The AIDS Crisis: ACT UP, The Missing Generation & The Legacy | PART TWO

The AIDS crisis wasn't just a medical emergency—it became one of the most influential civil rights movements in modern history.

In Part Two of this HOT AIR special, Joshua Robert explores how grief transformed into activism through ACT UP, how government inaction fueled one of the darkest chapters in LGBTQ history, and why millions of younger queer people unknowingly grew up without an entire generation of mentors, artists, activists, and community leaders.

This episode examines:

• ACT UP and the birth of modern AIDS activism
• Larry Kramer and the fight for action
• Ronald Reagan and the political response
• The Missing Generation
• Survivor's guilt
• How HIV stigma still affects LGBTQ people today
• Why AIDS continues to shape queer identity and activism
• The lasting legacy of one of history's deadliest epidemics

The AIDS crisis isn't ancient history.

It's living history.

And understanding it helps explain the LGBTQ community we know today.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to Hot Air with me, Joshua Robert. And before we get into why we're actually here today, this is so random. But if you're from Canada, I mean, even if you're not from Canada, you should know what these fucking chips are that I have. Well, actually, they're um their whole catchphrase. They're not chips, they're not crackers, they're crispers. You can only get them in Canada. These were my weakness growing up. Like, so uh insanely good. They're all dressed flavored. If you don't know, you should know. All dressed is like, it's like sour cream and onion, salt and vinegar, barbecue, like all the flavors mixed into one. So good. One of the members at the club that I teach at brought me five bags because she went to Canada and I'm just sitting here. I was like, I need a little snack.

SPEAKER_01 0:45

Mmm.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Mmm. You can probably order them on Amazon. Like everyone, everyone should have these.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Mmm.

