Awakened Activism: AIDS and Transformation (1995) Available to Purchase

Contrasting the optimism of the gay and lesbian liberation movement of the late 1970s and early 1980s with the numbness that ensued in the wake of the AIDS epidemic, the chapter argues that the epidemic posed two serious dilemmas for advocates: how to get a response from an administration that did not care about gay people, and how to mobilize members of a community that were still largely in the closet. The chapter discusses four strategies that gay and lesbian movement advocates adopted—de-gaying, desexualizing, decoupling AIDS-specific reforms from systemic reforms, and direct action—and concludes that these were quick-fix strategies that yielded short term, and short-lived, gains.