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Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media, Hello and welcome to Cool People Do

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Speaker 1: Cool Stuff. You're weekly twice weekly reminder that when there's

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Speaker 1: bad things, there's good things. I'm your host, Margot Kiljoy

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Speaker 1: and my guest who I was I should have I'm

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Speaker 1: now hamming it up because they took a moment to

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Speaker 1: take a drink is Andrew t.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, Hi, thanks for having me again, my plan continuing.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, I got to kind of brag to

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Speaker 1: my friends the first time you came on my show.

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Speaker 1: But people heard me say this the first time you

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Speaker 1: came on. But we used to read you know, is

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Speaker 1: this racist? Was it Tumblr or something?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's so.

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Speaker 1: That is coming on twenty years ago, as.

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Speaker 2: I know what's not that?

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Speaker 1: Yeah totally, But yeah, we used to We used to

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Speaker 1: sit around and you know, yell, oh shit at all

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Speaker 1: the cool stories that you would share on that.

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Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean, you know what, it was a

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Speaker 2: fun time. I actually someone had just reached out on

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Speaker 2: Blue Sky and was like, I don't know if you

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Speaker 2: remember you wrote this one line that I quote all

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Speaker 2: the time, and I did not remember the line, but

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Speaker 2: it was very nice.

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Speaker 1: Do you remember the line now?

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Speaker 2: Well? Yeah, yeah, the line truly is. It's not remarkable.

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Speaker 2: It's just like, first of all, go fuck yourself, and

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Speaker 2: second of all, YadA YadA. But I guess the phrasing.

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Speaker 2: The phrasing landed, but I was like, I don't know,

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Speaker 2: I just talked like that all the time.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I like it. It's a little bit of

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Speaker 1: confusing because you know, when you when you produce content

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Speaker 1: as your job, you don't remember everything that you say.

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Speaker 2: Oh my god.

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Speaker 1: But so that it's like interesting when people are like, oh,

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Speaker 1: you said this thing, and I'm like, I believe you.

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Speaker 1: That sounds like something I would say, you know.

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Speaker 2: It typically at least sounds like me. So I'm like,

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Speaker 2: I don't think anyone's being disingenuous, but I'm like, I

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Speaker 2: don't know, or for Yosa's racist. Sometimes people would be like, oh,

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Speaker 2: when you you answered this question on the pod, and I.

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Speaker 1: Was like, yeah, I believe you.

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Speaker 2: Yeah I hope.

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Speaker 1: So yeah. Well, we are in part two of an

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Speaker 1: episode about lesbian stepping the fuck up during the AIDS crisis,

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Speaker 1: and when we last left part one, people were the

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Speaker 1: blood Sisters were leaving Warhammer forty K to take care

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Speaker 1: of people, and I don't know, I kind of like

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Speaker 1: these episodes that are like collections of individual stories, you know, yeah,

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Speaker 1: sort of vignette episodes, because it's really interesting to me

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Speaker 1: doing research on the AIDS epidemic is like one of

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Speaker 1: the more researched historical events right in a lot of ways.

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Speaker 1: But it's interesting because a lot of it is I

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Speaker 1: don't know if you, I don't know the right word here.

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Speaker 1: It's not like full history, but a lot of it

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Speaker 1: is like oral history projects. There's a lot of like sure,

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Speaker 1: I was reading a lot more archives and a lot

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Speaker 1: more you know, reports about individual people as compared to

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Speaker 1: I didn't pick up a book called like Lesbian Step

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Speaker 1: the fuck Up during the AIDS crisis, the book right now.

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Speaker 2: And well also I do I do think to your

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Speaker 2: point also about the like the individual stories nature of

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Speaker 2: this is I prefer that sort of look at history

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Speaker 2: also because I increasingly, especially like really do not subscribe

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Speaker 2: to the sort of like great person of history model.

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Speaker 2: And it is just like it doesn't really matter whether

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Speaker 2: it was like a collective action or a series of

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Speaker 2: collective actions or independent actions not even collective. Maybe that

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Speaker 2: made X or y thing happen. Yeah, yeah, I just

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Speaker 2: like as opposed to like, uh, you know, the Great Man.

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Speaker 2: I guess it's always great.

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Speaker 1: Almost always is.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I was like I was very well, wok are you

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Speaker 1: to say the great personal history?

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Speaker 2: But it's like that's not how history works, right, that's

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Speaker 2: not the problem.

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Speaker 1: And like one of the problems with the Great Man

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Speaker 1: theory of history is it gets people off the hook

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Speaker 1: too easily because like, yeah, we are living in history,

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Speaker 1: we are making history, and so we tend to think

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Speaker 1: like either we are the most amazing important person, like

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Speaker 1: we're either Fred Hampton or nobody. Yeah, you know, and

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Speaker 1: that's just not true, right, Like, and Fred Hampton was

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Speaker 1: an amazing person. He was so amazing that the government

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Speaker 1: had to kill him. But like it's all of the

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Speaker 1: things that come together, and it's all of the people.

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Speaker 1: It's all of the individual people doing all of this stuff,

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Speaker 1: you know.

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Speaker 2: And on the on the evil men of history side,

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Speaker 2: like as we were talked about last episode, like yes,

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Speaker 2: Ronald regularly indisputably like evil, but truly like his power,

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Speaker 2: you know, and as we see with like the Donald Trump,

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Speaker 2: it's like the power doesn't come from Donald Trump makes

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Speaker 2: it more stark because it's like obvious that he doesn't have.

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Speaker 2: He has like a type of charisma, but he does

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Speaker 2: not have savvy or intelligence or whatever. But what he

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Speaker 2: does have is this apparatus of like fascists that are

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Speaker 2: moving this thing forward. And those are all the nameless

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Speaker 2: people of history or you know, relatively nameless compared to

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Speaker 2: Donald Trump, but they're the ones doing it. And you know,

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Speaker 2: this era of Reagan or soon to be, you know,

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Speaker 2: going into this era of Reagan is like you know,

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Speaker 2: when he was in severe mental decline and the agenda

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Speaker 2: didn't pause for a second. So he's not drive. He

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Speaker 2: didn't create or drive or like give the you know,

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Speaker 2: he was sort of just like a figurehead, especially near the.

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Speaker 1: End, especially even in the like figurehead is like literally

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Speaker 1: the thing on the front of the ship, you know,

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Speaker 1: like the icon of this thing, like oh, we're all

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Speaker 1: doing it for Mermaid lady or yeah you know, yeah, yeah, no,

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Speaker 1: that is a good point. Well, the next vignette I'm

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Speaker 1: going to do is going to be the first person

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Speaker 1: I featured on the podcast whose Instagram page I found, which.

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Speaker 2: Makes me nervous.

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Speaker 1: Specific when I first started this show, I actually wasn't

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Speaker 1: going to do anything from about nineteen fifty onwards because

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Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I'm going to stick to history,

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Speaker 1: and I'm going to stick to like a little bit

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Speaker 1: more settled history. And also like specifically, I was like,

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Speaker 1: I don't want to talk about someone who's alive and

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Speaker 1: get it wrong. And it was kind of a cop

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Speaker 1: out because then eventually I realized I was like, well,

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Speaker 1: a lot of important stuff and interesting stuff happened, Like

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Speaker 1: I'm still probably not going to do like current events

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Speaker 1: on this show, you know, but like but also, I mean,

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Speaker 1: one of my whole favorite things about the show is

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Speaker 1: like pointing fairly clearly to historical patterns and be like see, yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it doesn't matter whether it's a current event.

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Speaker 2: It's like, you know, we're pretty evidently at least in

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Speaker 2: our natural lifetime's not going to be pushing equality for word.

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Speaker 1: The whole apparatus could collapse and then we can Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I suppose, sure, but we're.

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Speaker 1: On the defensive right now. I will yit.

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Speaker 2: We're on the defensive, right yeah, yeah, yeah, we will

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Speaker 2: be lucky to claw back gains that existed in our lives.

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Speaker 2: I would I would say.

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Speaker 1: You're probably right. But the person whose Instagram page I

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Speaker 1: found is Bishop Evette Flunder who is a who is

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Speaker 1: whose bishop? Underscore flunder for anyone who's.

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Speaker 2: And a delightful vabe, delightful, vab delightful handle.

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Speaker 1: I know, and this woman ruled. She probably still rules.

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Speaker 1: She's a queer Black gospel singer who did an astounding

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Speaker 1: amount for people with AIDS, in particular in making sure

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Speaker 1: that black communities and communities of faith weren't left out

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Speaker 1: of the conversation. She was watching so many people die

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Speaker 1: in the bay and was like, all right, we're gonna

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Speaker 1: do something. And one of the things her and her

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Speaker 1: broader community did was start an underground clinic, working with

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Speaker 1: something called Compound Q. This is literally an underground clinic.

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Speaker 1: It was in the basement of her church. Unless there

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Speaker 1: are multiple such clinics in San Francisco at the time,

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Speaker 1: I believe this was called Project Inform. I there's a

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Speaker 1: bunch of articles about them, and they're all not quite

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Speaker 1: lining up. Is where I'm at about this particular moment

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Speaker 1: of history. But I think something too important because I'm

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Speaker 1: now going to talk about illegal studies of untested drugs, right,

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Speaker 1: and I'm going to talk about it as a positive thing.