SPEAKER_00 0:53

They're just so good. Okay. I'm putting them away. Zipping up the bag. Actually, I'm gonna leave these in the background. No. Am I? Is that stupid? I'm gonna leave them in the background of the episode just in case I need a snack. And before we get into the episode, I also wanted to talk about something else. So most of you know that this podcast originated out of my therapy journey and searching for healing and growth. And my first episode about um rough ruffled feathers, right? We we know this. This isn't a secret. And there's been a lot of conversations with me and people that are closest to me about what I think allyship is and how they could do better and what I wanted from them in terms of in terms of support and understanding and knowing me beyond just, oh, that's my gay son. Like, what do I care if he's gay? Just understanding the shit I that the community has to go through, that I have to go through. Um and last pride season, I remember my parents were like, oh, I don't know. Is it weird to say happy pride? Like, I was thinking about it. I was gonna text you, but like I wasn't sure. And prior to that, that's never happened, right? And obviously, like, yeah, that's a valid question. That's something that I think most people are like, isn't it weird to say happy pride to like your gay son or your lesbian son or your trans son or daughter, I guess there's daughters do. But I was like, yeah, like I would like that. Like, that's fine to say, whatever. And then this year came around and I go into pride season and I'm like, oh, I I highly doubt there'll be any change because it's peep a lot, people in general, as a society as a whole, we don't change that much, right? Like a lot of people are set in their ways unless they really work at it and they try to make an effort to. And both of my parents, my biological parents, my mom and my dad, separately, or they're not together, so separately, text me, happy pride. And I thought that was like, I wasn't expecting it. I was really just like, I have come to terms with that. Like, some people don't get it, some people don't fully understand what you're trying to express to them. And like, that's fine, right? It's not up to me to continue to try to mold people into what I want them to be. Or I I can tell them and they can do with that information as they please. And like, what's the use in me getting fucking heated and pissed off anymore if people aren't going to be able to deliver, right? And so I honestly this year wasn't expecting any type of happy pride, whatever. And it's such a small little little thing, but like to me, it's important just to show that like I'm being heard, that all of my yelling and screaming and bitching on my podcast is like being heard. That was really nice. And that is why I keep doing this podcast, like hopefully reaching other people that will maybe respond to their significant others or their children or their parents or their aunts and uncles that need that support. Maybe they'll respond differently. Maybe this will like click and something will change in their mind where they'll be like, okay, maybe I can text them happy pride this year or whatever. And then right while I was recording this, my stepdad texts me a picture of, I think it was a bookstore in the town that they live in in Vancouver that had like a happy pride display. And it's like, that kind of stuff I think is just so nice. And my dad texted me uh separately and was said he went to the liquor store in Canada and they were like, Do you want to make a donation to Pride this season or this season, today, whatever? And just them trying to bridge that gap and make an effort and reach across the aisle, as they say. Like that is progress. To me, that is allyship, and that is people putting in effort. So I appreciate that. I think it's great. And I hope that this podcast continues to help people see that those little things are important. I think is what I'm trying to say. So thanks, fam. And we're gonna get into the reason we're actually here today. Okay. We are continuing our deep dive into one of the most devastating chapters in queer history, which was the AIDS crisis. So just a quick recap: in part one, we explored the world before AIDS, which was a lot of optimism and liberation that many queer people experienced in the 70s, and then the terrifying emergence of a mysterious illness and the painful reality that thousands of people were becoming sick while much of the world seemed unwilling to pay attention. And today we are picking right up where we left off. So, in this episode, we're gonna examine what happened when an entire community decided that it was done waiting for help. We'll talk about Act Up, the activist who transformed grief into action and fundamentally changed medicine, healthcare advocacy, and queer activism forever. And we're also gonna explore one of the most heartbreaking consequences of the epidemic, which was the missing generation. Full body chills again. We'll discuss why so many younger queer people feel disconnected from older generations, what was lost when hundreds of thousands of lives were cut short, and how those losses continue to shape our community today. And then finally, we're gonna bring the conversation into the present and we're gonna look at how the AIDS crisis still impacts queer life and healthcare and stigma, activism and identity more than 40 years later. It's a lot. This story isn't just about a virus, it's a story about resilience, community survival, activism, and the people who fought for a future that many of them never got the chance to see. And if you're a younger, queer person, this episode is gonna help explain why certain conversations, traditions, and memories remain so important within our community. And if you're someone who lived through this era, I hope that the conversation honors the people that we lost and the people who refused to stop fighting. Oh God, I really wasn't expecting to get emo today. So let's bring it into some superficial shit. Before we jump in, make sure you're following me on Instagram and TikTok at underscore hot airpod, where you will find all my episode clips, behind the scenes content. Um, you might start seeing some of my trip to New York Pride. If you're listening to this on Friday, yeah, you'll definitely, I'm gonna be posting a shit ton of stuff. I'll be in New York for Pride season. So also if you're there, hit me up if you're a hot air listener. I actually, in my analytics, when I look, my biggest base is New York City and Los Angeles. My biggest base. I don't even know. What am I? Fucking mega? My mega base. You can also visit hotair with joshuaroberts.com to shop my merch, submit your listener stories and topic suggestions, and stay in the loop with all hot air goodness. My allergies have also been absolutely insane. My eyes are so itchy right now and they're getting red. So I'm not possessed if you're if you're watching, but I am possessed because Pride Month spells demon, right? So, you know, whatever. Go with it. It's on brand. Okay, so we talked about the fear, the loss, the abandonment. Now it's time to talk about the people who refuse to stay silent. Okay. Grab your fucking rainbow flag and let's hit it. Oh, it's G-I.

SPEAKER_01 8:00

H-O-T A I R hot text therapy, no filter. Say what I mean. H-O-T-A-I-R. Let's be real. Listen to hot air.

