HIV/AIDS

Pianist & Entertainer

b. May 16, 1919
d. February 4, 1987

“Nakedness makes us democratic; adornment makes us individuals.”

Liberace was a world-class pianist and showman, as famous for his flamboyant wardrobe and stage persona as he was for his immense talent.

Wladziu Valentine Liberace was born into a musical family in West Allis, Wisconsin. His parents emigrated from Poland and Italy. A prodigy, Liberace could play the piano by the age of 4.

As a child, Liberace was bullied for his effeminacy, avoidance of sports and speech impediment. He took refuge at the piano. As a teenager, he began studying at the Wisconsin College of Music and performed as a soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

When his family suffered financial hardship during the Great Depression, Liberace earned money playing popular music at weddings, movie theaters, speakeasies and other venues. Those experiences helped shape his trademark style, which he called “classical music with the boring parts left out.”

Liberace created a unique mix of classical and contemporary arrangements, often performed in extravagant medleys. Critics uniformly bashed him, but their opinions left his popularity unaffected.

In response to one caustic review, he famously quipped, “My manager and I laughed all the way to the bank.”

In 1944 Liberace premiered in Las Vegas and eventually made the city one of his many homes. Routinely wardrobed in sequins, lace, feathers and fur, he dazzled audiences at an enormous, jeweled piano topped with a Louis XIV candelabra.

Liberace debuted on television in 1952 with his own variety show. A smash hit, it was broadcast on more than 200 U.S. stations. His autobiography, published in 1972, became a best seller, and he wrote several cookbooks, the first of which was reprinted seven times.

Liberace became one of the most famous and highly paid performers of the 20th century. He maintained an overwhelmingly female fanbase and consistently denied — and sued over — allegations that he was gay. After his death, his close friend, the actress Betty White, confirmed his sexual orientation.

The HBO biopic, “Behind the Candelabra” (2013) depicts the now well-known affair between Liberace and Scott Thorson, his much younger lover. When Liberace kicked Thorson out of his mansion, Thorson attempted to sue Liberace in the first same-sex palimony case in U.S. history. The judge threw out the claim, but Liberace settled anyway.

Liberace produced six gold albums, earned two Emmy Awards and received two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He turned one of his mansions into a museum and started a foundation offering scholarships to young artists.

Though undisclosed at the time, Liberace died less than two years after he was diagnosed with HIV.

Award-Winning Composer 

b. July 10, 1931
d. December 26, 2019

“Writing for me is like putting together a jigsaw puzzle.”

Gerald “Jerry” Herman was an openly gay Broadway composer and lyricist best known for the smash musicals “Hello, Dolly!,” “Mame” and “La Cage aux Folles.”

Herman was born in New York City and grew up in New Jersey. His family made frequent trips to the New York theater, which ignited his passion for Broadway musicals.

Herman spent his childhood learning the piano and writing songs. Every year he attended a summer camp owned by his parents. Before long, he was directing the camp’s theater shows.

Herman attended Parsons School of Design in New York. A talented interior designer, he renovated more than 30 homes. After a year at Parsons, Herman left to pursue theater at the University of Miami. At the time, the college offered one of the most innovative theater programs in America.

In Miami, Herman wrote, produced and directed his first musical, “Sketchbook.” The successful show ran for 17 additional performances beyond its original schedule.

Herman received his bachelor’s degree in drama in 1953 and relocated to New York, where he worked with an Off Broadway revue. In 1961 the theater producer Gerard Oestreicher asked Herman to write the music and lyrics for “Milk and Honey.” It was Herman’s first full Broadway score.

In 1964, with David Merrick and Michael Stewart, Herman produced “Hello, Dolly!” The longest-running musical of its time, “Hello, Dolly!” won 10 Tony Awards, and the show’s original cast recording was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame. Multiple Broadway revivals have been produced since.

In 1966 Herman wrote the score for the hit musical “Mame.” The play earned eight Tony Award nominations, including best composer and lyricist, and won three.

After several of his subsequent shows received negative reviews, Herman took a break. His inspiration returned after watching the novel-based French movie, “La Cage aux Folles.” Herman contacted the book’s author, Harvey Fierstein, and the two collaborated on a Broadway version of “La Cage” in 1983.

The winner of six Tony Awards, “La Cage aux Folles” presented the funny and touching story of a gay couple and their straight, soon-to-be married son. It provided a watershed portrayal of gay relationships and same-sex parenthood at a time when the AIDS epidemic raged and homophobia was rampant. Herman himself contracted HIV in 1985 and began a series of experimental drug therapies that saved his life.