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Speaker 1: And I think the thing that is important to understand

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Speaker 1: about the AIDS crisis is that people were being failed

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Speaker 1: and masked by the government and the CDC. So AIDS

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Speaker 1: activists themselves had to become the experts on their own illness.

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Speaker 1: And we covered this a bunch of the act Up

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Speaker 1: episodes that one of the things that act Up the

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Speaker 1: kind of primary direct action group working on the AIDS

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Speaker 1: crisis in the United States. One of the primary things

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Speaker 1: they did was get people with AIDS into conversation with

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Speaker 1: the CDC and like make sure their voices were actually

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Speaker 1: heard and become actual experts on the science, not just

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Speaker 1: like I'm an expert on my own experience, but like

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Speaker 1: literally an expert on the surrounding stuff too, you know, Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I wonder. I mean again, it's like like drag parallels

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Speaker 2: today it is so like totally you don't want to

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Speaker 2: like fall into this like do your own research people trap.

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Speaker 1: Right, But it's so messy, right, Yeah, because when you say, oh,

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Speaker 1: do your own research, you mean like go find things

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Speaker 1: that conform to your own echo chamber and like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: go like convince yourself that vaccines are bad or whatever.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, but you do, Yeah, actual research might need

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Speaker 2: to be done, right, I guess it's the word research

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Speaker 2: has been completely bastardized.

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Speaker 1: No, no, totally, no, it's it's so sketchy. This is

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Speaker 1: the thing about being critical about like government infrastructure of

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Speaker 1: health is that you're like, well about half of the

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Speaker 1: people at least who are critical the government infrastructure on

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Speaker 1: health are doing it in really bad ways.

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Speaker 2: Yeah you know, yeah, yeah yeah.

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Speaker 1: But like a lot of my friends do DIYHRT, like

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Speaker 1: hormone replacement therapy, and there is like a fairly broad

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Speaker 1: established community working on trying to do this as safely

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Speaker 1: as possible. It's not what I would specifically recommend any

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Speaker 1: listener who's like, oh, it might be trands, I'm like,

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Speaker 1: you know what I actually think because by and large,

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Speaker 1: like most trans clinics that come out of literally old

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Speaker 1: AIDS clinics. You know, there's a trans affirming clinic that

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Speaker 1: I would go to for a long time, and they

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Speaker 1: like specifically calm out of an AIDS clinic, you know.

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Speaker 1: And that's actually an important thing to remember about it too, Right, Okay,

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Speaker 1: it's a kind of a tangent, but we were talking

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Speaker 1: earlier about mutual aid, and you're talking about how like

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Speaker 1: the limitation of mutually ad how you don't have any

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Speaker 1: bulldozers because you haven't stolen any yet. And and so

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Speaker 1: then I told you how to steal them. I mean

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Speaker 1: that didn't happen.

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Speaker 2: How one could. Yeah, that's the thing is, that's the

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Speaker 2: important thing, is like, yeah, no one knows.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I wouldn't know how to dry one.

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Speaker 1: But like people see formal and informal disaster relief as

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Speaker 1: entirely separate spheres, and they're not right. Yeah, Like formal

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Speaker 1: disaster relief relies on informal disaster relief at the very

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Speaker 1: least for the last mile problem. Right, If you show

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Speaker 1: up and you're like, oh, we put all this stuff

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Speaker 1: in a warehouse, how does it get to where it

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Speaker 1: needs to go? The answer is like, well, if it's

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Speaker 1: in if it's in western North Carolina, it means like

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Speaker 1: people will pick up trucks or mules, you know, And

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Speaker 1: it's just different in different areas. But like I think

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Speaker 1: that sometimes health, like the aid's response, is another situation

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Speaker 1: where there's formal and informal, and the informal is pushing

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Speaker 1: the formal, yes to be good.

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Speaker 2: I will say, actually a thing that I didn't say

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Speaker 2: last episode about just like the things that were happening

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Speaker 2: around the wildfires. Is as much as I was putting

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Speaker 2: in sort of friendly, friendly digs and jokes about the

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Speaker 2: mutual aid community, I will actually say the thing that

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Speaker 2: was also very evident and eye opening for me, and

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Speaker 2: maybe less eye opening for some but definitely opening for

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Speaker 2: me was the formal like humanitarian response not better. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: like fucking Red Cross is also just made up of

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Speaker 2: a bunch of people with incomplete information, and they also

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Speaker 2: have the added layer of sort of not necessarily the purest.

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Speaker 1: Motives and slowness with red tape.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so they it is. Yeah, so I should say,

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Speaker 2: like for all my joking about you know, yeah, fucking

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Speaker 2: communists are always late, like whatever, you know, And I'm

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Speaker 2: not saying these organizations are necessarily bad, but even like

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Speaker 2: you know, your Planned Parenthoods, your Red Crosses or whatever

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Speaker 2: the fox, you know, you're good parts of the federal government.

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Speaker 2: They're not necessarily better are at this shit than you

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Speaker 2: and your friends? Right?

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Speaker 1: And they're also, like you said, they're made up of

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Speaker 1: people you know, and so often those people are like,

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Speaker 1: oh whoops, all this was supposed to go to the

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Speaker 1: Red Cross, where it was sit around a warehouse but

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Speaker 1: I seem to have left it here in front of

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Speaker 1: you punks.

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Speaker 2: Gotta go yeah, yeah, yeah, well, and that's the version

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Speaker 2: that works, or it's just like, oh, the Red Cross

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Speaker 2: also didn't know where all these supplies should go.

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Speaker 1: Yeah totally.

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Speaker 2: So like you know, they don't they're not magic. They

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Speaker 2: don't have like a system, even though we want them

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Speaker 2: to know. They don't necessarily have a system. What they

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Speaker 2: do have a little bit is a little more experience

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Speaker 2: and vastly more resources.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, totally.

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Speaker 2: Well.

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Speaker 1: The compound Q was an experimental drug in the late eighties.

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Speaker 1: I was being tested in tiny doses, and it was

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Speaker 1: like being formally tested in a clinical setting in the

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Speaker 1: hospital nearby hospital. But people were like, look, we are

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Speaker 1: going to die. We are we have a disease with

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Speaker 1: a one hundred percent mortality rate. People were willing to

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Speaker 1: try anything.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, who cares.

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Speaker 1: Aids patients and doctors worked illegally together to run tests.

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Speaker 1: They knew that folks were going to try injecting this

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Speaker 1: stuff at home, so why not trying to do it

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Speaker 1: in a more controlled environment where the lessons could be

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Speaker 1: applied to others. I want to know more about this part.

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Speaker 1: I will say like there's like I started reading about

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Speaker 1: like how many people died as a result of this

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Speaker 1: these tests and you know, all of these comparing mortality stuff.

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Speaker 1: That is maybe a story for another day.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm sure some of that information is not available

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Speaker 2: or some of it would have to have been, you know.

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Speaker 2: And again, you know, maybe this was not the right compromise.

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Speaker 2: And I am purely speculating, but like, sometimes it might

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Speaker 2: not be available for legal reasons, for legal peril, et cetera.

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Speaker 1: Like, Well, what's interesting is that people who are involved

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Speaker 1: in this do talk about it really openly, and they

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Speaker 1: actually like, I mean partly because they're like, well, what

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Speaker 1: the hell do we have to lose?

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Speaker 2: Right, yeah, what are you going to do?

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Speaker 1: Yeah? And like and the people who weren't dying of

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Speaker 1: h e ades were like, but I have a moral

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Speaker 1: imperative to try and save people. And so it was

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Speaker 1: like literally, you know, it was like five hundred patients

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Speaker 1: and six doctors working at this clinic, you know, and

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Speaker 1: they like supposedly and there's people arguing one way or

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Speaker 1: the other about this, they actually gave the CDC a

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Speaker 1: heads up that they were going to do this. Oh no,

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Speaker 1: not the CDC, the the people, h no, what did

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Speaker 1: FDA maybe, Oh sure, yeah, they like gave them a

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Speaker 1: heads up that they were going to do this, and

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Speaker 1: then the FDA was like, oh, I don't know that's

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Speaker 1: out over there, you know, yea, And so it was

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Speaker 1: kind of a like I think there was like a

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Speaker 1: wink and a nod coming from institutions because they were

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Speaker 1: probably like, yeah, no, that makes sense. All those people

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Speaker 1: are going to die, yeah, you know. And then also

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Speaker 1: it's hard because like some of the articles I read

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Speaker 1: were from nineteen eighty nine, when a lot of this

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Speaker 1: stuff happened, and so like I didn't find the articles

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Speaker 1: on the follow up. This is the thing that I've

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00:16:06,760 --> 00:16:08,920
Speaker 1: run across a lot. A lot of stuff is newsworthy

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Speaker 1: when it first happens, but then the long term results

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Speaker 1: aren't as like immediately available to lazy researchers, I mean,

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Speaker 1: hard working researchers.

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Speaker 2: Right, and well, but you know, like all things like

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Speaker 2: they are just less likely to be published. Like it's

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Speaker 2: just like you got the headline and you move on.