SPEAKER_00 8:15

So in the first episode, the very, very last segment, I touched on uh the abandonment. This the segment is about, was about what happened when an entire community finally ran out of patience. Okay, because there comes a point in every crisis where grief transforms into something else. And at first, people are shocked, then they're scared, then they're heartbroken. But eventually, after enough funerals and enough unanswered questions, after enough watching people suffer while those in power move at a glacial pace and like hang out, like grief starts to harden into some anger. And that is exactly what happened during the AIDS crisis. One of the biggest misconceptions that people have about queer history is that progress happened because society eventually became more accepting. That's not the fucking facts, baby. That's certainly part of the story. Okay, maybe a little bit, but that's not it. But it's far from the whole story, okay? The truth is that many of the rights, protections, and visibility that we have today exist because queer people got tired of waiting for permission. The people in charge in society didn't say, you know what? Let's give the gays equality. Let's give them equal rights to get married. Let's just celebrate gayness and have pride. That did not come from straight people in charge and the straight population. That came from the queer community standing the fuck up, putting their foot down and their flags in the air and saying, we've had enough. That's why change happens, because people stand up, not because society suddenly goes, no, okay, we'll just accept everyone now. That's not how it works. She's heated. I'm heated already. So we today, we have the rights, the protections, the visibility that we have today because like those things exist because the queer community got tired of waiting for fucking permission. They got tired of being polite. They got tired of asking nicely, they got tired of watching their friends die while being told to be patient. Well, no one did anything. Like, and honestly, if you put yourself in their position, like it's hard to not understand why. Imagine you've spent years watching people in your community disappear. Imagine you've buried your partner, your best friend, maybe, your roommate, your coworker, and the guy you used to see every Saturday night at your favorite bar. Like, imagine hearing promises that help is coming while death continues showing up faster than solutions. At some point, patience starts to feel like you're just surrendering. That is the environment that gave rise to one of the most important activist movements in modern queer history, Act Up. And Act Up stood for AIDS Coalition to Unleas Power. And even the name tells you everything you need to know about the energy of that movement. This was not a group that was focused on making people comfortable. This wasn't a group worried about being liked. This wasn't a group interested in asking quietly from the back of the room. These were people whose lives were on the line and they were determined to force the world to pay attention. One of the central figures during this era was Larry Kramer, a writer, activist, and professional pain in the ass in the absolute best way possible. Okay. Larry was brilliant, confrontational, exhausting, relentless, and exactly what the moment required. He famously refused to soften his message to make other people comfortable. He wasn't interested in being the polite activist that straight society could applaud while continuing to ignore the crisis. He wanted action, he wanted urgency, he wanted people to understand that this wasn't some abstract political issue. Like people were fucking dying here. And here's something that I think, again, younger generations need to understand. Today we often think of protests as symbolic. People gather, hold signs, they post photos, they are raising awareness. Like act up wasn't just raising awareness. They were trying to save lives. There's a very different level of urgency and protest here. They organized demonstrations that disrupted business as usual. They staged die-ins where activists would lie on the ground representing the countless people who had already died. They protested outside government buildings, they interrupted political events, they shut down traffic, they occupied offices, they made themselves absolutely impossible to ignore. And guess what? Not surprisingly, a lot of people hated them for it. Actually, like most people hated them for it. Not just some or a lot, most. Critics called them radical, critics called them disruptive, critics called them angry, and like so the fuck what? Like, you know what? Yeah, they are radical and they are disruptive and they are angry. Like, no fucking shit. Good. They should be. They had every absolute right to be angry. We take the sharp edges off. We turn revolutionaries into inspirational quotes on fucking coffee mugs, okay? Like, oh God, I died laughing. Like, my sister is a revolutionary fucking. Oh no. I'm already being like, should I leave this in here? Because it cracks me up. Because I have a quote from my sister on my coffee mug that says, I found your podcast to be egregious. And listen, okay? She is a revolutionary and an inspiration. And she gave me some fucking cool merch. Sorry, my brain just went elsewhere. I'm leaving that in there. And yes, that's what she said about my podcast, okay? I will never let it go. You'll never hear the end of it. But act up wasn't inspirational in a neat, tidy Instagram-friendly kind of way. They were messy, they were loud, they were confrontational. It was uncomfy for a lot of people. That's what made them effective. Because here's the thing about comfort comfort rarely creates change in any way. The people in power were comfortable. So why are they gonna give a fuck? The systems were comfortable. The bureaucracies, what were they? They were comfortable. All that, everyone's comfy, sitting comfy while the queer community was burying their friends. So act up decided to transfer some of that discomfort to everybody else. That's exactly what protest is. One of their most famous slogans became silence equals death. Something a lot of us have heard. And honestly, I think that might be one of the most powerful activist slogans like ever, ever created. Three very simple words, silence equals death. Not like inconvenience equals death, not disagreement equals death, and not silence equals inconvenience or disagreement. Like it's death, people is heavy. The slogan reflected a reality that many activists felt every single day. Every delayed response, every ignored headline, every politician avoiding the topic, every media outlet refusing to cover the crisis, every public figure choosing silence instead of action, it all had consequences. People were not dying because activists were being dramatic. People were literally dying because nobody was doing anything to help. And what makes Act Up so remarkable is that they didn't just protest, they educated themselves. Many activists became experts in medicine, in clinical trials and public health policy and pharmaceutical research. Like, think about that. These weren't doctors, these were not scientists. These were ordinary people