"Remembering... World AIDS Day"

"Holding On, Letting Go"

This work depicts a gay man dying in a hospital bed holding the hand of his partner

Acrylic on canvas

Steve Walker

World AIDS Day is an annual observance aimed at raising awareness of the global epidemic of AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) and the spread of HIV (human immunodeficiency virus). World AIDS Day occurs every December 1 and was established by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1988.

When the first World AIDS Day was held in 1988, an estimated 90,000 to 150,000 people were infected with HIV, which causes AIDS. Within two decades more than 33 million people were living with HIV infection, and since 1981, when the first AIDS case was reported, some 25 million people had died of the disease.

AIDS Ribbon

Although no longer observed by only the gay community, World AIDS Day is a significant day of remembrance in LGBTQIA+ circles. In the early days of the epidemic, there was widespread disinterest in addressing the growing health crisis on the part of government and society in general because HIV/AIDS was first identified as affecting primarily men who have sex with men. The disease was originally called, GRIDS (gay-related immune deficiency syndrome). In the U.S., evangelical christians cited the disease as "God's punishment" of homosexuality. Religious leaders actively lobbied government to ignore addressing the crisis and promoted the stigmatization of LGBTQIA+ people and those afflicted by the disease.

Eventually, HIV/AIDS would infect a broad and diverse swath of society around the world including heterosexuals, children, blood product recipients, celebrities and the rich and poor alike. In the early days, the LGBTQIA+ community led by gay men organized to promote safer sex practices and to protest governmental inaction in the U.S. with only minor success. It wouldn't be until after actor Rock Hudson, (a lifelong closeted gay man and also a close friend of U.S. President and First Lady Ronald and Nancy Reagan) became infected and quickly succumbed to AIDS that government and society would begin to view the epidemic as a world health emergency culminating in the first World AIDS Day observance on December 1, 1988.