Herman received numerous awards and nominations. The University of Miami named a theater after him, and the Kennedy Center honored him in 2010.

In 2019 Herman died of pulmonary complications. The New York Times published his obituary.

Gay Rights Pioneer

b. November 1, 1950
d. March 4, 2007

“Mr. President, your family has AIDS … and you are doing nothing about it.”

Bob Hattoy was a pioneering HIV/AIDS, LGBT rights and environmental activist. The New York Times called him “the first gay man with AIDS many Americans had knowingly laid eyes on.” His arresting speech at the 1992 Democratic convention brought national attention to the AIDS epidemic, when the government was sweeping it under the rug.

Robert Keith Hattoy was born in Providence, Rhode Island. His family moved to Long Beach, California, when he was a teenager. Despite an abusive father and an otherwise difficult home life, Hattoy grew into a witty, outgoing and influential young man.

Though he never completed a degree, Hattoy attended several colleges and universities. Motivated by his passion for the environment, he turned his talents toward public policy. He worked under Zev Yaroslavsky, a Los Angeles city councilman, where he focused on environmental initiatives and rent control.

In 1981, after a stint on Yaroslavsky’s staff, Hattoy took a job with the Sierra Club, where he remained for the next decade. Founded by the naturalist John Muir, the Sierra Club was reputedly run by “an austere bunch of mountaineers.” Hattoy breathed new life into the organization with his charisma and the power of his convictions.

In 1992 Hattoy joined Bill Clinton’s presidential campaign. Shortly thereafter, he discovered a lump under his arm and was diagnosed with AIDS-related lymphoma. Hattoy told Clinton, and Clinton urged him to speak publicly about the epidemic.

Ten days later, still shell-shocked by his diagnosis, Hattoy addressed the Democratic National Convention in a nationally televised speech. Calling out the presidential incumbent, George H. W. Bush, Hattoy declared the gay community “part of the American family.” “Mr. President,” he said, “your family has AIDS, and we are dying, and you are doing nothing about it.”

After Bill Clinton’s election, Hattoy served in the White House Office of Personnel. He was an outspoken critic of the environmental policies of previous administrations and found Clinton’s policies similarly lacking. In 1994 the Clinton administration moved Hattoy to the Interior Department as White House liaison on environmental matters. He remained there for five years. He also served as the research committee chairman of the Presidential Commission on HIV/AIDS.

In 2002 Hattoy took a position with the California Fish and Game Commission. He became its president in 2007, shortly before his death.

Hattoy died at age 56 in Sacramento, California, from complications of AIDS.

Transgender Activist

b. July 23, 1946
d. May 15, 2021

“I am your history. You can never change that no matter what you do to me.”

Felicia Elizondo is a self-described “Mexican spitfire, screaming queen, pioneer, legend, icon, diva, 29-year survivor of AIDS and Vietnam veteran.” Her activism has been crucial in raising public awareness of transgender rights and history.

Elizondo was born in San Angelo, Texas. Assigned male at birth, she knew she was “feminine” from the age of 5. Due to the lack of awareness of transgender people, Elizondo grew up believing she was gay. She was sexually assaulted by an older man and suffered bullying and name calling from her peers.

At age 14, Elizondo moved with her family to San Jose, California. Around the age of 16, she found refuge at Gene Compton’s Cafeteria in San Francisco’s Tenderloin neighborhood, where she became a regular. It was one of the few places in the city where drag queens and transgender women could congregate publicly. In 1966, three years before Stonewall, it became the site of one of the first LGBT riots in U.S. history. The Compton’s Cafeteria riot was led by a group of transgender women against police harassment.

Elizondo joined the Navy at age 18 and volunteered to serve in Vietnam. She decided, “If the military couldn’t make me a man, nothing would.” While serving, she realized she would always be attracted to men and told her commanding officer that she was gay. Consequently, she was interrogated by the FBI and the CIA, and the Navy dismissed her with an undesirable discharge. Later, she successfully petitioned to have her discharge reclassified as honorable.

After seeing “The Christine Jorgensen Story,” a film about the first nationally known transgender American woman, Elizondo came to understand her own identity. She completed gender confirmation surgery in 1973.

In 1987, during the AIDS epidemic, Elizondo tested positive for HIV. She returned to San Francisco and began working with community organizations seeking to improve quality of life for people living with HIV/AIDS. She became a trans drag queen and organized drag shows to raise funds for numerous HIV/AIDS nonprofits.