who realized they could not rely on experts alone because the crisis was moving too quickly. This is just like me, for example, this not to toot my own horn, but like I started looking into studying poli sci at the local college here. And like, if you want to make change, you need to educate yourself and do everything you can so you have all the information so you can actually make the change if nobody else in power is doing it for you. So these activists they learned the science, they learned how drug approval processes worked, they learned how government agencies functioned. And then they use that knowledge to demand change. When you understand those inner workings, you could ask for more because you're gonna know how to make it happen. And in many ways, act up fundamentally transformed how patients interact with the medical establishment. Before the AIDS crisis, patients were often expected to passively accept whatever decision experts made. AIDS activists challenged that model like head on. They argued that people whose lives were at stake deserved a seat at the table. For they pushed for faster drug trials, they pushed for greater access to experimental treatments, they pushed for transparency, they pushed for urgency. And eventually they got results. And now I want to be very clear about something, okay? Act Up did not single-handedly, obviously, cure AIDS. That's not the story. The story is that they forced institutions to move faster. They forced these conversations to happen. They forced the media coverage, finally. They forced politicians to acknowledge the crisis. And they forced people to look directly at a tragedy that many had preferred to ignore. Like, and that's why their legacy is so important. And now that I've said all that, maybe they did single-handedly like make shit happen. Otherwise, like, who knows how long this would have taken? Because they demonstrated something that has echoed throughout queer history ever since. They demonstrated that visibility friggin' matters. They demonstrated that activism matters and that marginalized communities cannot always afford to wait patiently for society to catch up or for their leaders to pay attention. One of the most fascinating things about studying this era is watching grief transform into power. Like earlier in the crisis, many people, most people felt helpless, right? They felt absolutely abandoned, they felt isolated, terrified, but then act up gave them something they desperately needed, which was agency. It gave them a way to fight back. And it gave them a way to channel all of that fear into purpose. And it gave them a way to honor the people that they had lost. Underneath all the protests and demonstrations was just something that was incredibly human, right? It was simply love for the people that weren't fighting anymore because they they were lost. And these people were not fighting because they enjoyed the conflict. They were fighting because people that they loved were dying. Like the partner they shared an apartment with was dying. The friend who always made them laugh was dying. The mentor who helped them maybe come out of the closet, or the mentor who helped them build their business, the bartender who knew their drink order, the artist down the street who inspired them, the neighbor down the hall that they would kiki with on a Saturday. Like the family member, the chosen family member who became more important than blood relatives. The activism, all of that came from love. The rage, it came from love. The refusal to stay silent came from love. And that right there is what makes this chapter of history so very powerful. It would have been understandable if the community had simply collapsed under the weight of all of that loss, right? If everyone was like, fuck it, we're not standing up anymore. It would have been understandable if they let the fear take over and win. It would have been absolutely understandable if people had retreated into survival mode and focused only on themselves. But instead, they organized, they educated, they protested, they demanded better. And in doing so, they changed history. Because when LGBTQ people realized that nobody was coming to save them, they became the people who would have to save each other. And the effects of that decision are still shaping our world today. Every time an LGBTQ person advocates for healthcare access, every time a marginalized community demands to be heard, every time activists refuse to accept, like, wait your turn as an answer, and every time that people challenge institutions that have become comfortable with injustice, you can see echoes of Act Up. Their fight was not just about AIDS. It was about a community. It was about discovering its power. And in the middle of one of the darkest periods in modern queer history, that power became a force that the world could no longer ignore. And now I have another question that I don't think people, specifically younger, queer people ask at all, or if enough, like, have you ever noticed how few older gay men there seem to be? And before anyone jumps into the comment sections, like, yes, of course, there are older gay men, like, yes, they do exist. Absolutely, right? But if you spend time in queer spaces, especially as a younger person, you may have noticed something very strange. There often feels like there is a missing chapter in the story. There are younger queer people, there are older survivors, but for many years there seemed to be this enormous gap between, right? And the reason for that gap is one of the most heartbreaking realities of the AIDS crisis is that an entire generation disappeared. Not completely, of course. This is not dramatics, although I am a Leo. There were Survivors, there were people who lived through it, there are countless older queer people still with us today. But the scale of the loss was so enormous that it permanently altered the makeup of the queer community. When people talk about the AIDS crisis, it's easy to focus on the numbers because the numbers are staggering. Hundreds of thousands of Americans died. Millions died worldwide. But numbers can sometimes make tragedy feel very abstract. What I want you to understand is what those numbers actually represented. Every single person who died was someone's future. They were someone's best friend. Again, they were someone's favorite bartender at their favorite bar. They were someone's teacher and neighbor and chosen family and someone's entire world in some situations. And when you multiply that loss over years and years and years, the result is not just grief. It's an absence, a silence, a missing piece of a community that never fully recovered. One of the most emotional things that I've ever heard AIDS survivors talk about is what happened to their friend groups. Like imagine your closest circle of friends right now. Think about who they are. Think about the people that you text every day, the people you celebrate your birthdays with, the people you call when something amazing happens, the people you call when something terrible happens. And like imagine that over the next decade, one by one, most of them would disappear. And they're they're not disappearing because they moved away, or, you know, they got