December 10, 1999
AY PEOPLE'S C
VICLE
AIDS
Continued from page 1
Special challenges for gay PWAS
While all people with AIDS, or PWAs, faced a devastating illness, gay PWAs had an additional set of problems. Gays were often forced to face discrimination and rejection from their own families. Consequently, gay PWAS were forced to cope with loneliness and social isolation, in addition to a lifethreatening illness.
Jackie Figler, executive director of Violets Cupboard in Akron, tells the story of her first client in 1987:
"He was a young man, and his parents said he should die on the streets because he was gay. He had no way to buy his medication. He had to put his dog in a kennel. He was living in his car and he had no money. I tried to find help for
grief by creating a commemorative three-bysix-foot panel using personal artifacts, pieces of clothing, and mementos for a person who has died of AIDS. The quilt is now the size of several football fields, and serves as a reminder that there are people behind the numbers.
Political activism with a bite
The AIDS crisis brought about a new era in gay activism. Frustrated with traditional lobbying, gay and lesbian activists formed
1993 MARCH ON WASHINGTON OR LESBIAN, GAY QUAL RIGHTS
him, but at that time there was no place for him to go. Finally, a gay activist in the area found him a room above a bar. It certainly wasn't an ideal situation, but it was better than nothing."
Community-based activism
In response to the AIDS crisis, the gay and lesbian community pulled together in a number of ways. They organized communitybased support networks, sponsored grassroots fundraising events, lobbied Washington for federal funding, fought for faster drug development, and developed programs to raise AIDS awareness. Across the country, programs to provide services directly to PWAS were established, and Ohio was no exception.
One of the earliest direct service programs in Cleveland for PWAS was the Free Clinic Early Prevention Program, which began offering anonymous AIDS testing in 1987.
"The Free Clinic filled that role at a time when here weren't a lot of options out there for gay men," said executive director Marty Hiller.
Caracole, Inc. is a direct service agency in Cincinnati that has provided housing for PWAs since 1988.
ACT UP protests at the U.S. Capitol.
"The gay community came forward, raised money and organized a number of direct care agencies," said Caracole executive director Sue Butler. "One of the good things about that was that the delivery systems were set up by people who weren't used to the bureaucracy. The agencies were set up to work, not the way they had always been done. They didn't know you 'couldn't do it that way'."
Mourning and the AIDS Quilt
Since so many gay men had died of AIDS, especially in large metropolitan communities, many survivors found themselves in a state of perpetual mourning. Mardi Fritz, a psychotherapist in New York, said, "By the time you close the circle of grief for one person, four others or ten others--have died."
Richard Starn, a volunteer at David's House in Toledo said, "I first realized AIDS was affecting me greatly was when my two best friends got AIDS. It was hard to watch them die. After they passed away, I dropped out of the scene for three years. I couldn't watch people die any more."
The AIDS quilt began in 1987 to fill the need to honor those who had died during the epidemic. Sponsored by the Names Project Foundation in San Francisco, the quilt allowed friends and family to express their
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BRIAN DEWITT
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new organizations dedicated to direct political action. They began staging more radical demonstrations, and often ended up on the front page of the newspapers.
One such organization, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, was founded in 1987. ACT UP used nonviolent political action and civil disobedience to apply political pressure in order to speed up drug development, allow patients access to experimental drugs, and promote prevention strategies.
"Whether it's 1,500 people besieging the FDA campus in Maryland with smoke bombs or eleven people handcuffing themselves to the New York office of a Japanese Pharmaceutical firm, ACT UP gets results," wrote David Handleman in Rolling Stone.
"AIDS came late to Cleveland, compared to New York City. It didn't really hit us until 1989, and Cleveland took a long time to take any action," said Bob Bucklew, health outreach coordinator for the Cleveland LesbianGay Center. "In 1994 and 1995, some major changes happened. The mayor showed up at an AIDS walk and he was booed. ACT-UP marched on City Hall. The first time Cleveland did anything about AIDS was in 1995 when the first AIDS coordinator was hired." Bucklew was the city's second AIDS coordi-
nator, from 1996 to April, 1999.
At the national level, the march on Washington in 1987 marked a new milestone in gay history as hundreds of thousands oflesbians, gays and their supporters marched on Washington, D.C. demanding a federal war on AIDS and an end to homophobic discrimination.
"We vow to spend our dollars, our votes, and our nights in jail to make the violence and the injustice that stalk our lives vivid to our nation," said Virginia Apuzzo, former executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.
Political apathy
During the Bush administration, federal spending on AIDS increased significantly. However, George Bush, like Ronald Reagan before him, ignored the epidemic for the most part.
The Clinton presidency brought a more sympathetic response to AIDS issues. Bill Clinton created a White House Office of National AIDS Policy and a special panel to speed up the development of new drugs. However, critics argued that, even during the Clinton administration, federal funding for AIDS service organizations was inadequate. A Project Inform publication from 1994 stated, "At best, AIDS has provided an occasional photo-opportunity for a few people to pose with the president."
In 1996, protease inhibitors were approved for use in the United States. This new class of drugs promised to markedly prolong the lives of those with HIV, and they dramatically changed the face of AIDS.
Next week: Life with the cocktail.
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