Reagan and in extension Bush slashed all funding for research into the AIDS epidemic because they were homophobic asshats.
This is littered with my own emotions and some of my earlier experiences later on when I was a teen. So take this with a grain of salt, especially at the end because this is how I experienced them.
The first point is: We did not know how AIDS was spread at the time. Safe sex was still a relatively new thing only coming around during the1920s and started to become popular after WWII. The condom isn’t even a 100-year-old invention yet.
Safe sex was a practice to prevent children, which the Gay community had no reason to fear.
AIDS has no immediate symptoms, and one can carry it for years before signs begin to show, normally due to other illnesses.
It only first started to be noticed in the 1970s. By the 1980s it had already spread to several countries and was just then becoming known to the medical community at large.
When Reagan took Office he slashed all funding to find a cure. When seriously asked about the subject no one on the Whitehouse staff could answer a question without laughing at the victims of the epidemic or making fun of it.
Reagan set the trend to publicly shun and ostracize gay men. Society largely followed.
There is a reason why media villains in the 80s are often depicted as Gay. There is a reason why the trope “Burry your Gays” was popular. It was an expected outcome and depicted as justified in shows for being “sodomites” and “sinners” The “Gay Plague” as it was also called, was justified in the people’s eyes.
Bush followed in Reagan’s footsteps, not surprising since he was one of the figures that largely helped Reagan win the election when he was the head of the CIA. They were close if not friends. There was no help at all for gay men when he took office and we were left to die.
And we died, on the steps of hospitals that refused to help us. We died, in the alleys of cities when families kicked us out. We died together in support groups watching as longtime member after longtime member stopped showing up. We didn’t need to question why. We died and died and died.
By the time we found out that AIDS was transmitted sexually, it was too late. Information at the time was slow to spread, and most news stations were reluctant at best to spread this information and the internet was not accessible to the public and largely useless for spreading information. Most men were either infected or already dead by the time news got out and those who were left didn’t have anyone else to tell.
By 1993, the year Bush left office. It’s assumed that three out of every hundred gay men would survive the epidemic. 41,920 men died that year alone in America that we know of.
This did not end with Bush, though Clinton never continued this toxic behavior, he hardly did anything to help.
By the 90s there were hardly any Gay adults left. Being Gay was still something looked down upon, and no one was spreading the information that having safe sex could save your life. So gay kids and teenagers had to stay in the closet to stay safe and were uncautious later because no one told them how it was dangerous. Everyone assumed they were straight until they were sick.
It was only during the end of the early 00s that opinions started to shift. The internet is starting to become a place for people finding others like them and this is where gay teens take to the net like fish to water. This is when information started spreading like wildfire on how to be safe, but it only started. It didn’t become effective until much later.
It took over 30 years for this information to become common knowledge.
Don’t blame the victims of the Crisis because the cause was Reagan being evil and continued with Bush being maliciously indifferent.
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