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Speaker 1: Yeah and yeah. So out of this church, doctors and

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Speaker 1: patients were working together and you know, and there were

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Speaker 1: some positive it was a very toxic drug, right, But

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Speaker 1: it like people were seeing results and stuff like that,

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Speaker 1: and so people were trying it, and Bishop Flunder worked

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Speaker 1: tirelessly for AIDS patients. She wrote once quote in those years,

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Speaker 1: there weren't a lot of men who were engaged with

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Speaker 1: this work, not a lot of men who were involved

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Speaker 1: in handling people with HIV and interacting with people up close.

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Speaker 1: There were a lot of women, though, And I can

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Speaker 1: remember when most of the folks who would really actually

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Speaker 1: touch people and engage with people were women. And I

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Speaker 1: was one of those women, and I was surrounded by

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Speaker 1: other women. And so her and the people she's working with,

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Speaker 1: they also built faith based AIDS organizations. They worked with

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Speaker 1: act UP and called themselves blacked up because there weren't

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Speaker 1: enough black voices in the act UP movement from there. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: well there weren't. So they were working to correct that.

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Speaker 1: And then, in one of the most like amount of

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Speaker 1: effort to amount of dollars won by a direct action

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Speaker 1: I've ever seen in my life, her and a bunch

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Speaker 1: of other black AIDS activists and faith AIDS activists were

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Speaker 1: having a meeting with the CDC and they were trying

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Speaker 1: to get them to design a minority AIDS initiative to

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Speaker 1: like work inside communities that weren't white or whatever, and

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Speaker 1: they weren't being taken seriously, so they just like did

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Speaker 1: a walk out, and it was like it looked really

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Speaker 1: bad because it was all the like pastors and shit

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Speaker 1: had just walked out. So they got half a billion

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Speaker 1: dollars of funding.

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Speaker 2: Like, yeah, I mean, we'll see, we'll see if anything

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Speaker 2: like that ever continues.

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Speaker 1: But I know good, I know good. She did an

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Speaker 1: awful lot of work, I believe, with others to develop

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Speaker 1: a theological framework within Christianity to support queer people and

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Speaker 1: people with aids. And a lot of her work was

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Speaker 1: like specifically two faith communities to be like hey, stop

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Speaker 1: abandoning people, you know, And people fucking hated her for that.

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Speaker 1: That was the thing, not the illegal drug tests, not

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Speaker 1: the like you know, sure people hated her in the

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Speaker 1: conservative parts of religious communities. Yeah, someone shot out the

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Speaker 1: back window of her car. Someone else shot through the

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Speaker 1: window of her bedroom. These were different events. She never

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Speaker 1: figured out who did it, but she's pretty sure it

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Speaker 1: was like I think it was even like someone from

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Speaker 1: like a church that she went to or something, but

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Speaker 1: it was like people from within faith communities who were like, no,

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Speaker 1: fuck you, right, And to this day she has ashes

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Speaker 1: on the altar of her office of the people whose

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Speaker 1: families wouldn't take them, And that's like an image from

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Speaker 1: everything that I'm like reading today. The stuff that happens

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Speaker 1: with people's ashes when they're abandoned is like one of

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Speaker 1: the things that sticks with me. She went on to

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Speaker 1: serve on Obama's HIV AIDS Council, and she's now senior

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Speaker 1: pastor of the City of Refuge United Church of Christ,

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Speaker 1: a radically inclusive congregation in the Bank. And I think

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Speaker 1: actually was her. I can't remember. I read a lot

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Speaker 1: of these vignettes all at once and then didn't put

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Speaker 1: it in the script. Several of them made it really

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Speaker 1: clear to include trans women among the people who were

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Speaker 1: suffering and dying and like really speak and like trans

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Speaker 1: inclusive language that I really appreciate it. So that was you,

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Speaker 1: and you're listening, I appreciate it. And if you're not listening, well,

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Speaker 1: then you won't hear this. And if it wasn't you,

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Speaker 1: well I believe you would have done it too, because

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Speaker 1: you seem nice. Yeah, but you know what I would

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Speaker 1: be annoyed at if I was listening to a podcast

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Speaker 1: about myself from actions I did forty years later. I

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Speaker 1: would be annoyed at missing out on the sweet sweet

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00:20:04,880 --> 00:20:09,520
Speaker 1: deals offered by our advertisers. But you don't have to

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00:20:09,920 --> 00:20:13,720
Speaker 1: because you can hear them. Well, not you, but the listener.

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Speaker 2: This way's around it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, anyway, here's ads. Then we're back. Okay, another one

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Speaker 1: of these stories. In Salt Lake City. You have another

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Speaker 1: sort of example of how everything can go down and

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Speaker 1: how complicated this world that we live in can be.

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Speaker 1: There was an infectious disease expert in Salt Lake City,

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Speaker 1: a lesbian named doctor Kristen Rice. She had just moved

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Speaker 1: to Salt Lake City in nineteen eighty one. She like

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Speaker 1: literally moved there the same day that I think the

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00:20:52,880 --> 00:20:57,360
Speaker 1: CDC was like, hey, Grid is happening, you know, right,

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Speaker 1: And her and a bunch of game started the AIDS

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Speaker 1: Project Utah. As best as I can tell, this happened

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Speaker 1: like a lot of these other things where a lesbian

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Speaker 1: and some gay men start a gay thing and then

398
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Speaker 1: the lesbian's the only one left to run it, right.

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Speaker 1: And there's another woman, a PA, a physician's assistant who's

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Speaker 1: working with doctor Kristen Rice. Maggie Snyder. The two actually

401
00:21:24,760 --> 00:21:26,800
Speaker 1: fall in love doing this work, and they're still together today,

402
00:21:26,920 --> 00:21:29,280
Speaker 1: and it's like really sweet. They're like, meet cute is

403
00:21:29,320 --> 00:21:30,760
Speaker 1: like a fucking battlefield.

404
00:21:31,240 --> 00:21:36,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, yeah, I guess happens. Yeah, it's nice.

405
00:21:36,240 --> 00:21:38,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess real battlefields are also a lot of

406
00:21:38,280 --> 00:21:39,399
Speaker 1: gay couples meet cutes.

407
00:21:39,840 --> 00:21:42,159
Speaker 2: Yeah.

408
00:21:42,200 --> 00:21:45,159
Speaker 1: One of my favorite sayings from like gay liberation stuff

409
00:21:45,240 --> 00:21:48,880
Speaker 1: is an army of lovers cannot lose. Yeah, and it's

410
00:21:48,880 --> 00:21:52,199
Speaker 1: a reference to like some shit in Rome where like

411
00:21:52,960 --> 00:21:55,800
Speaker 1: the units of gay men or whatever. You know, it's

412
00:21:55,840 --> 00:22:01,920
Speaker 1: fucking good. Yeah. Anyway, Aggie, when talking about when she'd

413
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Speaker 1: just been working as a PA, told an interviewer for

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00:22:04,400 --> 00:22:09,080
Speaker 1: The Body quote, nurses wouldn't go into patients rooms. And

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Speaker 1: I'm a person that always thinks everybody should get care,

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Speaker 1: so I wasn't fearful. I didn't understand why the nurses

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00:22:15,280 --> 00:22:17,520
Speaker 1: didn't go in. As nurses, we took an oath to

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Speaker 1: take care of people, and to me, that meant you

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Speaker 1: take care of everybody. But Mormon, Utah was a really

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00:22:25,520 --> 00:22:28,080
Speaker 1: rough place to be a gay person period, let alone

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Speaker 1: someone with AIDS. Right, Doctor Rice ended up the only

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00:22:33,480 --> 00:22:36,399
Speaker 1: doctor in Utah or at least sat Lake City, but

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00:22:36,440 --> 00:22:40,119
Speaker 1: I believe Utah who treated every aid's patient in the city.

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Speaker 2: Jesus.

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00:22:42,000 --> 00:22:46,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, they ended up partnering with when their clinic was

426
00:22:46,560 --> 00:22:48,840
Speaker 1: like a private clinic, because basically what would happen is

427
00:22:48,840 --> 00:22:51,640
Speaker 1: that as soon as you have like AIDS, your family

428
00:22:51,680 --> 00:22:53,399
Speaker 1: would kick you out, and then your job to fire you,

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00:22:53,480 --> 00:22:55,560
Speaker 1: and then also your health insurance would be like now

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Speaker 1: we're good, we don't care, right, fuck you, you're the devil.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I actually don't know the means by which

432
00:23:02,400 --> 00:23:04,160
Speaker 1: everyone was kicked off of their health care, but it's

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Speaker 1: certainly when I'm reading about this particular story, it seems

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00:23:06,600 --> 00:23:08,720
Speaker 1: like everyone's getting kicked off their health care, and so

435
00:23:08,720 --> 00:23:11,240
Speaker 1: they end up going to the one clinic that will

436
00:23:11,240 --> 00:23:13,800
Speaker 1: take them, and so they end up partnering with a

437
00:23:13,800 --> 00:23:16,879
Speaker 1: Catholic hospital. The Sisters of the Holy Cross is a

438
00:23:16,920 --> 00:23:19,680
Speaker 1: congregation of nuns who worked at I believe Holy Cross Hospital,

439
00:23:20,440 --> 00:23:23,679
Speaker 1: and the nuns then started throwing down two working to

440
00:23:23,680 --> 00:23:27,760
Speaker 1: help everybody there, like running errands and providing care and

441
00:23:27,880 --> 00:23:31,600
Speaker 1: early AIDS healthcare was more or less hospice care right right,

442
00:23:31,880 --> 00:23:34,080
Speaker 1: and the other I was like, oh, there's another story

443
00:23:34,080 --> 00:23:36,439
Speaker 1: about ashes in here that really affects me when I

444
00:23:36,440 --> 00:23:40,120
Speaker 1: think about it, is that a ton of gay Mormon

445
00:23:40,160 --> 00:23:43,320
Speaker 1: men who are abandoned by their families wound up with

446
00:23:43,359 --> 00:23:47,000
Speaker 1: their ashes and turned in the Catholic cemetery because the

447
00:23:47,040 --> 00:23:50,120
Speaker 1: Catholic Cemetery had a place that was like, no matter

448
00:23:50,200 --> 00:23:52,600
Speaker 1: who you are, you can have your ashes buried here.

