Norma Kamali, designer
People from little towns who didn’t find their comfort zone would come [to New York], and could absolutely feel free to be who they were and who they wanted to be. But then, this insidious illness came and started to erode that freedom of spirit, and fear became a part of it. Suddenly, people were afraid to catch it. Like, what happens if you hug someone or kiss someone that may be sick, and will this be contagious?
Pat Cleveland, model
Before you knew it, all those beautiful boys who were about free love and free sex and everything, they all started getting sick. At the time everybody was dancing, smoking, and taking drugs, and doing whatever the heck if it makes you feel happy. And everybody was just falling dead.
Garren, hairstylist
It became known as “the gay disease.” All the kids that I knew, all the fashion designers and the photographers and the makeup artists and hairdressers, they started getting sick. It was a domino effect.
Bevy Smith, author and radio personality
It was called the “gay plague,” that was a term that people used. I worked at an advertising agency where the owner was gay, and so many people were coming in—but then you would never see them again or you would hear that they passed away. Folks that I worked with, their lovers were dying.
But I knew it wasn’t just a “gay disease” because I had two cousins who passed away in the early days. They were Black [straight] women, and they were IV drug users, and that’s how they contracted it. I remember going to see them in Harlem Hospital and they didn’t know enough about the disease, so they actually made me wear a full hazmat outfit.
Simon Doonan, writer
There was this idea going around that a “gay cancer” was affecting all the hardcore queens who are sexaholics and doing drugs. So my friends and I thought we were safe. But then my roommate said to me, “Oh, I’ve got this.” One after another, all my friends and ex-boyfriends were being stricken. It’s hard to describe how horrible it was to be in your 20s and all your friends are just hitting their strides and everyone’s having fun and being creative, then all of a sudden the floor just falls out from under everybody.