#in too deep in vball hell (must go deeper)

Cloudy. They/them. Your resident big buff cheeto puff holy bara arms (batman) Iwa-chan. Far too invested in sports anime for my own good (bokoots on mobile by yaboykeiji)

[desertpups]

[wigfield]

[matagpo]

Do not let them consume you. They don’t define who you are.

[star-anise]

My girlfriend and I talk a lot about our different generations of queerness, because she was doing queer activism in the 1990s and I wasn’t.

And she’s supportive of my writing about queerness but also kind of bitter about how quickly her entire generation’s history has disappeared into a bland “AIDS was bad, gay marriage solved homophobia” narrative, and now we’re having to play catch-up to educate young LGBTQ+ people about queer history and queer theory. It gets pretty raw sometimes.

I mean, a large part of the reason TERFs have been good at educating the young and queer people haven’t is, in the 80s and 90s the leading lights of TERFdom got tenured university positions, and the leading lights of queerdom died of AIDS.

“Excuse us,” she said bitterly the other day, not at me but to me, “for not laying the groundwork for children we never thought we’d have in a future none of us thought we’d be alive for.”

[freedom-of-fanfic]

“the reason TERFs have been good at educating the young and queer people haven’t is, in the 80s and 90s the leading lights of TERFdom got tenured university positions, and the leading lights of queerdom died of AIDS.”

[aphilologicalbatman-deactivated]

thank you for giving me a good reason to finish my dissertation and try to make it in the academy

[brs-love]

Wait, idk LGBTQ+ history, but they died of AIDS cause, what, hospitals refused to treat them or…?

[star-anise]

Oh heck yeah.

When an epidemic happens, public health agencies spend millions of dollars trying to understand what happens: Why are people sick or dying? What caused it? Who else is at risk? Government health departments like the Centres for Disease control and private companies both invest hundreds of millions of dollars into preserving public health. This happened in 1977, when military veterans who all attended the same gathering began to get sick with a strange type of pneumonia, with 182 cases and 29 dead, and the CDC traced the illness to a bacterium distributed by the air conditioning system of a hotel they all stayed at, and in 1982, when seven people died of tainted Tylenol, and pharmaceutical companies changed the entire way their products were made and packaged to prevent more deaths.

Meanwhile, the AIDS epidemic took six years to be recognized by the CDC (1975-1981) because at first the only people dying were intravenous drug users, which is to say, heroin addicts; when it was recognized, President Reagan’s government pressured the CDC to spend as little time and money on AIDS as possible, because they literally didn’t think gay lives were important. So yes, hospitals refused to treat them and medical staff treated them as disgusting people who deserved to die, but also, there was very little funding for scientists to understand what this disease was, what caused it, where it came from, how it spread, or how to stop it. The LGBTQ+ community had to organize and fight to get hospitals to treat them, to fund scientific research, to be legally allowed to buy the drugs that kept them alive, and to have access to treatment. An effective treatment for AIDS wasn’t found until 1995.

And it’s ongoing; a lot of the difficulty of fighting AIDS in Africa is that it’s seen as “the gay disease” (and thanks to European colonialism, even African societies that used to be okay with us were taught to think LGBTQ+ people are bad).  Even now that we have medications that can treat or prevent AIDS, they’re incredibly expensive and hard to get; in 2015, New York businessman Martin Shkreli acquired the exclusive right to make a drug that treats an AIDS-related disease, and raised its price from $13.50 a pill to $750 a pill. 

Here’s one history on what it was like to have and fight AIDS, one history on how politicians responded to the epidemic, and if you can get a copy of the documentary How to Survive a Plague, it’s a good introduction, because it’s about how AIDS patients had to fight for their lives. A lot of these histories are imperfect and incomplete, because privilege played a big part in whose lives and deaths were seen as important–Poor people, people of colour, trans people, and drug addicts were less likely to be able to afford or access medical care, and more likely to die without being remembered; histories often tend to focus on straight people who got AIDS through no fault of their own, and then white cis gay men who seem more “respectable” and “relatable”.  

I mean, people who will talk about how homophobia led to neglect of AIDS still find ways not to mention that AIDS isn’t just sexually transmitted; it’s hugely a disease of drug addicts, because sharing needles is a huge way the disease spreads. But because society always thinks, oh, drug addicts are bad and disgusting people and of course criminals, that often gets neatly dropped from the histories, and it’s still hard to get people to agree to things that keep drug addicts alive, like needle exchanges and supervised injection sites. But if you want my rant about how the war on drugs is bullshit used to control poor people and people of colour, and drugs shouldn’t be criminalized, you’ll have to ask for that separately.