449
00:23:52,880 --> 00:23:55,960
Speaker 1: You know, we'll take everyone, which brings me not to

450
00:23:55,960 --> 00:23:59,600
Speaker 1: an add transition. So the really bizarre role of the

451
00:23:59,640 --> 00:24:03,280
Speaker 1: Catholic Church during the AIDS crisis, I kind of assumed

452
00:24:03,320 --> 00:24:07,280
Speaker 1: it was like just universally bad, right, Yeah, it's not.

453
00:24:08,119 --> 00:24:09,920
Speaker 1: There's no middle ground. This is like I was talking

454
00:24:09,920 --> 00:24:11,959
Speaker 1: to my friend about this, like Oscar Wilde, I think

455
00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:13,760
Speaker 1: as a quote where he's like the Catholic churches for

456
00:24:13,840 --> 00:24:17,520
Speaker 1: saints and sinners. Yeah, like there's no middle fucking ground.

457
00:24:17,920 --> 00:24:22,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that is. I have very little, Like I

458
00:24:22,280 --> 00:24:26,760
Speaker 2: grew up with the religion and I didn't really have

459
00:24:26,800 --> 00:24:29,800
Speaker 2: a sense of this, but I have sense. Weirdly, I

460
00:24:29,840 --> 00:24:31,760
Speaker 2: feel like more than I would have thought in La

461
00:24:33,600 --> 00:24:37,600
Speaker 2: run into like you know, left wing Catholics, I guess.

462
00:24:39,160 --> 00:24:41,639
Speaker 2: And it is the thing where I'm like, okay, but

463
00:24:42,080 --> 00:24:45,760
Speaker 2: surely you see what this. I can't believe. I just

464
00:24:45,800 --> 00:24:47,840
Speaker 2: can't believe these people are willing to be part of

465
00:24:47,880 --> 00:24:50,200
Speaker 2: the larger institution of the Catholic Church.

466
00:24:50,640 --> 00:24:52,040
Speaker 1: That is the real messy part.

467
00:24:52,560 --> 00:24:56,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, but they are and they are not conflicted, So yeah,

468
00:24:56,840 --> 00:24:58,920
Speaker 2: you know, what do I know? But yeah, it is

469
00:24:59,080 --> 00:25:01,800
Speaker 2: it is sort of eternal. Only surprising to me these

470
00:25:01,800 --> 00:25:03,240
Speaker 2: folks exist even though they do.

471
00:25:03,960 --> 00:25:06,200
Speaker 1: I was reading didn't end up in the script, but

472
00:25:06,240 --> 00:25:08,880
Speaker 1: I was reading this piece about a Catholic, a gay

473
00:25:08,920 --> 00:25:12,240
Speaker 1: Catholic during the AIDS crisis, and how he'd been super

474
00:25:12,240 --> 00:25:14,119
Speaker 1: Catholic but he was also just super gay and he

475
00:25:14,160 --> 00:25:16,280
Speaker 1: was just fine with it. But then during the AIDS crisis,

476
00:25:16,280 --> 00:25:17,600
Speaker 1: he was like fuck this and he left the church.

477
00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:19,439
Speaker 1: But then he actually came back to the church, and

478
00:25:19,480 --> 00:25:22,960
Speaker 1: his argument for why he came back was, I'm as

479
00:25:22,960 --> 00:25:25,960
Speaker 1: Catholic as the Pope is. I'm not going to let

480
00:25:26,000 --> 00:25:27,840
Speaker 1: them kick me out of my home. And so I

481
00:25:27,840 --> 00:25:30,359
Speaker 1: think it's like, because I'm kind of a like, I

482
00:25:30,400 --> 00:25:32,560
Speaker 1: think there's a lot of Catholic teachings I really appreciate

483
00:25:32,600 --> 00:25:34,320
Speaker 1: people have probably caught onto that from this show. But

484
00:25:34,359 --> 00:25:36,000
Speaker 1: I have a lot of critique of the Catholic Church

485
00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:38,040
Speaker 1: as an institution. People have probably also caught onto that

486
00:25:38,760 --> 00:25:40,720
Speaker 1: I'm sort of a like love the Catholic, hate the Church.

487
00:25:42,160 --> 00:25:45,760
Speaker 2: You know, it's just like the like I don't. I mean,

488
00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:48,639
Speaker 2: I think to me and again as an outsider who's

489
00:25:48,680 --> 00:25:52,280
Speaker 2: never had any religion, and yeah, I mean my biggest

490
00:25:52,280 --> 00:25:56,159
Speaker 2: shortcoming in religion talks is I do not see the

491
00:25:56,440 --> 00:25:59,320
Speaker 2: value of it, yeah, the same way that I think

492
00:25:59,320 --> 00:26:02,040
Speaker 2: people who really get a lot out of it do. So.

493
00:26:02,160 --> 00:26:06,360
Speaker 2: To me, the cost benefit analysis is like so skewed

494
00:26:06,359 --> 00:26:08,440
Speaker 2: towards What the fuck is wrong with you for doing this?

495
00:26:08,760 --> 00:26:08,920
Speaker 1: Yeah?

496
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:13,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I'm just like, I just see huge damage

497
00:26:13,080 --> 00:26:18,159
Speaker 2: to society, humanity, the world because of this. So I

498
00:26:18,240 --> 00:26:21,919
Speaker 2: don't have a sense of, like, you know, the value

499
00:26:21,960 --> 00:26:24,800
Speaker 2: of it really yeah, which is my own deficit. But

500
00:26:25,280 --> 00:26:28,000
Speaker 2: I mean I'm just like, I don't know. You can

501
00:26:28,080 --> 00:26:30,560
Speaker 2: believe in a lot of teachings, but also like ten

502
00:26:30,600 --> 00:26:33,520
Speaker 2: percent of your money or however much you know that

503
00:26:33,600 --> 00:26:36,159
Speaker 2: works goes to some pretty awful things.

504
00:26:36,359 --> 00:26:39,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's kind of like taxes, right, Yeah,

505
00:26:40,240 --> 00:26:43,119
Speaker 1: taxes go to my roads, which I appreciate, and it

506
00:26:43,160 --> 00:26:45,600
Speaker 1: goes to like genocide, which I don't appreciate.

507
00:26:45,920 --> 00:26:49,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's like you can't disentangle them. Yeah.

508
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:51,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the Catholic Church supports a lot of like

509
00:26:51,920 --> 00:26:54,840
Speaker 1: social justice initiatives. Yeah, it supports a lot of like

510
00:26:55,440 --> 00:26:58,679
Speaker 1: preventing people from getting birth control initiatives. Yeah, you know,

511
00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:01,960
Speaker 1: like it's like it's ad Yeah, and I'm not saying that,

512
00:27:02,040 --> 00:27:04,080
Speaker 1: like even I'm not even saying that, like averages out

513
00:27:04,119 --> 00:27:07,359
Speaker 1: fifty to fifty. When I was thinking about this particular

514
00:27:07,440 --> 00:27:09,880
Speaker 1: thing about why the Catholics have such a strange role

515
00:27:09,920 --> 00:27:13,440
Speaker 1: in the AIDS crisis, I think of Catholicism as trying

516
00:27:13,440 --> 00:27:16,280
Speaker 1: to create paladins, like trying to like from a D

517
00:27:16,320 --> 00:27:18,800
Speaker 1: and D point of view, not a crusade point of view,

518
00:27:18,800 --> 00:27:23,200
Speaker 1: although very related in this context. Yeah, but people who

519
00:27:23,200 --> 00:27:26,800
Speaker 1: will do what they believe is right regardless of the consequences.

520
00:27:27,760 --> 00:27:29,720
Speaker 1: And the problem is is that they both believe it

521
00:27:29,760 --> 00:27:33,080
Speaker 1: is right to take care of the sick regardless, Yeah,

522
00:27:33,119 --> 00:27:35,240
Speaker 1: and try to stop people from having condoms.

523
00:27:35,920 --> 00:27:40,600
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, like yeah, it's like it's really just like

524
00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:42,080
Speaker 2: what they think a soul is.

525
00:27:43,040 --> 00:27:43,480
Speaker 1: Yeah.

526
00:27:44,080 --> 00:27:48,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, if it was just helping humanity, that would be fine.