married and in a new relationship, or they got too busy. Like they died. They're dead. That's exactly what happened to many gay men in the 1980s and early 1990s. Entire social circles were devastated, were wiped out, entire communities were gone. Like literally, entire apartment buildings were nearly empty. People would walk through neighborhoods and see fewer familiar faces every year. And restaurants lost their regular customers. Community organizations lost volunteers. Activist groups lost their leaders. Friend groups became smaller and smaller until sometimes there was barely anyone, if anyone, left. And again, here's the thing that I think many younger queer people don't fully realize. The people who died were not just individuals, they were the future leadership of the community. Think about pause for a fucking second. Think about that. Again, full body chills, because I feel like that's just really dawning on me. Those were our future leaders. Imagine how different the world we live in now would be if that generation didn't experience the AIDS crisis or if that generation had help from the president, from Reagan, from the healthcare system. We would have people to not only look up to, but to stand up for us that have been around for a much longer time. It's almost like the entire queer community is now delayed because of that, right? Like the people that died in the AIDS crisis were future activists. They were future politicians and future artists and future business owners, future mentors, future husbands, future fathers and storytellers and creatives, and they were the future of the queer community. And that community had to kind of start again, an entire generation of knowledge and experience completely vanished. Think about how every community passes wisdom from one generation to the next, right? Like grandparents, they teach their grandchildren and elders, they mentor younger people. And stories get shared, lessons get passed down, history survives because someone is there to tell it. And the AIDS crisis interrupted that process for the queer community. There wasn't as many people to pass down the knowledge to us. Many younger queer people today never got the opportunity to learn from people who should have been there to guide them had they been helped by our fucking government. The mentor who might have helped a younger gay man navigate coming out instead of potentially committing suicide. Gone. That mentor, gone. There could have been an activist who could have shared lessons from earlier civil rights battles. They are gone. There could have been so many queer artists who like inspired new generations that did not get to share their art with the world because of the AIDS crisis. They are gone. The community leader who might have helped build stronger organizations to uplift our community, to stand up to fucking bigots and homophobia, they're gone. When people talk about a missing generation, that's what they're talking about. Not just the loss of those individual lives, but the loss of everything those lives would have contributed to modern society. And then on top of that, there's the survivors. Because while the people who died are often at the center of this conversation, the people who survived carry a very different kind of burden. Many survivors genuinely did not expect to grow old. Again, think about that. How about that? Today, like many of us spend our 20s and 30s worrying about retirement accounts, what our career goals are, and where we want to be in 20 years, and if we're ever going to meet the love of our life, or if we're going to be alone forever during the height of the AIDS crisis, there were gay men who couldn't even imagine like 20 years, let alone the rest of their life into the future, because they were not sure that they would be alive. And many of them watched friend after friend die while somehow surviving this crisis themselves. And survival came, of course, with its own challenges. As most of us know, there is a term, survivor's guilt. And it became incredibly common among people who lived through the AIDS crisis. Survivors often found themselves asking very impossible questions, like, why did I survive when they didn't? How do you even answer that? You can't even start to. Why am I still here? Why did my partner die? Why did my best friend die? Why did my entire social circle somehow disappear while I made it through? And those questions, they just don't have answers. Many people still carry that with them today. I have heard survivors describe walking through gay neighborhoods years after the crisis and feeling haunted by the memories. They remember who lived in those certain apartments. They remember who used to sit at certain bars. They remember faces, voices, jokes, and conversations that younger generations never had the chance to know. Like we do that in our in our regular life. You might drive by the home you grew up in, or like I might drive down the road and be like, huh, that's the apartment I used to live at. There's all these memories. But imagine entire neighborhoods that you used to live in, and you look and you're like, wow, somebody died there and there and there, and I knew him at that store and that bar, and they're dead, dead, dead. Like that's some heavy shit. Like you're really carrying the memory of hundreds of people that the rest of the world has completely forgotten and that the world ignored at the time. That's what many survivors are doing. I think one of the reasons that younger queer people sometimes struggle to understand our own history, not only because it's not taught, but the people who should have been telling many of these stories, they never got the opportunity to. They never got the chance to become the wise old gay man sharing their life lessons over coffee. Like, we don't have that. They never got the chance to become the elders at Pride events. Like, how cool would that have been? They simply never got the chance to grow old. And that loss shapes our community today. Because sometimes younger queer people wonder why, like, older gay men seem guarded or emotional or protective or deeply invested in preserving queer history. And sometimes younger generations wonder why certain topics still carry so much weight. And like, this is why. It to me, I'm like, it's a question not even worth asking, because this is why. For many older queer people, these are not historical events the way I'm describing it today. Like, these are memories, right? This is their lives. The AIDS crisis isn't something they learned about in a documentary or on a podcast. It's something that they survived. I can't, I can't even wrap my head around that, let alone the 18-year-old twink running around the streets. Like the people that we're talking about are not abstract figures from history books. They were friends and lovers and family of the older queer generation. And they're people who should really still be here. A lot of them should still be here if the government had have acted quicker. That's really I, yeah, that's the hardest part of all of this. Like the statistics are crazy, the headlines are crazy, but like the hardest part of this entire story is realizing how how many lives were interrupted and how many lives