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I grew up on the tail of the AIDS crisis: I remember walking in the AIDS walk with my parents as a kid. It was survivable by the time I came of age, even though the drugs suuuuucked.

But there's a whole generation of queers, not missing, but whose whole adult out life was the trauma of newfound freedom curtailed by the devastation. The dykes caring for the men who succumbed more often; every fund-raiser was about AIDS; every bit of media was about the crisis. It changed queer culture so drastically.

And at the same time, the growing trans movement was fractious and unsupported, sometimes trying hard not to be part of the 'gay scene'; the embedded and internal transphobia loomed large. The wisdom of the day was that you abandoned your whole life and lived stealth in some new city. So many relationships destroyed, maybe necessary, but so many left behind who couldn't or wouldn't do that. Some found homes in other queer community. Some never came out, it was too hard.

I remember fights over terminology, I remember the extremely online and bizarre alliance in the forum culture that led the construction of 'asexual' and 'aromantic' as we conceive of them today. I remember the various attempts to divide us, people sowing hate between lesbians and trans folks, gay folks who did drag and gay men who did not; masc from femme; trans(sexual) from trans(gender) from trans(vestite); people tried (and often succeeded) on dividing us on class and racial lines too. (And we fall afoul of racism as anyone does. Being queer doesn't absolve us or give us particularly special understanding)

And now we get to watch people try to weaponize autism to divide us. History rhymes.

I really wish people understood the realities of the AIDS crisis. It's not that everyone died. It's not nearly such a tidy story. It's one of neglect, poverty, government inaction, massive organization, theatrical liberation movements, care, community, attendance, witness.

Yes, many people died, but people _lived_ too. But so many had to make their whole lives adapt to the crisis, the disease, or both.

So there's another quirk people don't know about the AIDS crisis. Sometimes people just tried to party until they died. Especially with a bit of money. You could give it away, but if you died, nobody could inherit it. No gay marriage, families would lay claim. Maybe you'd donate your wealth if you had some. But sometimes? You just party. Max on the credit cards, nobody's gonna assume your debt either. You've got great credit and a year to live, go out in style. It's not like credit card companies weren't funding the politicians that were sandbagging making progress on it all.

But then AZT comes along. Shit. People might actually live through this.

(When you watch RENT, think about this. It makes it make a bit more sense.)

In many ways, the 2010s were the first really post-AIDS queer culture starting to re-form. It meant the fight for marriage equality could happen, with its good and bad and classism problems.

The Internet and particularly the Facebook era of social media set the tone for the new culture, and the 2010s started to cement it.

There's a kind of lost generation right before that (that's my generation), a solid decade or two of somewhat unmoored queerness.

So many foundational ideas of how we conceive of queerness right now came out of then though (and there's plenty to critique here. We need to integrate the older and the newer ideas. The generations divided by the AIDS crisis lost some culture that we'd do well to find.)

But still: read Leslie Feinberg. S. Bear Bergman. Ivan Coyote. Kate Bornstein. Learn about ACT UP. The Lesbian Avengers. Lou Sullivan. Learn about the ballroom scene. (And while you're at it, learn about the Black Panthers and racial justice work being done at the same time too. Don't let queer history be white history, learn about the complexity of it all.)

And also think, just really think about what it feels like to be queer when you learn about queerness from books, posters, punk shows, drag shows, gay bars, infoshops, hushed conversations in school bathrooms, getting cruised in a coffee shop, dance competitions, theater dressing rooms and cast parties, instead of the Internet, or when the Internet is where you learn about it, it's not pride flags in someone's bio, but forums that feel a tidge sleazy and have strange names and people with strong opinions defending their turf.

Just let the imagination settle in about what it's like when you can't discover queerness from home.

And then my generation on the Internet: finding any mention at all feels at once like a lifeline and like a terrifying clique you're not sure if you can be a part of. Shared computers, dial-up internet. Text, almost entirely text. Almost everyone on the Internet is either pseudonymous or an academic. (Possibly both.)

I’m off to bed. But one thing I’d love people to think about more in how much more universal health care is liberatory than gay marriage is.