The spread of COVID-19 has understandably spurred many comparisons to past pandemics, like the 1918 Spanish Flu or the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. Claims that we have never seen anything in our lifetime like COVID fall flat, however, when we remember the AIDS pandemic. Since the initial outbreak of AIDS in about 1981, 32 million people globally have died of the disease. In 2018 alone there were 1.7 million new infections. Not only is AIDS the only comparably deadly pandemic we’ve survived in our lifetime, it very similarly highlights the inequalities in care.
The people dying of AIDS in the United States in the 1980s and 90s were not sympathetic victims. They were drug users, queer folks, sex workers, and the marginally housed. The communities most at risk for AIDS were well aware of the way that marginalization made them a target for disease. They experienced firsthand the way that the CDC and the FDA delayed drug testing and passing regulations when it was not a priority for them. Kenyon Farrow in his interview on The Laura Flanders Show describes this well: “Most infectious diseases, they tend to travel the roots of inequality in any society.” However, what makes the queer and trans response to the COVID-19 pandemic unique, is this very history of disease and marginalization.
“One of the things that came out of the AIDS epidemic is that it did bring people together in a moment where things were really unsure to really take care of one another, but also fight like hell to live. And if that meant fighting the government, the hospitals, public health, researchers, pharma companies, people fought… So we should be fighting like hell for paid sick leave. We should be fighting like hell for Medicare For All. We should be fighting like hell for lower drug costs. We should be fighting like hell for people to have access to these things.”
Kenyon Farrow, Senior Editor of TheBody/TheBodyPro
The queer and trans communities’ intimate knowledge of living through a pandemic means that not only do they know how to support one another and recognize the inequitable way that this disease will ravage communities, but they also know what needs to be done to survive. They are not afraid to fight for that survival, and they will seize this opportunity to highlight the gaps in the system.
“I think that our community through- I mean, I call it muscle memory, right? We've been here before in certain senses of our current situation. We know how to care for folks who no one else wants to care for… we're used to treating folks that no one else wants to touch. So I think that there's a definite fight or flight response that happens, and I think that queer communities are uniquely positioned to take care of each other and to take care of folks in a way because of that muscle memory. Absolutely.”
Jonathan Santos-Ramos, Director of Community Engagement and Strategic Initiatives at Callen-Lorde Community Health Center
This response can already be seen in action from the LGBTQ advocacy group the Human Rights Campaign. In early April, the HRC, with the collaboration of 70 other national organizations, sent a letter to President Donald Trump to urge for the invocation of the Defense Production Act of 1950. This act would allow for the advanced production of emergency medical equipment such as ventilators and N-95 masks. HRC is putting pressure on the federal government to take action for the public. While this is not quite the same as ACT UP protestors staging a die-in outside of the FDA headquarters, it continues a legacy of fighting like hell to live.
WHO: HIV/AIDS
Interview with Kenyon Farrow on The Laura Flanders Show
Interview with Jonathan Santos-Ramos
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