were cut short, how many futures just never happened, how many lives ended too soon, and that their history was lost with them. And I've been throwing a lot of shade at the queer community, the younger queer kids, but like if you're a younger LGBTQ person listening to this episode, there's a very real possibility that your life was shaped by people who never got you never got the chance to meet. The rights you enjoy, the spaces you gather in, the communities that you participate in, and the culture you inherit were all influenced by people whose lives ended long before they should have and long before you were even like a little twinkle in your mama's eye. Okay, honey. That's the missing generation. They are absent, but they're everywhere. They're in the activism that followed the AIDS crisis. They're in the organizations that survived. They're in the stories that we tell, like the stories we're telling today. They're in the lessons that we now try to pass down. That community that was lost, they are in every Pride Parade, every LGBTPQ plus community, every queer community center, every support group, every advocacy organization, and every younger queer person who gets to live more openly because of the battles they fought. The tragedy of the AIDS crisis isn't just that so many people died. It's that so many people never got the chance to keep living. And when we talk about honoring their legacy, I don't think that means feeling guilty for being here. I think it means remembering, remembering them, simply put, remembering them, attempting to learn their stories, understanding as best as we can what was lost, and making sure that an entire generation doesn't disappear a second time through forgetting. And as we wrap up this journey through the AIDS crisis, I want to talk about something that I think surprises a lot of queer people. The crisis may have started more than 40 years ago, but in many ways, we are still living in its shadow. And I know that might sound dramatic, okay? Don't you roll your eyes at me. I will come through your phone or wherever you're listening. Don't roll your eyes at me. Especially if you're under 30. Don't roll your eyes at me. For many younger people, like AIDS just feels like history. It feels like something that happened before you were born because we got prep and we got treatment now. Like something you learned about briefly in health class, saw referenced in a movie, or maybe heard older, queer people mention in passing. Like HIV today is no longer an automatic death sentence, like it was in the 80s. Like people can live long, healthy lives with proper treatment. There's always progress being made in treatment. We have incredible medical advancements. We have preventative medication like PrEP, like I said, we have the concept of undetectable equals untransmittable. Like, which, if you're unaware, what undetectable equals untransmittable means. It means a person that is living with HIV who maintains an undetectable viral load cannot sexually transmit the virus to their partners. Scientifically, we've come a crazy distance. Like, but still, although I'm laughing, the AIDS crisis still shapes queer life in all the ways, in many ways that we don't even realize. And one of the most obvious examples is stigma. If you grew up after the height of the epidemic, it's easy to underestimate just how deeply HIV fear became embedded in society. For decades, people weren't just afraid of the virus. They were afraid of the people who quote unquote had it, right? HIV became associated with shame, secrecy, and judgment. It became something whispered about, something hidden, something people were terrified to disclose. And even today, despite overwhelming scientific evidence about treatment and prevention, many people living with HIV still face stigma, rejection, misinformation, and fear of like letting anybody know that they have HIV. And what's fascinating and frustrating is that some of the fear people have today is based on information that hasn't been accurate for decades. There are still people who don't understand how HIV is transmitted. Like there are people who still treat HIV and an HIV diagnosis as though it's a shame thing, like it's 1985 all over again. There are still people who hear the word HIV positive and immediately picture death, even though modern medicine has completely changed the landscape. That's one of the lasting legacies of the crisis. The science moved forward, but the people's perception did not move at the same pace. Like, of course, we don't want to get HIV. Nobody wants it, but nobody wants to get the flu either. Nobody wants to get COVID. Nobody wants to get gonorrhea either. Some of these things are treatable and some are not. The AIDS crisis fundamentally shaped how queer people view healthcare, government, activism, and community. Like, remember, an entire generation learned what it felt like to be ignored during a public health emergency. They learned what it felt like to watch politicians debate whether their lives were worth saving. They learned what it felt like to rely on each other when institutions failed them. Those lessons did not disappear when treatments improved. They became a part of queer culture. That is one of the reasons many queer people remain deeply engaged in issues involving healthcare access, bodily autonomy, public health, and civil rights. The AIDS crisis taught the community a lesson that was impossible to ignore. If you do not advocate for yourself, nobody else is gonna do it for you. That lesson still echoes today. You can see it in queer activism. You can see how quickly many queer communities mobilize around issues affecting vulnerable populations. You can see it in the way older survivors continue to fight for visibility and education decades later. And then there's the emotional legacy. I've said this a lot. This is the part that gets overlooked. Like there's so many things that are overlooked because there's so much information, but this is another part that gets overlooked. The trauma that doesn't disappear simply because the crisis ended, right? There are people alive today who spent years expecting to die. That's heavy. They weren't worrying that they might die someday, not vaguely contemplating mortality, genuinely believing that they would not survive into middle age. Many older gay men planned their lives around an expectation of death. Some stopped saving for retirement because they didn't think they would ever retire. Some avoided long-term planning because the future felt uncertain. Some lost so many people that the grief became a constant companion. Then treatments improved, people survived, and suddenly they found themselves living lives that they never even expected to have. That's great. But also, that was a little bit stressful, right? Imagine preparing for your own death and then unexpectedly, like you got decades of additional life and bills to pay. I'm sure they would take life over that, but like it's just not a simple adjustment. Many survivors still carry emotional scars from that experience. Some still struggle with survivor's guilt. Some still find themselves grieving friends that they lost 30 or 40 years ago, and some still experience anxiety around health