"Like the men whose hands they held, their caregivers in the first years of the epidemic weren't exactly sure what they were grappling with. But they did know that the illness appeared - from experience - to be a death sentence. Following are the recollections of some of those women from the early years of the epidemic, as they simultaneously cared for the men, and held it together in the face of an unprecedented "gay plague" unfolding around them."
"In 1981, psychologist Candy Marcum met a 4th grade teacher named Howie Daire, who was starting a gay counseling center in Dallas. "In September of '81, we went to this conference in Houston on gay mental health. We started hearing about GRID - gay-related immune deficiency. It was a virus that seemed to be spreading with gay men. And so on the way back, Howie said - we had two phone lines in the counseling center, the counseling center was real small and I was single at the time. I was very fond of that second phone line - Howie said, 'I think we should turn the second line into a GRID hotline.' And I said, 'Really, do you know anybody that's gotten that?'""
Lesbian friends and caregivers stepped into frontline caregiving roles as gay and bisexual men fell ill during the early HIV/AIDS crisis. Many caregivers lacked clear medical information but recognized the illness as frequently fatal and responded with hospice-style care, emotional support, and unpaid counseling. Community centers and hotlines shifted into broader service hubs to meet urgent needs. Caregivers offered pro bono counseling, companionship at deathbeds, and grassroots coordination of support services. These women balanced personal grief, practical care, and community organizing while confronting stigma and the rapid expansion of the epidemic.
Read at LGBTQ Nation
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]