Today's True Story- It's Not Over
Anyone saying “it’s over” re: the US is announcing their unwillingness to keep fighting, nothing more. - Molly Tanzer, award winning author
I agree with Molly.
I came out in the mid 80s amidst the AIDS crisis and the war was already raging.
The President refused to say or do anything about it. He left the impacted community to our own devices and many many people died. In the early days, diagnosis to death was hardly any time at all…. and on into the late 80s, when I was getting tested every six months, the commonly understood timeframe from diagnosis to death was three years.
Fortunately, because the gay and lesbian communities had had been able to be out in places like New York City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, there were now doctors who were gay who started clinics to help take care of those afflicted (because sometimes there would be those who wouldn’t help for fear of getting “it”). These medical professionals saved countless lives.
They did not think that it was over.
In the 90s, people turned their sadness to anger. And the marches, oh, the marches. And the die-ins! And political action all over the place.
No one in ACT UP or Queer Nation thought it was over.
And those groups were instrumental in getting new drugs developed, tested and approved by the FDA. And, towards the end of the 90s, new drugs were developed that would help us live longer lives, with an eye to turning it into a chronic condition rather than a terminal one.
I remember, specifically, feeling a relief, that at last there was a light at the end of the tunnel - but there was still anger that it had taken SO LONG to get to that point. So damn long.
And now? All of us have a new fight on our hands. The fight is not just with this ‘president’, but with our fellow Americans who seem to wish for us all (them included, oddly) to simply die. But why that is, is a question that I don’t have an answer for today.
I just know that they are going fast in order to prevent us from having the luxury of time to figure things out. But we must move past being overwhelmed. We must move past beyond giving up. We must not think it’s over. It’s not. It is, unfortunately, only beginning.
Good luck to us all.