Elizondo has worked extensively to bring public attention to transgender history. In 2006, due largely to her efforts, the city of San Francisco renamed the 100 block of Taylor Street as Gene Compton's Cafeteria Way. In 2014 Elizondo successfully worked with San Francisco city supervisors to rename the 100 block of Turk Street in honor of her late friend Vicki Marlane, a transgender icon.

Elizondo appeared in the documentary “Screaming Queens: The Riot at Compton’s Cafeteria” (2005). In 2015 she served as the lifetime achievement grand marshal of the San Francisco Pride Parade. She died in San Francisco in 2021.

Award-Winning Actor

b. June 7, 1928
d. October 2, 1985

“I can at least know my misfortune has had some positive worth.”

Rock Hudson was an award-winning actor of Hollywood’s Golden Age. A handsome leading man who appeared in nearly 70 films, he became the face of the early AIDS epidemic at a time when the virus and its victims were demonized. In coming out with his diagnosis—and his homosexuality—he helped raise public awareness and humanize the disease.
 
Born Leroy Harold Scherer Jr. in Winnetka, Illinois, Hudson served as an aircraft mechanic in the Navy during World War II. After his discharge, he moved to Hollywood to pursue an acting career. In 1947 a talent scout took him on as his protégé, crafting the stage name “Rock Hudson.” Despite Hudson’s lack of experience, he landed a bit part in the 1948 feature film “Fire Squadron.”

Hudson played minor roles in a number of films before he scored the lead in “Magnificent Obsession” (1954). The film established Hudson as a star and his career skyrocketed.

He made five more movies in two years, before appearing in the critically acclaimed “Giant” (1956), alongside Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean. The performance earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in a Leading Role.

In 1959 Hudson’s career took another positive turn when he was cast opposite Doris Day in the romantic comedy “Pillow Talk.” The charismatic actor quickly became a Hollywood heartthrob, starring in two more comedies with Day. The couple’s on-screen chemistry made box office magic and ignited a lifelong friendship. In the late 1960s, Hudson turned his talent to television, most notable starring in “McMillan & Wife,” a popular police drama that ran through the 1970s.

Despite his public success, Hudson’s private life was shrouded in secrecy. Fear of social stigma and professional disaster kept him, and other gay actors of the day, closeted. In 1955, to keep up appearances, Hudson entered a short-lived marriage to Phyllis Gates, arranged by his agent.

Hudson was diagnosed with AIDS in June 1984. In 1985 Doris Day asked him to guest on her television talk-show premiere. He appeared in July for the taping and post-show press conference looking shockingly ill and gaunt. Shortly thereafter, he publicly acknowledged his health status.

He was one of the first major celebrities to disclose his homosexuality and his battle with AIDS. The revelation helped catalyze awareness and change public perceptions about the disease.

Hudson died in Beverly Hills just a few days after the program with Day aired. He was 59.

Pioneering Military Activist

b. August 20, 1948
d. March 17, 1996 

"For 16 years the Army said being homosexual wasn't detrimental to my job. Then, after the fact, they said it was. Logic is a lost art in the Army."

Perry J. Watkins was an African-American soldier who won a landmark lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of his military discharge due to his homosexuality.

Born in Joplin, Missouri, Watkins was raised by a single mother who always encouraged his honestly. He was open about his homosexuality in high school, at a time when both gay and black Americans were stigmatized.

At age 19, Watkins was drafted during the Vietnam War. He did not hide his sexuality on his pre-induction paperwork and served openly, even though U.S. policy barred homosexuals from the military. 

In the 1970s, while serving in Korea, Watkins volunteered to entertain the troops. He performed in drag, using the stage name Simone. Off duty, he took his show to Army clubs in Europe.

The Army accepted Watkins’s reenlistment three times following honorable discharges. Each time he responded candidly to inquiries about his “homosexual tendencies.” Several times the military conducted investigations into Watkins’s sexual conduct. All of them ended due to insufficient evidence.

In 1975 the military sought to discharge Watkins for being gay, despite his excellent record. His commanding officer testified that Watkins did "a fantastic job" and insisted his homosexuality had no impact on his performance. Watkins retained his enlistment and in 1977 was granted a security clearance. It was revoked two years later, due again to his sexual orientation. Represented by the ACLU, Watkins filed a lawsuit to challenge the revocation. In response, the army filed discharge proceedings. 

After a protracted legal battle, the Army dismissed Watkins permanently in 1984, at the end of his enlistment period. Thereafter, Watkins worked for the Social Security Administration while he fought the discharge.

