Larry Kramer often clashed with younger HIV activists over issues like PrEP. Good thing he also taught us how to fight.
On balance, this was pretty tame vocabulary for Larry. But for me, the comments were not only personally hurtful; they also represented a fundamental betrayal of our community. After watching one too many friends get newly diagnosed with HIV, in the fall of 2012 I had joined ACT UP NY, the infamous AIDS activist group that Larry helped found in 1987.
In my then 24-year-old mind, Larry represented everything that was wrong with HIV prevention—a field that, until recently, has been more successful in shaming young queer people about their sex lives than in actually preventing HIV infections. We expressed our mutual disdain privately at first, over barbed emails and a furious phone call.
A couple of days later, Peter Staley, a mutual friend and ACT UP alumnus , called me. He wanted us to sit down with Larry, break bread, and make our case. I demurred—I was simply too angry and, in hindsight, too petty and immature, to try to make peace. But fortunately, Larry was not.
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