Gay men in the 80s

Instead, he found himself at an epicenter of the HIV outbreak that would shape the gay world in the United States for years to come. In the s, gay men were ravaged by AIDS, with the disease quickly spreading to other minority groups across the globe. The bars were emptying out.

It was your favorite bartender. Death was the last thing King thought he would have to confront when he moved to West Hollywood from Houston to pursue an acting career. This support, along with the many LGBTQ activist campaigns, urged gay men and women to “come out of the closet” and enter the political field as candidates.

But King had no evidence to suggest he would. Protective denial. An immigrant from Venezuela, Vergel told NBC News he left his home country because he was gay and seeking a more supportive environment. I immediately went into denial. In in the United States, Gay activists won support from the Democratic Party the party added to its platform a nondiscrimination clause that included sexual orientation.

Being gay in the 80s meant being isolated from an identity. He was 24 years old and eager to enjoy life. Everyone he knew who had been diagnosed had gone to the hospital and died. Vergel was 24, a recent immigrant ready to try to make it in the U. The disease, initially called “gay-related immune deficiency” (GRID), was disproportionately affecting gay men, leading to widespread fear, stigma, and a heightened public association between AIDS epidemic and the LGBTQ community.

Facing annihilation, gay men took it upon themselves to found organizations like Gay Men's Health Crisis () and AmFAR () to save their own lives and combat the disease. It was like a 'Twilight Zone' episode where everyone in town just starts disappearing. There was no discussion of homosexuality in school not even in our year long “Health and Sexuality” class, even though we were in the middle of the AIDS crisis.

That was the question Mark S. King said he had to ask himself in the early '80s when friends and loved ones were dying of the "gay plague. But everywhere and every day, friends, relatives, acquaintances and partners were dying. On March 15, , King received a call from his friend, a nurse, who had discreetly tested him for the virus — he was positive.

A year before King's life-changing phone call, in , Nelson Vergel was settling into Houston. As the 80’s evolved, programs as “Dynasty” introduced a gay character and even The Golden Girls brought home the gay lifestyle well as tackling AIDS among other issues of the day. On TV, politicians on both sides of the aisle were debating in earnest whether gay people should be quarantined.

When he met and fell in love with his boyfriend, Calvin, at a chemical engineering conference in Houston, Vergel decided to live there. It was the guy who did your hair. They just stopped being there. America was in the throes of panic on the day King picked up the phone in Los Angeles.

This article delves into the social, political, and cultural landscape of homosexuality in the 80s, shedding light on the key events and issues that defined the decade. No one felt like celebrating anymore, he said. The horror of the disease brought with it a fiercer, angrier, more urgent.

Homosexuality during this era was a subject of intense societal debate, stigmatization, and activism. Mark S. In fact, activists were urging people not to take it. As an aspiring chemical engineer, he also wanted to attend a better school.