In 1988 a federal court of appeals ruled in Watkins’s favor. It was the first time an appellate court ruled against the military ban on homosexual servicemembers. The Bush Administration appealed the decision.

In 1990 the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s decision and ordered Watkins’s reinstatement. He settled for a retroactive promotion, an honorable discharge, back pay and full retirement benefits.  

In 1993 Watkins served as grand marshal of the New York City Pride Parade. The documentary “SIS: The Perry Watkins Story” was released in 1994. The University of Michigan Law School awards an annual fellowship in his memory.
 
At age 47 Watkins died of AIDS-related complications. The New York Times published his obituary.

Gay Pioneer

b. June 21, 1945
d. March 6, 1987

“I know what it means to be called a nigger. I know what it means to be called a faggot. And I can sum up the difference in one word: none.”

Melvin “Mel” Boozer was a university professor, an activist for gay and African-American rights and the first openly gay candidate for vice president of the United States.

Boozer grew up in Washington, D.C. His mother was a domestic worker and his stepfather was a janitor. Boozer’s childhood homes lacked electricity.

Boozer graduated salutatorian of his high school class and earned a scholarship to Dartmouth College where he studied sociology. He spent three years in the Peace Corps in Brazil before completing his graduate studies. He earned a Ph.D. from Yale University and became a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland.

In 1979 Boozer became the first African-American elected president of the Gay Activists Alliance (GAA) of Washington, D.C. Under his leadership and in collaboration with Frank Kameny, the GAA secured passage of the D.C. Sexual Assault Reform Act, which decriminalized sodomy and struck down other anti-gay laws. The GAA also sued the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority and won the right to display Metrobus posters announcing, “Someone in Your Life is Gay.”

In 1980 the Socialist Party nominated Mel Boozer for vice president of the United States. The Democratic Party followed suit and nominated Boozer by petition. Though he was not elected, Boozer became the first-ever openly gay U.S. vice presidential candidate. In his primetime televised speech at the Democratic National Convention, Boozer called attention to discrimination against LGBT and black Americans.

In 1981 the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force hired Boozer as a district director. The following year, he cofounded and led the Langston Hughes-Eleanor Roosevelt Democratic Club, which advocated for black gays and lesbians in Washington, D.C. In 1984 he ran the D.C. gay-voter outreach effort for Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaign. He also served on the national board of Americans for Democratic Action, a political advocacy organization for progressive causes and social justice.

Later in life, Boozer became an AIDS activist. He died of an AIDS-related illness at the age of 41. The New York Times published his obituary.

Poet and Activist

b. April 16, 1957
d. November 4, 1995

“It is not enough to tell us that one was a brilliant poet, scientist, educator or rebel. Whom did he love? It makes a difference.”

Essex Hemphill was an American poet who wrote about race and identity in the 1980s. He was also an important voice during the AIDS crisis. His work has been described as fiercely political and lyrical. 

Born in Chicago and raised in Washington, D.C., Hemphill said that poetry became his refuge against the poverty and “otherness” he experienced as a young black man growing up in the nation’s capital. 

After briefly attending the University of Maryland to study journalism, Hemphill became immersed in the Washington art scene and regularly read at open-mic nights and coffeehouses. To showcase his work and that of other modern black artists and writers, he cofounded the Nethula Journal of Contemporary Literature in 1979. In 1982 he cofounded the spoken word group Cinque. 

Hemphill began publishing his poetry as chapbooks in 1985, including “Earth Life and Conditions.” In 1986 he received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He gained national attention in 1989, when his work was published in the anthology “In the Life,” an important collection of writing by black gay men. 

Hemphill edited the acclaimed 1991 anthology “Brother to Brother: New Writings by Black Gay Men,” for which he won a Lambda Literary Award. His first full-length poetry collection, “Ceremonies: Prose and Poetry,” won the National Library Association’s Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual New Author Award in 1992. His work is also included in “Gay and Lesbian Poetry in Our Time” and “Life Sentences: Writers, Artists and AIDS,” and in the award-winning documentaries “Tongues Untied” and “Looking for Langston.”  

Hemphill has read his poetry to audiences of all sizes, from alternative theaters to the Kennedy Center and from New York to London. He received a grant from the Washington Arts Project to perform an experimental drama of poetry called “Murder on Glass,” and he has contributed to publications including Obsidian, Black Scholar, CALLALOO and Essence. 