issues because they live through a time when illness often meant catastrophe. Trauma does not operate on a schedule. It doesn't simply disappear because enough time has passed. And especially not in this scenario. Then there is something else that continues to shape queer life today, which is memory, or more specifically, the struggle to preserve memory. One of the reasons I wanted to do this episode is because I'm increasingly aware, myself included, that younger generations know less and less about the AIDS crisis. Again, myself included, until I started researching and reading this episode and working with ChatGPD to figure out what I should talk about. Like there's a lot I didn't know. And that is understandable. Like history moves on. This history is not taught. New generations face new challenges, but there is a danger in forgetting where we came from. The queer community we know today did not emerge out of nowhere. The rights that we enjoy did not and will not appear magically. The visibility that we have wasn't inevitable. The medical advancements that we benefit from now were never guaranteed to us. Every single one of those things was fought for by people who lived through one of the most devastating public health crises in modern history. And many of them never lived long enough to see the victories that they helped create. We just benefit from them. And that's some heavy fucking shit. That is the part that gets me, like gets me good by holding it together as best as I can. There were people marching for equality who never got to see marriage equality become law because they died from AIDS. There were activists fighting for healthcare reform who never got to benefit from the treatments that they helped make possible because they died. There were people demanding the dignity and recognition who never got to experience the level of visibility that younger queer people today often take for granted. Again, myself included. These people planted the seeds knowing that they may never see this is this is deep, but they would never see the tree grow, right? These people that were experiencing the AIDS crisis that had HIV, that had AIDS back in the 70s and the 80s, they planted the seeds for us and they never got to see the fruits of their labor. They never got to see that tree grow that they planted however many decades ago. And now we're just living in that shade of that tree. We're just like basking in it. Lucky fucking us. And I also think on top of that, that understanding AIDS helps explain certain aspects of queer culture that might otherwise seem confusing. Like, why are some older queer people so passionate about preserving history? Why do some become emotional during pride events? I mean, I do as well. Why do memorials and quilts and remembrance ceremonies still matter so much? Why do certain names and stories continue to be repeated? Because for so many people, remembering is not optional. It is a responsibility. When an entire generation disappears, memory becomes an act of preservation. Every story shared is a way of refusing to let someone be erased. Every single lesson passed down is a way of ensuring that their life continues to matter. And honestly, I think that's one of the most powerful, important takeaways from the second part or both parts of this entire episode series that the AIDS crisis is not just a story about death. It is a story about the resilience of the queer community. It is a story about community. It's a story about activism. It's a story about people who continued fighting for one another even when the odds seemed absolutely impossible. And it's a story about like ordinary people who became extraordinary because of their shitty circumstances. And their shitty circumstances demanded them to stand the fuck up. And most importantly, it's a story about human beings, regular, normal, everyday human beings. Right? These people are not just statistics, they're not just a headline or just a podcast episode. They're not political talking points. They're human beings. And just like you and I, these people love deeply. They dreamed about their futures. They dre they they are people who built our queer communities. They're people who laughed like we do, right? I laugh a lot here. They dance, they work, they created art, they fell in love and imagined lives like and they imagined lives that looked remarkably similar to our own. And while many of them did not get the chance to grow old, their impact didn't disappear when they did. It's still here. Otherwise, I would not be talking about that. Otherwise, I would not be doing this episode. It's in the rights that we have and that we fight for, it's in the communities that we Eat our food in and drinking and dancing. It's in the healthcare advances that save lives every day and prevent us from getting HIV. It's the activism that continues fighting for equality. And it's in every LGBTQ person who gets to live more openly because of the battles that they fought before we arrived on this planet. Now, if there's one thing, I mean there's a lot of things, but if there's one thing that younger generations should take away from this story, it's that the AIDS crisis is not ancient history. It's living history, its survivors are still with us history. Its lessons still matter, its impact is visible. It's understanding it isn't about looking back. It's about understanding how we got here. Because once you understand all that was lost, you begin to understand why preserving that memory is so important and why it matters so much. So as we wrap up part two of this series, I keep coming back to like the one thought where every queer person alive today is living in a world that was shaped by the people who never got a chance to meet it and that we never got a chance to meet. And over these two episodes, we explored so much the optimism of the post-stonewall era, the emergence of a mysterious and terrifying illness that we now know as HIV and AIDS, Act Up, the rise of Act Up and grassroots activism that changed the landscape. We talked about the people who fought, the people who survived, the people who never got the opportunity to see the future that they were helping to create. And it's such an important, ugh, I can't overstate it, such an important lesson. It's like if we just sit down and we all take the bullshit that's being thrown at us, whether you're gay or trans or not, you can be cisgender and straight. Like whatever. If you sit down and you just allow things to happen and you don't try to make this world a better place for future generations, the fuck are we doing here? Like literally, what is the point? There are people that died for us, that put their lives on the line, that marched, that went to war, that just went through some insanity that we can never relate to as a society as a whole. And sometimes we just take that for granted and we're just like, everything's fine now. I'm not gonna go protest. I'm not gonna go stand up for what's right, whether it's black rights, women, queer rights, like we have to keep that in mind because there will come a day in 40 years when that generation, when the younger generation is gonna wish we would have done more. So we I just feel like we got to keep doing more.

