06/17/2025
šŗšø āComing out at 19 in 1984, close to the beginning of the AIDS crisis, was a little like being drafted into fighting a war that most people didnāt even know was going on. I remember seeing flyers at Oberlin Collegeās Lesbian/Gay Union office encouraging gay men not to get tested for HIV, because too little was known about what would happen to the information. There were rumors about quarantining HIV+ gay men, or possibly all gay men. The distrust of a criminally negligent and unresponsive government was real.
I remember John Calvi, a massage therapist and folk singer/songwriter traveling through Oberlin, giving free seminars on safe(r) s*x during the day, and singing āBetter Blatant than Latentā at night at the Cat in the Cream Coffeehouse. I remember being a typical h***y 19 year old, but also being scaredāreally scaredāabout what I was hearing about gay men and s*x. That fearāthat equating s*x with sickness and deathāwould inform my approach to s*x for most of my adult life.
I remember transferring to Rutgers University and quickly becoming a campus activist, not only for the le***an and gay community, but also for AIDS education. I read as much as I could about AIDS, and Iād be called upon to do peer education. I didnāt know it at the time, but I also met a friend who I would later learn had been HIV+ the entire time we knew each otherāand he never told me. Later, I had the honor of reading John Arnnās name on the National Mall in DC during the 1996 display of the NAMES Project quilt.
In my senior year I remember going to New York to participate in my first ACT UP meeting and a massive action the following day at City Hall. It was exhilarating and empowering, and we felt like we were going to change the world. And we did. We lost far too many along the way. Whenever you heard anyone call out āACT UP!,ā the response was a group āFIGHT BACK! FIGHT AIDS!ā and there was tremendous comfort in that. In the early days there was so little hope, and so little that could be done medically, so any group act of defianceāagainst the disease, against the government and medical communityāfelt good. Iām fighting back tears as I type that.
After graduating from Rutgers in 1989, I moved to DC and soon joined the group Oppression Under Target (OUT), an offshoot of the 1987 March on Washington local organizing committee, and then helped form ACT UP/DC. With heavy hitters like Michael Petrellis, Jason Heffner, and so many others, we took on the federal government through our local actions, and organized the Philip Morris boycott for their support of virulently anti-gay senator Jesse Helms. With my degree in graphic design, I volunteered to design the groupās logo and lots of flyers, t-shirts, stickers, and more. A cold remedy called Contac had an ad on the air around that time, and I repurposed their slogan for us: āUntil thereās a cure, thereās ACT UP.ā
I joined the Gay Menās Chorus of Washington in 1990, and I remember singing at memorial services and funerals for far too many members. Michael Callenās āLove Donāt Need A Reasonā was a staple of those services: āLove is all we have for now. What we donāt have is time.ā
And then I remember when the protease inhibitors arrived. The partner of a friend was part of an NIH clinical trial, and shared with me the miraculous news that the meds were working. His T-cells had stabilized. The war wasnāt over, but there was a reprieve, a pause. A chance to breathe. Antiretrovirals and PREP have rendered HIV/AIDS a manageable disease where theyāre available.
I recently turned 60, a milestone that too many of my peers and would-be elders never reached. I am grateful for my life every day, truly. 40+ years in, the war isnāt over, but we have the tools to bring it to an end. Itās better times for many of us, but not all of us.
From an early age, I was interested in photography, and I took pictures of so many people and events ā¦ but I donāt have any of my friends who are gone. I donāt know why that is. So hereās a photo I took at that New York City Hall ACT UP protest in March of 1989.
I remember John and Ed and Michael and Daniel and Thom and George and Jim and Bill and Ron and Todd and Scott and Harry and Dennis and Robb and Ric and Marvin and Terry and Bobby, and the first gay man I came out to, Andy Cemelli. And there were others whose names I have forgotten. But all of their memories are blessings to me.ā š by Dan Kaufman
