Larry Kramer: author and founding father of AIDS activism
BMJ 2020; 369 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m2300 (Published 12 June 2020) Cite this as: BMJ 2020;369:m2300
- Bob Roehr
- Washington, DC, USA
- bobroehr{at}aol.com
Credit: Stephen Dunn/Hartford Courant/PA
The disease didn’t have a name yet, only a few studies had appeared in peer reviewed journals, but already the gay men of New York City knew that something evil was stalking them, sickening them, bringing the kind of grotesque assaults on the human body that modern medicine had seemingly banished from Western society. In January 1982, about 80 met in Larry Kramer’s apartment to form the first organised response to what would become known as the AIDS epidemic.
The fact that Kramer had a place large enough to accommodate the group was a testament to his established success. He was an accomplished script writer with several movies to his credit, most notably the screenplay he adapted from the DH Lawrence novel Women in Love and for which he received an Academy Award nomination in 1969. Glenda Jackson took home the Oscar for best actress for her performance in the film.
Gay Men’s Health Crisis
The Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) eventually emerged from that meeting, with Kramer as one of the incorporators. It was created even before the words HIV and AIDS had been whispered and continues to this day as one of the largest HIV service providers in New York City.
The 1970s were a golden age of promiscuity for gay men, particularly for baby boomers coming of age after the Stonewall rebellion began to break the hold of the closet. Discos and bath houses proliferated, and Fire Island became a summer bacchanal. Kramer was the great naysayer—sort of. His 1978 novel, Faggots, lambasted the shallowness of that lifestyle while wallowing in the lurid details of the behaviour he condemned. Many in the gay community came to see him as a self-righteous scold, a pariah, even while devouring the salacious bits that made his novel a bestseller.
“1112 and Counting,” was …
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