527
00:27:49,320 --> 00:27:53,840
Speaker 2: It's just that their soul, they're you know, saving souls

528
00:27:53,880 --> 00:27:57,119
Speaker 2: also intel or making life better for souls. Involves a

529
00:27:57,119 --> 00:28:00,840
Speaker 2: lot of other shit that is yeah, fake at best,

530
00:28:01,760 --> 00:28:02,320
Speaker 2: fair enough.

531
00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:05,600
Speaker 1: I think NPR did a really good job with the

532
00:28:05,640 --> 00:28:09,360
Speaker 1: headline from twenty nineteen how the Catholic Church aided both

533
00:28:09,400 --> 00:28:14,440
Speaker 1: the sick and the sickness as HIV spread. Yeah, because

534
00:28:15,320 --> 00:28:18,040
Speaker 1: we mostly hear about and for good reason, we mostly

535
00:28:18,040 --> 00:28:21,000
Speaker 1: hear about, like specifically how they helped the spread of

536
00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:24,639
Speaker 1: AIDS by trying to like the Pope literally doubled down

537
00:28:24,760 --> 00:28:29,159
Speaker 1: on no condoms during this period. Yeah, and Act Up

538
00:28:29,240 --> 00:28:32,480
Speaker 1: was protesting against the Catholic Church and like or specifically

539
00:28:32,520 --> 00:28:35,480
Speaker 1: against one bishop in New York City who was doing

540
00:28:35,520 --> 00:28:38,960
Speaker 1: a lot of that stuff. But at the same time

541
00:28:39,760 --> 00:28:41,880
Speaker 1: a ton of in the same way that you can say,

542
00:28:41,880 --> 00:28:46,520
Speaker 1: like lesbians stepped up the largest institution I think for

543
00:28:46,560 --> 00:28:49,720
Speaker 1: a while that was like supporting gay people financially and

544
00:28:49,800 --> 00:28:52,920
Speaker 1: like hospice care and like all of this stuff was

545
00:28:53,000 --> 00:28:56,400
Speaker 1: literally the Catholic Church is what's so fucking wild about it?

546
00:28:56,760 --> 00:28:57,640
Speaker 2: Yeah.

547
00:28:58,040 --> 00:29:00,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so it's during the AIDS that the Church

548
00:29:00,880 --> 00:29:03,880
Speaker 1: doubles down on a nocondom's policy, possibly the worst time

549
00:29:03,920 --> 00:29:07,640
Speaker 1: in human history to do so. These policies almost certainly

550
00:29:07,720 --> 00:29:08,720
Speaker 1: killed millions of people.

551
00:29:09,280 --> 00:29:10,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, And to.

552
00:29:10,640 --> 00:29:12,840
Speaker 1: Be clear, Well, the Mormon Church came out of the

553
00:29:12,880 --> 00:29:16,200
Speaker 1: gate horrible because the Mormon Church also wasn't not so

554
00:29:16,600 --> 00:29:18,680
Speaker 1: positive on homosexuality.

555
00:29:19,040 --> 00:29:19,320
Speaker 2: Yep.

556
00:29:20,040 --> 00:29:22,760
Speaker 1: Originally it came out the gate saying like famili should

557
00:29:22,760 --> 00:29:26,400
Speaker 1: disown their HIV positive children. Then a bunch of mothers

558
00:29:26,440 --> 00:29:29,640
Speaker 1: forced the church to change its position. It's only in

559
00:29:29,680 --> 00:29:31,920
Speaker 1: the past few years at the LDS Hospital in Salt

560
00:29:32,000 --> 00:29:33,640
Speaker 1: Lake City has opened an AIDS clinic.

561
00:29:34,520 --> 00:29:38,680
Speaker 2: Oh god, yeah, I mean that. I guess you know again,

562
00:29:38,920 --> 00:29:42,280
Speaker 2: I do not see the value of religion personally. Yeah.

563
00:29:42,320 --> 00:29:44,520
Speaker 1: No, it all seems very silly with that. Yeah.

564
00:29:44,520 --> 00:29:47,800
Speaker 2: So, but it's just like all of this stuff, all

565
00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:50,280
Speaker 2: the good things could have been done without the bad stuff.

566
00:29:50,320 --> 00:29:53,800
Speaker 2: I feel in a non religious context. Yes, is I

567
00:29:53,880 --> 00:29:56,600
Speaker 2: guess my largest take on this sort of like thing

568
00:29:56,640 --> 00:30:00,640
Speaker 2: where I'm like, you see how religion and makes us

569
00:30:00,760 --> 00:30:02,640
Speaker 2: have to do all this horrible shit just to get

570
00:30:02,680 --> 00:30:03,920
Speaker 2: a slipper of something good.

571
00:30:04,440 --> 00:30:07,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean I think that the people who

572
00:30:07,120 --> 00:30:12,040
Speaker 1: are proving that are the mutual AID groups, are the

573
00:30:12,120 --> 00:30:14,600
Speaker 1: lesbian stepping up. Many of them are religious, but many

574
00:30:14,640 --> 00:30:17,360
Speaker 1: of them are not. Right. Yeah, So I think there

575
00:30:17,400 --> 00:30:21,040
Speaker 1: are the people who are proving that you can do that. Yeah,

576
00:30:21,080 --> 00:30:23,040
Speaker 1: And it's like, but then again, you look at like

577
00:30:23,680 --> 00:30:25,959
Speaker 1: the religious community and the non religious community are just

578
00:30:26,080 --> 00:30:28,840
Speaker 1: both full of people doing really good and really bad

579
00:30:28,840 --> 00:30:30,040
Speaker 1: shit with the AIDS crisis.

580
00:30:30,200 --> 00:30:35,240
Speaker 2: You know, yes, I will say one of my absolute

581
00:30:35,320 --> 00:30:39,320
Speaker 2: worst thing habits is because a fairly common question when

582
00:30:39,520 --> 00:30:42,840
Speaker 2: when we're on skid Row for solidating snacks is like, oh,

583
00:30:42,840 --> 00:30:45,400
Speaker 2: what church are you with? And I am, I am

584
00:30:45,560 --> 00:30:51,000
Speaker 2: way too snippy that about no church, never church. And

585
00:30:51,040 --> 00:30:54,080
Speaker 2: I also I am like I should be more unaware

586
00:30:54,360 --> 00:30:59,000
Speaker 2: that I'm not religious, but many people are very religious,

587
00:30:59,280 --> 00:31:02,560
Speaker 2: including you know, many residents of skid Row, and I'm

588
00:31:02,600 --> 00:31:05,840
Speaker 2: just like, why am I starting anything? And it's not

589
00:31:05,880 --> 00:31:07,080
Speaker 2: like I'm starting.

590
00:31:06,680 --> 00:31:08,760
Speaker 1: Ship but telling them you're not with a church and

591
00:31:08,800 --> 00:31:11,040
Speaker 1: that you like are an atheist or I'm not to

592
00:31:11,080 --> 00:31:11,920
Speaker 1: put labels on you.

593
00:31:11,840 --> 00:31:13,120
Speaker 2: But no, no, yeah I am.

594
00:31:13,320 --> 00:31:15,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, so like, but telling them you know that isn't

595
00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:19,440
Speaker 1: like you're not telling them like and therefore you're fucking wrong.

596
00:31:19,960 --> 00:31:23,200
Speaker 1: You know, you're just like, yeah, I mean, okay, maybe

597
00:31:23,240 --> 00:31:23,920
Speaker 1: you are, but like.

598
00:31:23,880 --> 00:31:26,160
Speaker 2: I'm not, I'm not like that, but my tone is

599
00:31:26,200 --> 00:31:29,520
Speaker 2: definitely that. But also sometimes people just don't like that,

600
00:31:29,840 --> 00:31:33,000
Speaker 2: you know, I I am. I will say stuff like, oh,

601
00:31:33,040 --> 00:31:36,160
Speaker 2: I don't believe in I'm not religious, I don't believe

602
00:31:36,160 --> 00:31:40,520
Speaker 2: in a god, And you'd be surprised at how that is,

603
00:31:40,920 --> 00:31:44,280
Speaker 2: you know, more combative than I would have thought.

604
00:31:44,640 --> 00:31:46,200
Speaker 1: Well, it's like when I tell people I'm vegan and

605
00:31:46,240 --> 00:31:47,920
Speaker 1: they're like, but I eat meat. I'm like, I didn't

606
00:31:47,920 --> 00:31:50,760
Speaker 1: say anything about that. Yeah, that's a whole separate conversation

607
00:31:50,840 --> 00:31:54,400
Speaker 1: that you brought up. Like, yeah, you know, yeah.

608
00:31:53,920 --> 00:31:56,959
Speaker 2: But it's fairly common. I would just say, yeah, anyways,

609
00:31:57,160 --> 00:31:57,480
Speaker 2: I believe.

610
00:31:58,440 --> 00:32:01,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very common when you say things like this

611
00:32:01,680 --> 00:32:03,400
Speaker 1: because people take it as a challenge, whether or not

612
00:32:03,440 --> 00:32:04,719
Speaker 1: it's intended as it.

613
00:32:05,200 --> 00:32:06,160
Speaker 2: Yeah.

