From the number of complaints I’m hearing of pandemic fatigue and the widespread resistance to simple precautionary measures such as wearing a mask at the grocery store, it’s clear to me that many people don’t fully appreciate what the gay community has been dealing with for the past 40 years and don’t understand how we survived the AIDS epidemic.
At the risk of over-sharing, here’s a snapshot of what it was like to have come of age in the midst of a sexually transmitted and deadly virus.
We learned how to protect ourselves and one another by practising safer sex. We started using condoms, for which gay men had previously had no use.