For AIDS Activists, Government’s Response To Coronavirus Feels Familiar

Los Angeles Times: AIDS Activists Feel Deja-Vu Amid Coronavirus Policy Battle 
The federal government’s response to the novel coronavirus feels all too familiar to Tom Sheridan. Thirty years ago, as the national director of public policy for the powerful AIDS Action Council, he helped to force the Reagan Administration to acknowledge the existence of that disease. The first case of AIDS emerged in the U.S. in 1980, but it wasn’t until 1985 — nearly 13,000 deaths later — that President Reagan uttered its name publicly. Before, he dismissed it as the “gay plague.” (Botel, 6/28)

The New York Times: Black Trans Women Seek More Space In The Movement They Helped Start 
Transgender women of color were leaders in L.G.B.T.Q. activism before, during and after the uprising at the Stonewall Inn 51 years ago on Sunday, but they were never put at the center of the movement they helped start: one whose very shorthand, “the gay rights movement,” erases them. Though active in the Black Lives Matter movement from the beginning, they have not been prioritized there either. At no point have black trans people shared fully in the gains of racial justice or L.G.B.T.Q. activism, despite suffering disproportionately from the racism, homophobia and transphobia these movements exist to combat. (Grullon Paz and Astor, 6/27)

The New York Times: ‘A True Disappointment’: When Your First Pride March Is Canceled 
Colin Beresford was looking forward to the summer of 2020, and for the first time celebrating Pride among the crowds of people in Ann Arbor, Mich. Mr. Beresford, 23, grew up in a conservative Michigan town and described a slow process of coming to understand that he was bisexual, to acknowledge that within himself, and finally to take pride in it. (Louis, 6/27)

NPR: New York City Celebrates 50 Years Of Pride Parades
This weekend, the world is observing the 50th anniversary of the first New York City Pride Parade, that celebration of LGBTQ identity known for its floats, feathers and corporate sponsors. Because of COVID-19, there won't actually be a parade on Sunday. Instead, there's Global Pride, a 24-hour line up of performances and inspiring messages involving 500 organizations from all over the world. "It's about helping individuals in the LGBTQ community know and understand that they're not alone," said Cathy Renna, a co-organizer. (Vanasco, 6/27)

In related news —

The New York Times: Kenneth Lewes, Who Challenged Views Of Homosexuality, Dies At 76 
Kenneth Lewes grew up after World War II in a working-class neighborhood of the northeast Bronx, the son of an immigrant couple who never got beyond grade school. He guessed even before he entered junior high school that he was gay. But it wasn’t until he was nearly 50 — and publishing what would become a critically acclaimed takedown of post-Freudian psychoanalytic theories of homosexuality — that he confided his sexual orientation to his parents. (Roberts, 6/26)