614
00:32:06,520 --> 00:32:11,000
Speaker 1: But doctor Reese worked with the hospital and the nuns

615
00:32:11,040 --> 00:32:14,120
Speaker 1: to care for people, and nuns were running around trying

616
00:32:14,120 --> 00:32:17,200
Speaker 1: to convince doctors and funeral directors alike to stop being

617
00:32:17,240 --> 00:32:21,240
Speaker 1: afraid of people with AIDS. All the while, everyone kept

618
00:32:21,280 --> 00:32:23,760
Speaker 1: telling them, all you're going to catch AIDS and die.

619
00:32:23,840 --> 00:32:27,000
Speaker 1: What are you doing? You you know you're dooming yourself

620
00:32:27,040 --> 00:32:29,960
Speaker 1: by going anywhere near these people. And they're like, no,

621
00:32:30,720 --> 00:32:32,240
Speaker 1: we're going to do it. This is what we're gonna do,

622
00:32:32,520 --> 00:32:32,720
Speaker 1: you know.

623
00:32:32,880 --> 00:32:33,720
Speaker 2: Yeah.

624
00:32:33,800 --> 00:32:37,480
Speaker 1: They also provided medications under the table basically using PREP

625
00:32:37,560 --> 00:32:42,000
Speaker 1: years before it was approved. When AIDS patients died, I

626
00:32:42,040 --> 00:32:43,600
Speaker 1: read an interviewer. I was like, wait, where'd you get

627
00:32:43,640 --> 00:32:46,520
Speaker 1: all the medications? And they're like, oh, well, AIDS patients

628
00:32:46,560 --> 00:32:48,280
Speaker 1: die all the time, So we take their surplus and

629
00:32:48,280 --> 00:32:50,920
Speaker 1: then give it to the people who you know can't

630
00:32:50,960 --> 00:32:53,959
Speaker 1: get it, prescribe to them or whatever, because you can.

631
00:32:54,320 --> 00:32:55,760
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to tell people how to do AIDS

632
00:32:55,840 --> 00:32:57,600
Speaker 1: drugs in never mind, go to doctors, talk to them,

633
00:32:57,640 --> 00:32:59,440
Speaker 1: which is great AIDS clinics if you ever want to

634
00:32:59,440 --> 00:33:02,680
Speaker 1: take PREP. But but yeah, so they like were doing

635
00:33:02,720 --> 00:33:07,240
Speaker 1: this well before PREP became on the scene. And they

636
00:33:07,280 --> 00:33:09,600
Speaker 1: would also work with people who are ordering drugs in

637
00:33:09,640 --> 00:33:12,280
Speaker 1: from overseas and people would just like smuggle them drugs

638
00:33:12,280 --> 00:33:14,160
Speaker 1: from all over Yeah.

639
00:33:14,400 --> 00:33:17,479
Speaker 2: I think that is also tough about this, like you know,

640
00:33:17,520 --> 00:33:20,320
Speaker 2: you see it with with this fucking right wing garbage

641
00:33:20,320 --> 00:33:26,000
Speaker 2: of the ivermectin, which is that like like, thankfully this

642
00:33:26,280 --> 00:33:29,880
Speaker 2: was all correct, but in the moment and you know

643
00:33:29,920 --> 00:33:33,440
Speaker 2: what and this this you know, use of the medication

644
00:33:33,760 --> 00:33:37,800
Speaker 2: was much much much more based in reality. Yeah, but

645
00:33:37,960 --> 00:33:40,800
Speaker 2: there is still like a you will simply be judged

646
00:33:40,840 --> 00:33:43,600
Speaker 2: by hindsight and you cannot totally know where you're at

647
00:33:43,920 --> 00:33:44,800
Speaker 2: while you're doing it.

648
00:33:44,920 --> 00:33:49,400
Speaker 1: Oh, totally, they could have been totally wrong. Yeah, like, yeah,

649
00:33:49,480 --> 00:33:52,800
Speaker 1: I think they did a good cost benefit analysis. I

650
00:33:52,840 --> 00:33:55,160
Speaker 1: think overall all the people doing not all of the

651
00:33:56,080 --> 00:33:59,360
Speaker 1: doctors and social workers and AIDS activists that I read

652
00:33:59,400 --> 00:34:02,760
Speaker 1: about who were working with like drugs that were not

653
00:34:02,840 --> 00:34:05,720
Speaker 1: allowed yet. I think that they did a good cost

654
00:34:05,760 --> 00:34:09,359
Speaker 1: benefit analysis. But like they could have done a bad one,

655
00:34:09,800 --> 00:34:11,560
Speaker 1: you know, and they could have or.

656
00:34:11,760 --> 00:34:13,719
Speaker 2: You could have done it right, but you could have

657
00:34:13,760 --> 00:34:16,040
Speaker 2: done the analysis right, and you can still just be

658
00:34:16,080 --> 00:34:20,440
Speaker 2: on the marginal side of I'm wrong and history. History

659
00:34:20,520 --> 00:34:21,560
Speaker 2: just looks at you differently.

660
00:34:21,880 --> 00:34:24,160
Speaker 1: Totally, No, you're right, because all of this looks really

661
00:34:24,239 --> 00:34:26,200
Speaker 1: like hah. They were just ahead of their time, right,

662
00:34:26,440 --> 00:34:28,680
Speaker 1: And if I we mectin had cured COVID or.

663
00:34:28,600 --> 00:34:30,759
Speaker 2: Whatever, then yeah, you know, they'd be the same thing.

664
00:34:30,800 --> 00:34:35,520
Speaker 1: But yeah, but yeah they were. That's just sort of

665
00:34:35,560 --> 00:34:38,640
Speaker 1: like wonky science where they're like, yes, oh, I think

666
00:34:38,640 --> 00:34:40,799
Speaker 1: this one thing that's good for another different thing will

667
00:34:40,800 --> 00:34:42,799
Speaker 1: totally be good for this other thing because I want

668
00:34:42,840 --> 00:34:45,560
Speaker 1: it to be related, whereas like this is like an

669
00:34:45,600 --> 00:34:50,040
Speaker 1: epidemiologist or whatever, you know, like, yeah, yeah.

670
00:34:49,440 --> 00:34:55,160
Speaker 2: With at least a like a hypothetical mechanism and like

671
00:34:55,200 --> 00:34:59,239
Speaker 2: a totally you know, a path totally Yes, they're not

672
00:34:59,360 --> 00:35:01,160
Speaker 2: the same, but but I just it's.

673
00:35:01,040 --> 00:35:04,799
Speaker 1: Like, no, but they rhyme in a way that's almost uncomfortable, like.

674
00:35:04,800 --> 00:35:08,520
Speaker 2: How can you really be sure? Sure?

675
00:35:08,640 --> 00:35:11,080
Speaker 1: But yeah, you know what you can be sure of.

676
00:35:12,640 --> 00:35:18,080
Speaker 1: These deals are technically deals. Actually that's not true. It

677
00:35:18,160 --> 00:35:20,400
Speaker 1: might not even be products. They might not even be services.

678
00:35:20,440 --> 00:35:22,160
Speaker 1: A lot of the ads are just like go outside

679
00:35:22,280 --> 00:35:23,000
Speaker 1: or gamble.

680
00:35:23,320 --> 00:35:26,880
Speaker 2: I do like, I do like that you've pitched twice

681
00:35:26,960 --> 00:35:29,239
Speaker 2: now that there are deals in the ads, and I'm

682
00:35:29,280 --> 00:35:31,840
Speaker 2: trying to think. I feel like it's actually pretty infrequent

683
00:35:31,880 --> 00:35:33,600
Speaker 2: that there are actual deals in ads.

684
00:35:33,760 --> 00:35:38,279
Speaker 1: I know, it's such a shame. Well, I will say.

685
00:35:38,360 --> 00:35:40,600
Speaker 2: You never know. Yeah, you can only find out if

686
00:35:40,640 --> 00:35:41,759
Speaker 2: there's a deal if you listen to.

687
00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:53,040
Speaker 1: The ad exactly exactly and here they are and we're back.

688
00:35:54,520 --> 00:35:57,440
Speaker 1: So I don't know a ton about the rest of

689
00:35:57,480 --> 00:35:58,879
Speaker 1: the world this relates to it, But I have one

690
00:35:58,920 --> 00:36:01,520
Speaker 1: anecdote from Ulstrol that I found interesting when I was

691
00:36:01,560 --> 00:36:05,320
Speaker 1: doing this research. So lesbian nurse named Anne Maurice Sweeney,

692
00:36:05,640 --> 00:36:07,760
Speaker 1: who wrote about her time as a nurse for AIDS

693
00:36:07,800 --> 00:36:12,320
Speaker 1: patients in the early nineties. Quote, I can't talk easily

694
00:36:12,560 --> 00:36:14,880
Speaker 1: about nursing people who are dying of AIDS. During the

695
00:36:14,920 --> 00:36:17,839
Speaker 1: early nineties, it was like being on the front line

696
00:36:17,880 --> 00:36:21,640
Speaker 1: during a war, except nobody won. Dykes were everywhere during

697
00:36:21,640 --> 00:36:24,800
Speaker 1: the AIDS crisis in this city. We were the least

698
00:36:24,840 --> 00:36:27,080
Speaker 1: likely to contract the virus, but the most likely to

699
00:36:27,080 --> 00:36:30,160
Speaker 1: take it on to help to confront a community crisis

700
00:36:30,200 --> 00:36:34,239
Speaker 1: head on. And just like just like reading her right

701
00:36:34,320 --> 00:36:38,400
Speaker 1: with pride about like, yeah, all right, we could have

702
00:36:39,200 --> 00:36:44,520
Speaker 1: stayed safe. You know, like literally, statistically the there absolutely

703
00:36:44,520 --> 00:36:48,240
Speaker 1: were lesbians who died of AIDS during the AIDS crisis.

