Each of us has asked ourselves the question, Many of us have been asked by others. Some of us have been accused of betraying our own interests, our sisters' interests. Why do lesbians work so hard within the gay AIDS activist movement?
It's an important question. An obvious question. A difficult question. We must each answer it. The facts are not the problem here, Women have AIDS and, as in all movements, unless women work on the woman-specific aspects of the crisis, men won't. Women are affected in many ways. We are the fastest growing group of PWAs. Women with AIDS take care of men and children who are living with AIDS, We comprise the vast majority of nurses, social workers and educators who provide direct services to PWAs and people at risk. In New York City, 13 percent of PWAs are women, 85 percent of these are women of color. Lesbians are part of each of these groups. Women with AIDS are affected by racism and sexism in many ways; excluded from drug trials, denied abortions, forced to abort, forced to be sterilized in order to receive treatment. A woman lives an average of six months following diagnosis of AIDS, compared to a white male P.WA who lives an average of 39 months following diagnosis. The specific women's issues are broad and deep enough to create our own movement.
It is clear that there are risks in doing this work. [...] So what are some of our perspectives? The most clear reason, the most obvious one, is that as lesbians, we have had so few opportunities to work in an environment where our identity is affirmed. The lesbian/gay unity, often absent, seems evident here. It seems that many political lesbians are responding simply to our own interests as "gays." AIDS was once equated with being queer, and this image is persistent. The same government and public that is allowing PWAs to die certainly does not want lesbians to live. The bottom line here is that we understand that we are not in fact, immune. We are affected.
Some of it is simple. A gay friend, a family member dies of AIDS. We become involved. Our activism propels us to be where the action is.
And lesbians understand body politics/sexual politics from our own vantage point. The incredible broad intersection of issues has never been so clearly articulated. This is a unique oportunity to equate systematically bad health care with racism, sexism, homophobia, reproductive rights, urban economic and social collapse, repression of sexuality. As lesbians, with our women-centered view, we are capable of having a world-centered view. Of seeing connections. Of seeing our stake in things. Of looking for opportunities to broaden the movements for social change. Of building meaningful coalitions.
[...]
And no, we don't want to be left out of anything. But not because we're prone to hysteria or want to be victims. Without our woman-centered perspective, women's needs will never make it to the agenda, This crisis may be the one that will provoke a deeper desire in all of us to change the conditions we are living under. Lesbians want to be in on it, to shape its form so we can get something out of it too.
We don't need fewer lesbian AIDS activists. We need more activists, on all fronts, period. We need to activate the reproductive rights struggle to an unprecedented level. We need to demonstrate with all the anger we possess against all forms of injustice and oppression, anyone of which could kill us or our sisters, We need to come out as lesbians in all of the organizations and movements that we work in. We need to come out as activists in all of our lesbian-focused social activities. We need to make it clear that we are doing the work we do because of our own interests. And we must prepare our own agendas and actions, support each other as lesbians in all the work we are doing.
Before 1973, thousands of women died in the U.S. every year of complications from illegal abortions. Pat Parker died in June this year of breast cancer. My Aunt Charlotte died of breast cancer when I was seven, leaving three young children. Today invisible women die of AIDS. The litany of our lives and losses is imprinted in each of our consciousnesses. We are compelled to do the work we must do to save ourselves. In my experience, it is lesbians who do it because of our love for one another.
— Risa Denenberg, "Lesbian AIDS Activists: What Are We Doing?," OutWeek Magazine No. 17, October 15, 1989, p. 30.