unknown 46:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:49

And now I'll I'll start to leave you on this, okay? The AIDS crisis is not just queer history. It is American history. It is human history. It's a story about what happens when fear and prejudice collide with a public health emergency. It's a story about consequences of silence and indifference, but it's also a story about courage and resilience, community, and ordinary people doing extraordinary things when nobody else was coming to save them. And for younger generations, I hope that these two episodes serve as a reminder that the rights, the visibility, the healthcare advancements, the community spaces that we often just take for granted. And taking things for granted is not always a bad thing. Like, I'm not throwing shade at you, but like those were built by people who fought battles that we can barely even imagine. And for those of you who live through this era, I hope at least I honored the memories a little bit, like of those that you lost and acknowledge the incredible strength that it took to survive something like that. Cause I cannot even imagine. And most importantly, I hope that we continue telling these stories. I actually feel so fucking motivated now. I'm like, every episode is gonna be this now, not actually because I need to do some more research and figure out how I can continue this. But like I feel so motivated to honor those that came before us now. And I'm gonna figure out a way that we can keep this conversation going in future episodes. Because history only disappears when we just stop talking about it. That's when it ends. And the people who were lost during the AIDS crisis deserve far more than a footnote in a history book. They deserve to be remembered. And I definitely don't think they're talked about or remembered enough. And if this episode resonated with you, obviously I would love to hear from you. So follow me on Instagram and TikTok at underscore hot airpod. And you can visit my website, hotalbert.com, to submit your listener stories, shop my merch, and your topic suggestions on the uh what is that page? The contact page, I think. I don't know what I'm talking about anymore. This was heavy. So thank you for spending the last two episodes talking about the AIDS crisis with me. And I mean, we explored the most important stories in queer history. Like, take care of yourselves, take care of each other, keep enjoying Pride Month. Never underestimate the power of knowing where the fuck you came from. Keep history alive. And maybe Pride will feel a little bit different to you this year. And I will see you next Tuesday.

SPEAKER_01 49:25

H O T A I R Hot Takes Therapy, no filter. Say what I mean. Let's be real, listen to hot air.