704
00:36:48,280 --> 00:36:50,279
Speaker 1: And I'm not trying to diminish that. We're gonna talk

705
00:36:50,280 --> 00:36:51,759
Speaker 1: a little bit about women and AIDS at the end

706
00:36:51,800 --> 00:36:55,120
Speaker 1: of this, but you know, yeah, the safest way to

707
00:36:55,160 --> 00:36:59,080
Speaker 1: have sex and from an aid's point of view, and

708
00:37:00,280 --> 00:37:03,240
Speaker 1: just doing it anyway, just going and helping people anyway,

709
00:37:03,360 --> 00:37:09,560
Speaker 1: Like I like it. Yeah, Slowly, people fought the stigma

710
00:37:09,680 --> 00:37:13,240
Speaker 1: that was isolating AIDS patients. I feel like the waves

711
00:37:13,239 --> 00:37:16,279
Speaker 1: of the early battle against AIDS were like, get people

712
00:37:16,320 --> 00:37:19,200
Speaker 1: to admit that it's happening, Get people to stop isolating

713
00:37:19,280 --> 00:37:22,600
Speaker 1: dying people, get information about transmission out to people, so

714
00:37:22,640 --> 00:37:26,879
Speaker 1: that's safer. Sex practices can spread, get enough basic treatments out,

715
00:37:26,960 --> 00:37:29,600
Speaker 1: and let people experiment rather than just die waiting for

716
00:37:29,680 --> 00:37:32,239
Speaker 1: proper medical trials. These are a lot of the avenues

717
00:37:32,280 --> 00:37:36,840
Speaker 1: by that people were fighting, right, And it's kind of

718
00:37:36,840 --> 00:37:39,040
Speaker 1: interesting too because you can kind of present these like

719
00:37:39,320 --> 00:37:43,880
Speaker 1: victories like death with dignity rather than like because normally,

720
00:37:43,880 --> 00:37:46,640
Speaker 1: when we think about like victory in terms of an

721
00:37:46,920 --> 00:37:51,160
Speaker 1: pandemic or an ailment or whatever, we think of like cures, right, Yeah,

722
00:37:51,280 --> 00:37:54,880
Speaker 1: but being able to set this bar of like victory

723
00:37:55,000 --> 00:37:58,319
Speaker 1: sometimes means like I can die with my family in

724
00:37:58,320 --> 00:38:02,400
Speaker 1: the room, or I wasn't completely isolated in a weird

725
00:38:02,400 --> 00:38:04,440
Speaker 1: plastic place before I died, you know.

726
00:38:05,040 --> 00:38:06,239
Speaker 2: Yeah.

727
00:38:06,560 --> 00:38:09,080
Speaker 1: In terms of fighting the medical stigma, a lot of

728
00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:11,560
Speaker 1: that work was done by the first dedicated AIDS ward

729
00:38:11,560 --> 00:38:15,359
Speaker 1: in the US, Ward five B, which opened in July

730
00:38:15,520 --> 00:38:18,759
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three in the San Francisco General Hospital. It

731
00:38:18,840 --> 00:38:20,799
Speaker 1: was on the fifth floor, that's why it's called Ward

732
00:38:20,840 --> 00:38:23,000
Speaker 1: five B. It was actually like words five A and

733
00:38:23,040 --> 00:38:26,680
Speaker 1: five B or whatever. But like history wanted to simplify.

734
00:38:26,239 --> 00:38:27,359
Speaker 2: It, you gotta pick a name.

735
00:38:27,719 --> 00:38:30,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and there's like a documentary from a couple

736
00:38:30,320 --> 00:38:32,520
Speaker 1: of years ago about it, and you know, it's called

737
00:38:32,560 --> 00:38:37,400
Speaker 1: five B. Patients had been dealing with extreme isolation, with

738
00:38:37,480 --> 00:38:39,520
Speaker 1: staff refusing to treat them and all that shit we've

739
00:38:39,560 --> 00:38:42,680
Speaker 1: been talking about. So the idea of putting the AIDS

740
00:38:42,680 --> 00:38:46,560
Speaker 1: patients together was appealing, but at first folks weren't so

741
00:38:46,600 --> 00:38:48,480
Speaker 1: sure it would be for the best. There was an

742
00:38:48,520 --> 00:38:52,000
Speaker 1: awful lot of comparison early on between AIDS patients and lepers,

743
00:38:52,560 --> 00:38:56,279
Speaker 1: who for millennia were put into leper colonies and they

744
00:38:56,280 --> 00:38:59,920
Speaker 1: still are in many places. But in the end folks

745
00:39:00,120 --> 00:39:02,320
Speaker 1: were like, fuck it, we need to give people a

746
00:39:02,400 --> 00:39:06,719
Speaker 1: place to be, so they created five B. San Francisco

747
00:39:06,760 --> 00:39:09,240
Speaker 1: at the time had the highest rate of AIDS per capita.

748
00:39:09,400 --> 00:39:12,439
Speaker 1: New York had more total cases, and those folks needed

749
00:39:12,440 --> 00:39:14,440
Speaker 1: to be cared for, and in particular, they needed to

750
00:39:14,440 --> 00:39:16,520
Speaker 1: be cared for by people who would actually, you know,

751
00:39:17,239 --> 00:39:20,520
Speaker 1: care for them right and not just treat them like shit.

752
00:39:22,200 --> 00:39:26,160
Speaker 1: Early on ward, five B was many ways of hospice.

753
00:39:26,320 --> 00:39:28,480
Speaker 1: Not everyone who checked into the hospital with AIDS died

754
00:39:28,520 --> 00:39:30,239
Speaker 1: right away. You kind of have this kind of oversimplified

755
00:39:30,239 --> 00:39:32,279
Speaker 1: thing where you're like, I now have AIDS, and now

756
00:39:32,320 --> 00:39:34,759
Speaker 1: I am go to hospital and now I die, right,

757
00:39:34,960 --> 00:39:36,759
Speaker 1: which happened to a lot of people. But it was

758
00:39:36,760 --> 00:39:39,719
Speaker 1: more like, I now have a complication of this and

759
00:39:39,760 --> 00:39:41,279
Speaker 1: have to go to the hospital for a while, and

760
00:39:41,360 --> 00:39:44,839
Speaker 1: I might die there. And I eventually will die there,

761
00:39:44,920 --> 00:39:46,080
Speaker 1: but maybe not this time.

762
00:39:46,520 --> 00:39:46,719
Speaker 2: Right.

763
00:39:47,840 --> 00:39:50,760
Speaker 1: Many people did recover temporarily from this or that ailment,

764
00:39:50,920 --> 00:39:53,799
Speaker 1: and there was a companion out patient service of like

765
00:39:53,840 --> 00:39:58,640
Speaker 1: eight different housing organizations and grew like places to go

766
00:39:58,840 --> 00:40:02,200
Speaker 1: help people find places to live outside of it. But

767
00:40:02,800 --> 00:40:05,680
Speaker 1: people came to the hospital and died there. Ninety seven

768
00:40:05,719 --> 00:40:07,839
Speaker 1: percent of the patients in the ward in nineteen eighty

769
00:40:07,880 --> 00:40:11,680
Speaker 1: six were gay men, which is also the like, again,

770
00:40:11,680 --> 00:40:15,040
Speaker 1: we're going to talk a little bit about AIDS affecting women,

771
00:40:15,280 --> 00:40:18,120
Speaker 1: and AIDS absolutely affects a lot of straight people, and

772
00:40:18,360 --> 00:40:21,520
Speaker 1: you know, it's like, yeah, but the very beginning of

773
00:40:21,560 --> 00:40:24,080
Speaker 1: this as a crisis, and during the period in which

774
00:40:24,120 --> 00:40:28,200
Speaker 1: it was killing everyone in the United States, the brunt

775
00:40:28,200 --> 00:40:32,600
Speaker 1: of that was born by Meadow Sex with men. When

776
00:40:32,640 --> 00:40:35,920
Speaker 1: they made this ward, every person who worked there had

777
00:40:36,000 --> 00:40:38,840
Speaker 1: volunteered to be there, and they had a much higher

778
00:40:38,880 --> 00:40:41,520
Speaker 1: retention rate of workers than elsewhere in the hospital because

779
00:40:41,520 --> 00:40:44,160
Speaker 1: they believed in what they were doing. Even though it

780
00:40:44,200 --> 00:40:47,120
Speaker 1: was like this is going to shock you. Other workers

781
00:40:47,120 --> 00:40:49,600
Speaker 1: in the hospital were like dicks about it, and they

782
00:40:49,600 --> 00:40:52,840
Speaker 1: would complain about this. One nurse complained about the quote

783
00:40:53,160 --> 00:41:00,000
Speaker 1: homosexual hierarchy that provided quote preferential treatment for AIDS patients.

