At 57, that means he entered university during the early to mid 1980s.
That was peak AIDS phobia (for good reason), and the anti-gay rhetoric was also at its peak.
There was a lot more to lose coming out during those days, beyond just marriage and family cold-shoulders.
By good reason, I mean people were panicked because people didn’t know which activities could spread the virus. Anyone else remember toilet seat fears?
For anyone reading that wasn't around it was very much an irrational hysteria. The bigots latched on to it to spread fear and justify their dehumanization of gay people. There were people that tried to bring reason and science to the conversation but they were drowned out by the panic/bigotry.
There was no good reason for the AIDS phobia in the 80s.
I knew as I wrote that someone would feel compelled to respond. Too late to unwind.
It’s only in hindsight and it wasn’t just bigots. Safer sex as we know it today was directly from the AIDS scare.
AIDS was no less than a death sentence. It was incurable, untreatable, and the cancer after-effects were pretty nasty. Broad research and public transparency took a long time to take hold and that left regular people speculating for years.
Even medical doctors turned away suspected AIDs patients, because everyone was pretty scared.
For a bit, even as a kid I remember it being on par or scarier than nuclear war because so much was unknown.
That was peak AIDS phobia (for good reason), and the anti-gay rhetoric was also at its peak.
There was a lot more to lose coming out during those days, beyond just marriage and family cold-shoulders.
By good reason, I mean people were panicked because people didn’t know which activities could spread the virus. Anyone else remember toilet seat fears?