What once seemed like the highest mountain I’ve ever climbed now feels like a low, desolate valley that I can’t escape from. I’m in a desert with a thirst that can’t seem to be quenched, surrounded by mirages of you, your words and lack thereof. It’s not a place I long to be for that much longer.
In the documentary, How to Survive a Plague they mention this very fact. Reagan was the president during this time and do you know what he did when the LGBTQ community begged him for help? He fucking laughed at us. His administration CELEBRATED that finally, ‘God’s judgement in the form of a plague’ was striking down queer people. They saw it as a form of divine population control. Reagan could have given a rats ass about us…
Until the plague began to effect straight people. THEN his administration cared. Because the people that mattered were finally getting sick. And finally the millions of dollars in research money was poured into finding a treatment for HIV. But by then, so many LGBTQ individuals had died. More people died from the initial HIV epidemic than the Vietnam war.
So when straight people complain about being ‘oppressed’ and why there isn’t a straight pride parade? Go fuck yourself. No one has ever tried to wipe you out through a plague, ignored your cries for help as a disease wiped out massive amounts of your community.
