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Origins of AIDS
1959: A man in the Congo dies, and later tests done of his blood samples confirm this as the earliest case of AIDS 1960's: Research traces HIV-2 back to monkeys in West Africa (Guinea-Bisseau). Later research reveals that HIV-1 arrived in the Americas sometime during the late 60's.( HIV-1, at some point in the early 20th century, made the jump from chimpanzees to humans in Central Africa. ) -
First Patient
The CDC received a report of a gay man by the name of Ken Horne, who lived in San Francisco, and was suffering from Kaposi's Sarcoma, which is an aggressive cancer linked with weakened immune systems. A year later, Horne passes away, and the CDC identifies this as the first American patient of the AIDS Epidemic. -
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Community Support
Due to rising paranoia from doctors during the crisis, and the reluctance to treat AIDS patients, groups of lesbians during this time banded together to support and tend to the gay men who were dying of AIDS. They also donated blood to those in need, because gay men were banned from giving blood to prevent the spread of HIV. Since HIV patients desperately needed blood, there were "lesbian blood drives" that were prepared to supply it. They were called the "Blood Sisters." -
Beginning of the Crisis
The CDC published an article that described five cases of rare lung infections in young and healthy gay men in Los Angeles. Multiple major news outlets report on the CDC article, and said article is cited as the official beginning to the AIDS Crisis. -
Conflating AIDS with Gay/Bisexual Men
During this time, the CDC publishes an article explaining that AIDS is most prevalent "among gay men with multiple sexual partners..." Suddenly, there was a spark in public outrage and homophobia, due to people conflating AIDS with gay and bisexual men. Even professionals and government officials, attributed the AIDS virus to gay men, and even called it the "gay plague" or "gay cancer." There was a lack of sympathy for those with AIDS because it effected mainly the gay male population. -
Reagan Finally Speaks Up
President at-the-time, Ronald Reagan, finally speaks about AIDS publicly for the first time. He insists it is a "top priority" and attempts to rebuff accusations that his administration has not taken the Crisis seriously. However, the initial reaction the Reagan Administration had was to treat the epidemic as a joke. Reagan's press secretary, Larry Speakes, joked about it during interviews, and laughed while calling it the "gay plague." It is evident that the epidemic was not taken seriously. -
AIDS Quilt
Cleve Jones created the first panel to the famous AIDS Memorial Quilt, to honour his friend Marvin Feldman. The panel was three feet by six feet, which is the standard size of a grave plot, intending for it to serve as a mourning device. This was a way of remembering and grieving, as well as celebrating the lives that were lost to AIDS, in a world where the disease was shunned from "polite society." This panel became what is now known as the NAMES Project. -
ACT UP Movement
The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, or ACT UP is founded. This was a direct-action group that pressured officials, pharmaceutical companies, government, and other institutions to protect anyone at risk of receiving HIV or those who have otherwise already contracted it. Their motto was "silence = death," and they fought hard for a coordinated national response to AIDS. -
Decline of AIDS
In 1996, the number of AIDS cases annually in the US declines for the first time since the beginning of the epidemic. In recent years, AIDS has become a less deadly, and more controllable virus. -
Modern Affects
Recently, AIDS has become a controllable virus, and there are now treatment processes to help delay the symptoms of AIDS/HIV. It is now met with a much more understanding approach, however, there is still a long-lasting impact on the gay community. There are still people who conflate HIV/AIDS with being gay, gay men are often denied to right to donate blood on the premise that they might have AIDS, and the community still has to recover from all of the innocent lives lost due to sheer ignorance.