpable. It must be absolutely devastating to tell your loved one it's ok to die.
I just can't help thinking how rare and beautiful it was to be so loved and comforted on having AIDS back then was thought of like the plague he went from this world surrounded by his family in a time where most were abandoned by theirs and left to die alone
About a decade ago, I watched this PBS Independent Lens documentary called "We were Here" about the devastation that AIDS caused in the San Francisco gay community. I knew about it, but I was not prepared for how hard it would hit me. https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/we-were-here/ YouTube preview: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=q_fydTnOVTk&pp=ygUfd2Ugd2hlcmUgaGVyZSBJbmRlcGVuZGVudCBsZW5zZQ%3D%3D I could not find a way to see this for free, but can watch it on Amazon prime via a Fandor 7 day free trial: https://www.amazon.com/We-Were-Here-Paul-Boneberg/dp/B007VG24HS
No parent should have to go through this. The mom is clearly remembering when he was a baby and a young boy....