Aids and gay history

[Massageguy99]

I am not sure if I should post this here or not.

Reading another post made me think of this and I felt like it belongs in this sub just as much as any other. 

 

Has anyone listened to Fiasco the aids crisis on Audible? I have read a lot of literature and listened to a lot of audio for this time period.

I was surprised to learn new things from this audio. I enjoyed it and it made me want to listen to more things. 

I admit i didn't come out until long after the aids crisis so I didn't live through it and most people I know who lost friends during that period are few. 

does anyone have any other suggestions for gay history be it Aids or any other time period. 

I love reading about our past and how we have improved and in some ways regressed. 

 

I have also read many books on the upstairs lounge fire which I found very informative. 

 

[Massageguy99]

One of my first exposure to our history was a play called Elegies For Angels, Punks and Raging Qu**ns. 

I grew up in a religious household where I didn't ever hear the term gay until I was 15. I had heard fa**s and only that term was used as they were sinners etc. 

I was 23 when I watched that play and only newly out but it ignited a passion for me to learn more of my own history. Information I felt that has basically been hidden from me. 

I also grew up in a religious school so being gay or even having sex was never discussed. 

[+ Lucky]

AIDS is an acronym, thus capital letters.

[Rudynate]

You should read Christopher Isherwood's early works, set in gay Berlin in the 1930's as fascism was sweeping Europe. - There are several -"Mr. Norris Changes Trains," "Good-Bye to Berlin" are the ones I can think of, but there were quite a few.

[Marc in Calif]

3 hours ago, Lucky said:

AIDS is an acronym, thus capital letters.

In American English, yes.

But they don't capitalize all letters of acronyms in British English: Aids, Nato, Covid, Unesco, etc.

[Massageguy99]

4 hours ago, Rudynate said:

You should read Christopher Isherwood's early works, set in gay Berlin in the 1930's as fascism was sweeping Europe. - There are several -"Mr. Norris Changes Trains," "Good-Bye to Berlin" are the ones I can think of, but there were quite a few.

Thank you for the recommendation. 

[+ Charlie]

Jonathan Katz, Gay American History, is a good place to start.

[mike carey]

3 hours ago, Marc in Calif said:

In American English, yes.

But they don't capitalize all letters of acronyms in British English: Aids, Nato, Covid, Unesco, etc.

The Guardian style guide specifies initial capitals for acronyms that are pronounced as a word and all capitals if the letters are read separately, thus Aids and HIV. In general Australian usage it's a bit more random. You rarely see QANTAS or ANZAC but will see AIDS.

[Smokey]

Here are two books to consider:

Randy Shilts

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_the_Band_Played_On

Abraham Verghese
https://www.amazon.com/My-Own-Country-Doctors-Story/dp/0679752927

[Client1985]

Audible books:

All The Young Men by Ruth C Burkes.  A nurses view. Shows compassion and love to people with Aids. 

How to Survive a Plague by David France. A very accurate story of the Aids timeline.  Talks about the trials,protests, act up. 

Not about Aids but gay themed: 

Double Life by Shane, Norman Sunshine. A gay couple working in Hollywood in the 70's and on. 

All I Could Bare by Craig Seymour. A colleges student that casually worked as an Adult dancer in Washingtion D C. It's a bio. 

[+ Charlie]

The Gay Militants by Donn Teal (Stein and Day, 1971) is still available on Amazon. It is a chronicle of the explosion of the gay liberation movement by a participant in the years around the Stonewall riot. [Full disclosure: Donn and I had a brief affair in the mid-1960s, when he was still a closeted high school teacher, and I was too far out of the closet for his comfort.]

[Torrone]

Gay New York

https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/george-chauncey/gay-new-york/9780786723355/

[+ Charlie]

Charles Kaiser's The Gay Metropolis (1997) also traces gay life in American cities from around 1940 through the AIDS epidemic.