“lesbian texts are passed from hand to hand and mouth to mouth between lesbians. they are located on the skin, in the look, in the geography of the palms of the hands. lesbian literature exists in pieces: in flyers, newsletters, magazines, chapbooks, bathroom stalls, notes, novels, e-mails, love letters, on tiny scraps of paper. lesbian literature also exists in texts that don’t seem to have anything at all to do with lesbians or literature: a customer copy of an American Express receipt, dinner for two at Café Aroma; a torn pack of Trojans that once housed bright red lubricated condoms; a box of Celestial Seasoning’s raspberry zinger tea; a matchbook cover with “Lario’s” on the outside and “call me soon, baby” on the inside. lesbians live in houses with writings on the wall that indicate the way to lesbianism. these texts abound but they are offered only to lesbians; this is why lesbian literature seems scarce. lesbian literature is the unwritten bestseller that all lesbians are reading, all the time: it consists of our every moment.”

— tatiana de la tierra, “Lesbian Literature”

"Safe Sex Is Hot Sex" By Steven Meisel commissioned by the Red Hot Organization during the 1990s.

2006. Twenty-five years of AIDS.

It is tempting to forget the morning rituals, when you inspected your body for lesions that might have appeared during the night and signal that it had started.

It is tempting to forget that when you asked, “Does this spot look purple to you?” you didn’t need to say anything else for everyone around you to know just what was on your mind, if not on your skin, and how fast your heart was racing as you uttered the words as casually as you could because sounding casual seemed to increase the chances of a reassuring response.

It is tempting to forget that there was a time when gay men were hoping not to lose weight, that plump meant healthy and healthy reassuring. And reassuring, in a turnabout so shocking for us then, meant sexy.

It is tempting to forget that people were dropping like flies, that many gay men in cities like New York or San Francisco were crossing out name after name from their address books, and it is tempting to forget that many gay men who had long left their families behind in favor of friendships were now left only with mere acquaintances, no one close still living.

It is tempting to forget how parents who had once expelled their faggot son now rushed to his bedside to keep te lovers and friends away, to contest the will, and to snatch the spoils of a life lived far from the tender bosom of the family.

It is tempting to forget that women never “got” AIDS but somehow died of it by the thousands.

It is tempting to forget that the truth could only be whispered or screamed but seldom simply told.

It is tempting to forget that kids were chased out of schools by their friends’ parents and by their friends and that their houses were burned to the ground.

It is tempting to forget that Ryan White was once described as a “homophiliac” in a newspaper.

It is tempting to forget the frightened medics and undertakers and the cop’s face masks and latex gloves, as they arrested dying young men and women fighting for their lives.

It is tempting to forget ACT UP’s unforgettable chant, “They’ll see you on the news; your gloves don’t match your shoes!”

It is tempting to forget angry queers screaming bloody murder and spitting out hosts in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York.

It is tempting to forget the pictures of Dorian Gray on TV and on the pages of magazines, the emaciated faces covered with lesions, the hollow stares, and the feeling that one might as well have been looking at a charred and contorted body hanging from a tree, like Billie Holiday’s strange fruit, as the crowd cheered.

It is tempting to forget gay-related immune deficiency and the gay cancer and the 4-H club — homosexual, heroin addict, hemophiliac, Haitian — and all the conspiracy theories and miracle cures that we knew were bullshit yet couldn’t help but consider just in case, because madness could make sense.

It is tempting to forget the promise of a vaccine in about five years and that it felt like such an eternity that researchers sounded almost apologetic when explaining that retroviruses are particularly treacherous foes.

It is tempting to forget the calls for quarantine camps and tattoos and mass expulsions, “solutions” whose pros and cons were discussed with the sort of equanimity now applied to the debate on torture.

It is tempting to forget that nobody gave a shit.

It is tempting to forget that all this is still happening far, far away from here.

It is tempting to forget and it is easy.

pp. 9-10, The Nearness of Others: Searching for Tact and Contact in the Age of HIV, David Caron. 

Frankly I don’t see the point in fussing over the precise gender identities of historical figures and what they would hypothetically describe themselves as were they alive today. They’re not fictional characters—they’re dead people whose opinions on a continuously evolving topic are largely unknowable, but are part of a shared history nonetheless.

For example, whether a historical figure lived secretly as a man because she was a woman in a society where that was her only option to actually do the things she wanted to do, or because he was just more comfortable that way and wanted to be recognized as a man... how can we know? How can we determine that it was not both? How can we look back through history to a world so different from ours and come to conclusions about things that are often complicated and indistinct in our own time?

I just don’t see what is accomplished by trying to sort and separate trans history from GNC history based on factors we can’t truly be certain of. In an earlier generation, I think I may have lived and presented quite differently based on the choices available to me and the ease with which I may have pursued them. The world changes so much in so many ways and I can barely make sense of myself in my own time—it seems more practical to simply say, “Ah. Relatable. I can see much of myself in the record of your life.” and leave it at that. Our history is cultural, not ancestral, and in a hundred years we may be the source of just as much confusion and consternation even if we believe ourselves clear today.