[elfwreck]

They died of AIDS because

Hospitals refused to treat them, and when they did get admitted, treated them like dirt so their will-to-live was eroded - refused to let long-term partners visit them, staff acted like they were disgusting nuisances, etc.

Very little funding was put into finding causes or cures - AIDS was considered “god’s punishment” for immoral behavior by a whole lot of people.

Once causes were understood (effective treatments were a long ways off), information about those causes weren’t widely shared - because it was a “sex disease” (it wasn’t) and because a huge number of the victims were gay or needle-drug users, and the people in charge of disease prevention (or in charge of funding) didn’t care if all of those people just died.

Not until it started hitting straight people and superstar celebrities (e.g. Rock Hudson) did it get treated as A Real Problem - and by that time, it had reached terrifying epidemic conditions.

Picture from 1993:

We lost basically a whole generation of the queer community.

[psychoactive-teratogen]

As a current AIDS survivor, this is really important information. I was diagnosed not only HIV positive in 2014, but I had already progressed to an AIDS diagnosis. Knowing how far we’ve come with treatment and what the trials and tribulations of those who came before cannot and must not ever be forgotten. Awareness is the number one goal. I often speak to the microbiology students at my university to explain what it’s like to live with, how the medications work, side effects, how it’s affected my daily life, and just raise general awareness.

Before my diagnosis, I, like many others, was clueless to how far treatment has come. I was still under the belief my diagnosis was a death sentence. Moving forward, even if only one person hears my story, that’s one more person that’s educated and can raise awareness.

I believe it’s time for us as a society to start better education of this disease. The vast majority of the people I’ve spoken to are receptive to the knowledge of my status, and I’ve received lots of support from loved ones, friends, and total strangers. It’s time to beat the stigma.

[smallswingshoes]

This is slightly off-point, but as for the cost, I wanted to mention that some pharmacies have specialties that let them get special coupons/programs and stuff to save money.

A bottle of Truvada (a month supply commonly used for treating this) is at least $3,000 out of pocket and insurance doesn’t usually take a lot off of that. But the pharmacy I work at is an HIV specialty and we always get te price down to less than $10.

If you’re on HIV meds and they’re ludicrously expensive, ask your local pharmacy manager if there are any local HIV specialty pharmacies that they know of. They might be able to help.

[mycroftrh]

I think it’s important to emphasize that, while the diagnosis is no longer a death sentence, it is also true that people dying of AIDS because of homophobia is not history only.

My brother’s first boyfriend was kicked out/disowned by his parents for being queer, got AIDS, couldn’t afford treatment, and died.  He died in 2019, at around 20 years old.

In 2019.

Barely more than a kid.

Of a treatable disease.

Because of homophobia.

Because his parents cared more about not being associated with a queer person than they cared about their son’s literal life.

AIDS is not just history.  Neither is homophobia.

[fierceawakening]

Yep. My chronically homeless family member nearly died, not because the meds couldn’t save him, but because homelessness makes it hard to get the treatment you need.

He still has lasting damage from the diseases that nearly killed him when he had full blown AIDS.

I don’t mean to be really gloomy when there’s so damn much good news, including that the person I am talking about is not dead, but… that shit can still kill you.

[poztatt]

Welcome to my wheelhouse.

Here in BC when HIV/AIDS first hit as HIV/AIDS the response was “do we have to take care of them?”  One hospital went so far as to give patients cash and send them off in cabs to any other hospital rather than take them.  

In part because in the day the disease was linked specifically to behaviours.  Not that they were linked but that’s how people liked to think of it.  HIV/AIDS is what you got (deserved) for doing… that.  

The only hospital?  Catholic.  The nuns who ran it at the time got together and told their board: our mandate is to comfort the sick and dying and that’s what we’re going to do.  St Paul’s Hospital has since become The centre for HIV/AIDS care in the province. 

In 1987 a proposed Bill C34 was argued.  It proposed that people with HIV/AIDS be removed from the general population and moved - for their benefit - to an island out here.  One that just so happened to be an ex leper colony.  It would have also granted health authorities the power, in cases where a random person reported a suspicion of having HIV/AIDS?  To forcefully test a person and if they were positive, send them to said island.