E. Ethelbert Miller, director of the African American Resource Center at Howard University, said Hemphill’s words “put an end to silence” in the black LGBT community. 

“He was mesmerizing,” said Martin Duberman, Hemphill’s biographer. “He had these wonderful sort of alive eyes, and a beautiful speaking voice. It was electric.”

Hemphill died from complications of AIDS in 1995. He wrote about his experience with the disease in his most famous poem, “Vital Signs.” His published and unpublished works are collected at George Washington University’s Gelman Library.

Activist and Government Official

b. October 14, 1961

“Coming out isn’t easy, but it is getting easier with each passing day.”

Brian Bond was an executive director of the Victory Fund and, in the Obama administration, became the first openly gay deputy director of the White House Office of Public Engagement.

A Missouri native, Bond got his start in politics as the executive director of the Missouri Democratic Party, where he helped to elect Democrats in local and state elections.

Bond told The Washington Blade that growing up in rural Missouri, he was always looking for openly gay role models and often came up short. “Coming out for me was extremely hard and honestly terrifying, as I know it has been for so many of us,” he said.

Bond searched the local library for what it meant to be gay and came out when he was 16. “When I finally had the courage to utter the words out loud,” Bond said in an interview, “it was to my priest during a face-to-face confession.” 

From 1997 to 2003, Bond served as the second executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, a nonpartisan political action committee (PAC) dedicated to electing openly LGBT candidates for public office. During his tenure, the Victory Fund was instrumental in helping Tammy Baldwin win a Congressional seat. She was the first out lesbian elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. 

Bond went on to serve as executive director of the Democratic National Committee’s Gay and Lesbian Leadership Council and then as National Constituency Director for the Obama for America Campaign in Chicago, before joining the White House staff.

In his 30s, Bond discovered he was HIV positive. “For some of us,” he said, “we don’t come out once, but twice.” He became an advocate for AIDS education, declaring that a mobilized community can reduce the number of people who become infected. Bond has written about his experiences as a gay man, a Democrat and an AIDS survivor in many nationally known publications. 

In 2016 Bond served as deputy CEO for public engagement for the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia.

Biologist and AIDS Activist

b. May 12, 1934
d. February 13, 1994

“We are everywhere.” 

Bruce Raymond Voeller was a biologist and AIDS researcher who became a leading gay rights activist. He cofounded the National Gay Task Force and served as its executive director for five years. He helped lead the early fight against AIDS and founded the Mariposa Education and Research Foundation. 

Born in Minneapolis, Voeller first confronted his homosexuality as a student. His school counselor assured him that he was not gay, but Voeller had felt same-sex attraction very early in life, which inspired his interest in biology.

Voeller graduated with honors from Reed College in 1956, winning a five-year fellowship at the Rockefeller Institute to complete his doctoral studies in biochemistry, developmental biology and genetics. He became a research associate at the Institute in 1961, and later a professor. He wrote four books and married a woman, with whom he had three children. 

Voeller came out when he was 29 and divorced in 1971. In 1972 he was among a group that took over George McGovern’s New York campaign office to protest the senator’s opposition to gay rights. Voeller outlined a six-point statement before he was arrested while chanting “gay power.”

Voeller went on to become president of the New York Gay Activist Alliance. He founded the National Gay Task Force in 1973 (now the National LGBTQ Task Force), which became the first gay rights group to meet at the White House to discuss policy related to gay and lesbian Americans. 

Voeller conducted pioneering HIV/AIDS research before the disease had a name. He co-edited “AIDS and Sex: An Integrated Biomedical and Behavioral Approach” in 1990 and wrote scores of papers on the subject. He also worked at Hunter College and Cornell University doing research on the effectiveness of condoms and spermicides in preventing disease. 

In 1978, with Karen DeCrow of the National Organization of Women and Aryeh Neier of the American Civil Liberties Union, Voeller founded the Mariposa Foundation to study human sexuality and sexually transmitted diseases. Volunteers for the organization preserved important historical resources of the gay rights movement, which have become an archive on human sexuality at the Cornell University Library. 

While with Mariposa, Voeller commissioned the famous George Segal sculpture of gay couples at Christopher Park, across the street from the site of the Stonewall riot. He also commissioned Dom Bachardy to create a series of portraits of Gay Pioneers, including Frank Kameny, Phyllis Lyon, Del Martin, Barbara Gittings and others.

Voeller died from complications of AIDS in 1994. His longtime companion, Richard Liuck, a former associate at the Mariposa Foundation, died the same year from an AIDS-related illness.