My Turn by Don Bapst

You?re lying on the hot asphalt, inches from his shiny black Doc Martens. Your eyes follow the rugged curve of his battered jeans to the stately bulge between his legs, then across the crisply pressed SILENCE=DEATH T-shirt hugging his ripped abs. In one veiny hand he holds a picket sign, in the other a bullhorn.

Suddenly, the charged silence is broken by the shriek of a thousand whistles. He has put the bullhorn to his lips, bringing the words from the picket sign to life: ?Money for AIDS, not for War!? You leap up with the hundreds of demonstrators around you, joining in the chant. It is 1990, and you are part of an immense moment in history, staging a symbolic ?die-in? in front of an institution that has slowed down the release of promising new HIV meds.

Maybe you?re HIV-positive yourself, or maybe you have friends who are infected. That?s not as important as your anger over being entirely neglected by your society because of your sexuality. ?We?re fired up, we won?t take it anymore!? you chant, looking up at your leader as he fires up the crowd.

He?s a new kind of hero. Part athlete, part intellectual, and all stud, the activist is a uniquely gay creation. For the first time in history, gay men are idolizing one of their own, not some straight football star or pop diva. He may be infected with HIV, but he?s standing tall and gay and proud and beautiful, and you?re standing beside him. From now on, you?re here, you?re queer, and you?re never going back in that closet?.

Flash forward. You wake to find you?ve grown older. Your SILENCE=DEATH T-shirt lies shrunken and faded in a pile of tattered activist wear including Queer Nation and Pink Panthers T-shirts that will never again descend below your bulging belly to be tucked into your pants. In a corner somewhere, under a pile of long-defunct gay periodicals, a cap lies covered in slogan-bearing badges.

You click on the television to discover not one but dozens of gay characters. Some of them even make jokes about having marched in demos back in the day. It?s as if homophobia and HIV neglect are nothing more than a bad dream. How long have you been sleeping anyway? A hundred years? Has homosexuality been internationally accepted? Has AIDS been eradicated? Are same-sex couples now being granted the right to marry in nations across the earth?

Outside, a gay couple holds hands and no one bats and eye. You run into the first gay bar you can find to discover it?s already 2003! Still, some things haven?t changed a bit. Bars are still the primary social institution for gay men. And though the bar rags have new names and flashier graphics, the content hasn?t changed much. They do, however, contain a flood of new advertisements for medicines with long names featuring healthy-looking guys riding bicycles. ?Steroids?? you inquire.

?HIV cocktail meds,? sighs the bartender. Most of the patrons are dressed in Gap clothes, not gay-rights T-shirts, you notice, and some have strangely lumpy necks and sunken cheeks. ?Facial wasting,? he whispers.

After a few more inquiries, you discover that while same-sex couples have begun to form partnerships in some countries, they can marry only in a scant few. Well, really now, this is disappointing. Gay marriage was the minimum you?d have expected after more than a dozen years of international militant action. 

?When?s the next planning meeting?? you inquire, getting only blank stares in return. Apparently, there are still some people who organize around gay and AIDS issues, but no one seems to know who they are or where and when they meet. There?s certainly no giant weekly assembly of queer activists in the local gay community center, and no more strategy sessions for staging actions in front of City Hall. Damn it all, does that mean you have to cruise bars again? If so, where is the basket of free condoms at the door?

?People got burned out,? offers someone with a shrug. ?They were tired of banging their heads against a wall.?

You slink home and turn on your computer, ready to write up a call to action. But what?s this?  Your monitor is flat-screened and full-color. There are windows and electronic messages and a thing called the Internet. You search for Queer Nation and ACT UP and find an electronic museum of activist memorabilia. There are pages devoted to icons like Peter Staley and Bob Rafsky. It?s like being in a virtual sports museum, looking at the jerseys and cleats of famous players from the turn of the last century.

Wasn?t it only a dozen years ago that you marched in front of a homophobic institution with some of these guys to stage a ?kiss-in? for fearful straights? ?We?re here, we?re queer, welcome to our city!? you shouted. But now, despite a generally increased tolerance for homosexuality, you feel less at home than ever before. Maybe it?s because of the complacency you sense among gay people, or maybe it?s because so many of your friends and heroes have died, while so many others have simply retired.

Or maybe, you?re simply uncomfortable with the idea that activism has ceased to be sexy. As you pull down that faded SILENCE=DEATH T-shirt as far as it will descend over your bulging gut, you can?t help but smile. Hey, at least you weren?t silent. At least you?re still alive.

Don Bapst (users.rcn.com/donbapst) has written for The Journal of Homosexuality, Rough Guides, Bay Times, and numerous other publications. He is a regular contributor to blue.