Canada.  1987.  

In North America it is incredibly important that people realize that HIV/AIDS and the LGBTQA+ community is tangled.  Not by choice, not for any other reason than happenstance.

The first cases yes were in addicts.  But the first to get attention were white gay men who were good at passing as “just single men”.  Who had lots of income, status and stability.  Who were used to getting what they wanted.  And when it was peeled back that the similarity in the cases of rare diseases (specifically sarcomas that only show up in older Mediterranean men for instance) in 20something year old men was they slept with men?

That standing suddenly meant nothing.  “Fag getting what he deserved.”

Closeted, sure.  But still with social cache that meant this overt dismissal just wouldn’t do.  So they started fighting back.  They had the wherewithall.

Here’s the problem, though.  From diagnosis to death was usually no more than 6 months.  There were no meds. Nothing. Not even one drug.  Men lasted until today, yes.  But rarely and not in a way that could be replicated.  

So that wave? Died in the first years.  Gone before they could do more than pour resources into the fight as their only legacy.  

Then the next.  And the next.  And the next.  In places like here in Vancouver the well off guys started it but a lot of the street kids and lower income people ended up fighting hard for recognition that this was even going on.  That people were dying.  That no research into medications was happening.  That people were being put into rooms, ignored because no one knew how it was transmitted so they’d not enter the room.  Or the wing of the hospital.  So that they couldn’t be buried for fear their corpses would spread infection through groundwater. Cremation was barred in places because ash of an infected person in the air? Who knew.

As cases moved on and time moved on and we kept fighting more and more people from the edges joined.  We fought.  At first to die with dignity.  To pass on our legacies to people we called family and not biological mistakes that threw us out as trash and less than trash for being gay.  

Then we fought to live.

The thing I often see missing from this is that there was a public link, completely unreal as it is, that if you got the disease it was because you were gay.  So a person gets it from a blood transfusion?  Nope, secretly gay.  From an accident? Secretly gay.  

And gay was often worse.  Dying was simple.  Living as a fag?  My GODS that was hell.

So much of common culture did - and does - associate a moral weight to the disease.  Much of it now is lost as to why, but it’s roots for me were always in the hatred of the gay community.  As the people first diagnosed enmasse? The fingerprints of our culture’s beliefs about us are all over the disease.

And when we fought?  We had to fight death and the living.

Today?  So many are dead because to catch it was to die.  Then it was to barely be alive.  Now it’s possible to live close to normal.  But is never “the same”.  The medications mean I’m here for as long as almost anyone else.  But.

But.

Without medications I will die.  Every day I take pills so I do not die.  This disease didn’t stop killing people if untreated.  We have these long treatise on how the medications are different, how the disease is different. It is not.  The outcome is different.  We can live.  IF. We have the medicine.

After 20some odd years to my husband’s close to 30 years of fighting we not only didn’t get tenure in life we only got exhausted.  So there are whole groups of people who made it through and didn’t have to survive the 80s and 90s and 00s.  They just had to keep going.  

So even those that lived?  Aren’t out there because now most of the people I know?  Just want to enjoy that we’re growing old.  That we’re not in a constant free fall of “almost dying”.  And now living “not at all dying from this”.  

Newer generations of men and women who have HIV/AIDS are having to rediscover this history because it’s not complimentary to a culture that likes to think of itself as woke now.  And it certainly isn’t pleasant to the research and health care professions.   History is ugly.  And it’s not so much longer ago than yesterday.  And no one I’ve ever met is comfortable with that. 

EDIT: Sidenote.  The choir?  None of them are alive anymore. There was a recent update to that picture.  They’re all gone now, last I heard.

[fierceawakening]

Thank you, my friend.

[poztatt]

Thank you for reading.  As you can probably tell I’ve actually done this as a lecture on the history of HIV/AIDS in Vancouver.  And classes.  And written about this.  

Whenever someone says “HIV was bad, marriage saved us all” I think… But. Even if you just take HIV/AIDS and dig into there’s so so sooooo much more going on there.  And it’s so reductive.  

I mean.

Do people remember the sensation of the first time you walked in a city, one night, talking freely about life. Boys. Men. Sex. Laughing.  And realizing in a single blinding awakening moment that because it was Pride it was safe to walk the dark side streets.  To talk loudly, drunkenly.  Because the city had been flooded with US to the point that THEM were a small passing thought.

