Tamar W. Carroll
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- January 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781469619880
- eISBN:
- 9781469619903
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/northcarolina/9781469619880.003.0005
- Subject:
- Sociology, Urban and Rural Studies
This chapter demonstrates how ACT UP created a supportive queer community for people infected by HIV, as well as how the group changed the nation's response to the AIDS crisis. Through its art and ...
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This chapter demonstrates how ACT UP created a supportive queer community for people infected by HIV, as well as how the group changed the nation's response to the AIDS crisis. Through its art and actions, ACT UP developed an oppositional understanding of AIDS that rejected homophobia and sexual shame and instead called for universal health care and sexual privacy as human rights. Unlike MFY or NCNW, ACT UP generated a community based on affiliation, shared consciousness, and desire. ACT UP members embraced a fluid rather than fixed sexual identity, embracing the term “queer” to signify their rejection of normative sexuality, jettisoning binary understandings of sex and gender.Less
This chapter demonstrates how ACT UP created a supportive queer community for people infected by HIV, as well as how the group changed the nation's response to the AIDS crisis. Through its art and actions, ACT UP developed an oppositional understanding of AIDS that rejected homophobia and sexual shame and instead called for universal health care and sexual privacy as human rights. Unlike MFY or NCNW, ACT UP generated a community based on affiliation, shared consciousness, and desire. ACT UP members embraced a fluid rather than fixed sexual identity, embracing the term “queer” to signify their rejection of normative sexuality, jettisoning binary understandings of sex and gender.