#gmhc

[rylobnk]

Legendary AIDS activist, playwright, and author Larry Kramer would have been 90 years old today. Although he was just as pugnacious with his own allies as he was with his enemies, we celebrate that fight and need that fight more today than ever.

[queerazonbooks]

Honoring Larry Kramer on his birthday. 25 June 1935

Playwright, activist, and co-founder of ACT UP and GMHC, Larry was a warrior for AIDS awareness and LGBTQ+ rights. He shouted when others whispered, and demanded action when silence was deadly.

Through The Normal Heart and his tireless advocacy, he saved lives and changed the course of history.

Happy Birthday to a hero who never backed down—and never let us forget that silence = death.

#LarryKramer #ACTUP #QueerHistory #QueerActivism

[blackqueernotables]

Dr. Marjorie J. Hill: former CEO of Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC), the nation's oldest AIDS service organization

[babsi-and-stella]

Marianne Faithfull performing during the GMHC AIDS Dance-a-Thon on November 30th, 1991 in New York City. Photographed by Bill Tompkins.

[sestrahulk]

Tatiana Maslany supports AIDSWalk New York via GMHC

[auggator]

Today we lost Larry Kramer. He co-founded the Gay Men's Health Crisis, making huge strides to bring attention to the AIDS crisis. He later went on to found ACT UP, a huge movement in NYC and other major American cities to fight for those with AIDS. 

We continue to fight against AIDS even today, but the strides we have made would not have been possible without Larry Kramer. 

ACT UP, FIGHT AIDS

[pozmagazine]

R.I.P. Larry Kramer, 84, Author and AIDS Activist

The playwright and novelist was a cofounder of GMHC and ACT UP.

Larry Kramer, a longtime AIDS activist and an author, has died, The New York Times reports. He was 84. The cause was pneumonia, according to his husband, David Webster. Kramer had overcome many health challenges. In addition to being a long-term survivor of HIV, he also had a liver transplant resulting from liver disease caused by hepatitis B.

Kramer was a cofounder of Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC), as well as the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP). In the process, he became a lightning rod for AIDS activism. His zeal energized both organizations, but over time his relationship with them got complicated. In recent years, however, he developed closer ties to both advocacy groups.

[outweek30]

The Gay Men's Health Crisis has a program of support groups for the 'primary care givers' of people with AIDS. Having been such a care giver, I joined a group during the final months of my friend's illness and the experience helped me get through those dismal days.

The group consisted of six gay men whose lovers had advanced AIDS infections, and a female volunteer therapist who directed and focused our discussions. The experience was warm, loving and often almost unbearably moving as we sustained each other through rituals of fear, anger and denial, and finally helped each other face our lovers' deaths.

Throughout my time in the group I was aware of a compelling fact: no one ever discussed or seriously contemplated leaving his ailing lover. I remember feeling that those homophobes who depict gay men as superficial, uncaring and incapable of deep and profound love and commitment to each other had obviously never been in such a room, or known such men.

— Gabriel Rotello, “Party’s Over,” a negative review of the book After the Ball: How America Will Conquer Its Fear and Hatred of Gays in the ’90s by Marshall Kirk and Hunter Madsen, Ph.D., OutWeek Magazine No. 2, July 3, 1989, p. 51.