Do people remember one too many funerals so the dance floors would fill with relentlessly cheerful and horny and partying people.  Not knowing how to dance sexily but knowing ending up with all eyes on us as we basically had sex to a beat with clothes on.  Like we were on fire, knowing it was burning the fuel of us down to nothing so we had to BE so loudly, so fervently, so dramatically.

Do people remember the late nights in the parks staring into the dark and wondering about life and mortality and death and the sensation of a chest being ripped open and scooped out.  Talking endless streams of consciousness into the night and ears of anyone who would listen.  The men. The women.  The family.

It was like partying in the Blitz.  You knew the bombs were falling and you were mainly sure the next one would land on your bar, but you were going to keep dancing, damnit.  Keep making out with strangers.  Keep living as hard and bright as possible.  And the crying jags in between.

I remember thinking at one point that it was like what I imagine falling off a cliff would be like.  Part knowing that nothing you can do can change the outcome so just.. go nuts.  Be brave in ways you can’t imagine because there’s no consequence that you have to worry about.  Be scared.  Be all of it.  

It was and is not ever as simple as : this thing was horrible and this one was good.  It was a goddamned tangle of things that hurts to see reduced to “AIDS was bad, gay marriage solved homophobia”.

[handweavers]

the concept of people being born in the 00s and being on this website or the internet in general will never stop giving me a minor heart attack every time bc my brain stopped processing time in like 2008 so anyone born in like 2003 is automatically assumed to be in kindergarten until i realize they're old enough to drive

[handweavers]

someone: im 16

me: ok cool

someone: that means i was born in 2003

me:

[hurleyquinnzel]

[sjflkansdfljaslsd-deactivated20]

i have had this picture open in a tab at work for like four days now. instant picker-upper. look at dis baaaby

[riseofthecommonwoodpile-deactiv]

a rice boy……

[eyeofscottie]

instagram.

[theelovelyyboness]

I love this. I’m all for these types of friendships but I think most ppl think anything intimate is too far but friends can do these things too

[thethugseme]

Lilo and Stitch except Stitch is voiced by Dio Brando

[mistathirst]

You see I read the text but apparently didn't fully grasp what I was in for. I fukin screamed too

[quillusquillus]

no.

[koichisteals]

you must.

[reddpenn]

A little story about ghosts, and roommates, and getting to know each other.

[ifibelieved]

I LIVE FOR ROBERT AS URSULA

[bob-artist]

I bought this extremely soft mat for the ferrets, and it blew Kit’s mind.

[fatsoupy]

me: dress how you want!! gender is fake!!! nothing matters!!!!!!

trans person: i like gender tho

me: hell yeah i respect that!!!! i apologize and don’t mean to dismiss your identity with my optimistic nihilism!!!!!!!

[ebonyheartnet]

Good post OP

[aquarian-sunchild]

Denounce gender roles but respect gender identity.

[antique-scarecrow]

Denounce gender roles but respect gender identity.

[everythingfromglass]

I made a meme.

[lazylittledragon]

:))

[omgcheckplease]

The Check, Please!: Chirpbook Kickstarter ends next Friday! 🐤

The Chirpbook features new pics from Bitty’s camera roll, nestled inline the tweet feed! I finally get to illustrate some of my favorite moments from the Twitter. 🙏

[sandersstudies]

I found a document from 1652 that’s just a guy talking about how women are better than men and wow he’s a little confused but he got the spirit.

[sandersstudies]

Literally every man in 1652: If she breathes, she a THOT!

This one random guy: All women are queens!

[sandersstudies]

This idiot who loves women a lot: you see…women are perfect…you can tell because when they fall down…God made it so they usually fall on their back…which hurts less and prevents them from damaging their beautiful faces…wow women are so smart and beautiful

[sandersstudies]

This absolute dumbass who treasures women with his whole soul: you know how sometimes women…are bad? It’s actually just proof that they are way more powerful than men and they could totally kill us if they wanted to but they don’t because they’re just that nice they literally don’t need us for shit

[sandersstudies]

For those wondering, the document is called “The Glory of Women” OR “A Treatise declaring the excellency and preheminence of Women above Men, which is proved both by Scripture, Law, Reason, and Authority, Divine and Humane.”

Yeah. That’s the title.

[corvigae]

This dude absolutely LOST IN THE SAUCE on Respect Women Juice