784
00:41:00,520 --> 00:41:09,040
Speaker 2: God, right, just because like their caregivers were good people. Yeah, totally, yeah, yeah, yeah.

785
00:41:09,120 --> 00:41:12,040
Speaker 1: The fucking people just don't talk enough about dying of

786
00:41:12,080 --> 00:41:13,000
Speaker 1: AIDS privilege.

787
00:41:13,520 --> 00:41:17,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jesus Christ.

788
00:41:18,040 --> 00:41:22,920
Speaker 1: Within five b patients were treated as humans. One of

789
00:41:22,960 --> 00:41:25,680
Speaker 1: the main things they offered was human touch, which people

790
00:41:25,760 --> 00:41:27,480
Speaker 1: were being denied. Like a lot of people were just

791
00:41:27,560 --> 00:41:29,279
Speaker 1: like literally like, oh, kind of the main thing I

792
00:41:29,280 --> 00:41:31,040
Speaker 1: did because I couldn't actually help anyone as I go

793
00:41:31,080 --> 00:41:33,000
Speaker 1: around and give people hugs, you know.

794
00:41:33,920 --> 00:41:34,680
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.

795
00:41:35,480 --> 00:41:38,560
Speaker 1: Care was directed by the patients themselves and their loved ones.

796
00:41:39,280 --> 00:41:41,399
Speaker 1: And one of the things that they did was really cool.

797
00:41:41,440 --> 00:41:44,560
Speaker 1: They fought successfully to overturn the hospital rules that limited

798
00:41:44,600 --> 00:41:48,240
Speaker 1: what counted as family, right, Like, you're a gay couple,

799
00:41:48,600 --> 00:41:52,279
Speaker 1: you can't be like you there's no legal marriage, you know, right,

800
00:41:54,200 --> 00:41:57,200
Speaker 1: like the future sorry, I mean keep.

801
00:41:57,120 --> 00:42:02,319
Speaker 2: That, I mean, yeah, not to totally derail. It just

802
00:42:02,320 --> 00:42:07,040
Speaker 2: feels like the bigger impediment to equal marriage being rolled

803
00:42:07,040 --> 00:42:08,839
Speaker 2: back is going to be something along the lines of

804
00:42:08,920 --> 00:42:11,880
Speaker 2: like how big a headache and its state tax planning.

805
00:42:11,920 --> 00:42:14,759
Speaker 2: It's going to cause sure, it's companies are going to

806
00:42:14,760 --> 00:42:17,160
Speaker 2: push back. It's not going to be for justice if

807
00:42:17,200 --> 00:42:17,800
Speaker 2: it survives.

808
00:42:17,920 --> 00:42:20,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's like there's a certain amount of

809
00:42:20,520 --> 00:42:23,120
Speaker 1: like genies and bottles and where their relative positions are

810
00:42:23,120 --> 00:42:25,239
Speaker 1: to each other where it's like hard to get them

811
00:42:25,239 --> 00:42:28,160
Speaker 1: back in. Yeah, but like, you know, I think we

812
00:42:28,160 --> 00:42:30,160
Speaker 1: would have thought that. No, actually I'll say it was

813
00:42:30,200 --> 00:42:31,920
Speaker 1: like we would have thought that about abortion. But actually,

814
00:42:31,920 --> 00:42:34,400
Speaker 1: now that I think that through, I'm like, no, that

815
00:42:34,480 --> 00:42:39,279
Speaker 1: has been a territory of struggle, yes, from the day

816
00:42:39,320 --> 00:42:40,799
Speaker 1: of Roe v. Wade, you know.

817
00:42:41,719 --> 00:42:46,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, but still it is like, yeah, I mean, you know,

818
00:42:46,360 --> 00:42:49,879
Speaker 2: there's there's no there's no regression that these folks are

819
00:42:49,880 --> 00:42:54,279
Speaker 2: not on board for is H and are increasingly willing

820
00:42:54,360 --> 00:42:58,600
Speaker 2: to pull the levers on against the face of all evidence.

821
00:42:58,760 --> 00:43:02,080
Speaker 1: And you know, so yeah, and even like the majority

822
00:43:02,120 --> 00:43:03,440
Speaker 1: of American people being like.

823
00:43:03,600 --> 00:43:07,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, so yeah, so yeah, I'm not holding my breath.

824
00:43:07,760 --> 00:43:11,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, everything that I read whenever I read like homophobia

825
00:43:11,480 --> 00:43:13,640
Speaker 1: from the eighties and earlier or whatever. It's this the

826
00:43:13,719 --> 00:43:16,480
Speaker 1: literally the same stuff as transphobia from now you know.

827
00:43:16,600 --> 00:43:18,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I'm like, yeah.

828
00:43:18,239 --> 00:43:20,440
Speaker 1: They will never defeat us. If they managed to defeat

829
00:43:20,440 --> 00:43:22,120
Speaker 1: the trans people, then they would just then do the

830
00:43:22,120 --> 00:43:25,680
Speaker 1: same for gay people immediately afterwards, Like they're absolutely coming

831
00:43:25,719 --> 00:43:27,440
Speaker 1: for you next. This gay is listening to this, but

832
00:43:27,480 --> 00:43:29,120
Speaker 1: I think you know that, or you wouldn't be listening

833
00:43:29,160 --> 00:43:29,319
Speaker 1: to this.

834
00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:31,320
Speaker 2: Yeah.

835
00:43:31,840 --> 00:43:35,960
Speaker 1: But the hospital worked to let more people in to

836
00:43:36,120 --> 00:43:40,040
Speaker 1: count as family or you know, friends. Family partners were

837
00:43:40,040 --> 00:43:42,680
Speaker 1: allowed to visit twenty four to seven. They could sleep

838
00:43:42,719 --> 00:43:45,279
Speaker 1: on cots in the rooms, and patients were encouraged to

839
00:43:45,280 --> 00:43:48,560
Speaker 1: treat these rooms as their home. To quote a New

840
00:43:48,640 --> 00:43:52,280
Speaker 1: York Times article from nineteen eighty five quote, the staff

841
00:43:52,320 --> 00:43:54,719
Speaker 1: also tries to be prepared for the first visit by

842
00:43:54,760 --> 00:43:57,880
Speaker 1: patient's parents, some learning for the first time that a

843
00:43:57,960 --> 00:44:01,759
Speaker 1: son was homosexual, right, and that's like one of the again,

844
00:44:01,800 --> 00:44:04,120
Speaker 1: the like little fucking heart string shit about it is

845
00:44:04,160 --> 00:44:09,680
Speaker 1: You're just like fuck, I just yeah that moment, Yeah,

846
00:44:09,719 --> 00:44:11,799
Speaker 1: and knowing that only like I don't know, probably half

847
00:44:11,840 --> 00:44:13,279
Speaker 1: a parents are going to pass the test.

848
00:44:14,040 --> 00:44:17,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, God, I can't even imagine what the actual

849
00:44:17,640 --> 00:44:22,160
Speaker 2: like percentages and that stuff is. Yeah, I don't know,

850
00:44:22,239 --> 00:44:24,279
Speaker 2: but I mean I guess for what it's worth, it

851
00:44:24,320 --> 00:44:27,480
Speaker 2: is like not that it gets easier, but you can

852
00:44:27,520 --> 00:44:31,320
Speaker 2: get better at it, get better at like like working

853
00:44:31,400 --> 00:44:34,759
Speaker 2: to prepare and like, you know, I don't know. Yeah,

854
00:44:35,000 --> 00:44:37,480
Speaker 2: I guess it's just like heartening that like there's no

855
00:44:37,960 --> 00:44:41,120
Speaker 2: task too horrible that we can't at least get like

856
00:44:41,239 --> 00:44:43,880
Speaker 2: improve at it. And it's good that it's like you know,

857
00:44:43,960 --> 00:44:48,640
Speaker 2: a collection of knowledge can be had. Oh, totally grow. Sorry,

858
00:44:48,680 --> 00:44:51,040
Speaker 2: this is a totally just mind tangent.

859
00:44:51,120 --> 00:44:53,560
Speaker 1: But no, no, because this is in the same way

860
00:44:53,560 --> 00:44:56,680
Speaker 1: that the buddy system developed in Dallas spread across the country,

861
00:44:56,800 --> 00:45:00,360
Speaker 1: the system of how to have an aids ward spread

862
00:45:00,360 --> 00:45:03,360
Speaker 1: across the country. And like, yeah, this is the difference

863
00:45:03,400 --> 00:45:06,960
Speaker 1: between like di Y fake science and DIY actual science.

864
00:45:07,040 --> 00:45:09,600
Speaker 1: Is like they actual science. You build a body of knowledge.

865
00:45:09,960 --> 00:45:11,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, well because it works.

866
00:45:11,560 --> 00:45:13,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, and like and you compare notes with each other,

867
00:45:13,760 --> 00:45:16,640
Speaker 1: like like everyone at home injecting themselves with random drugs

868
00:45:16,680 --> 00:45:19,480
Speaker 1: as they hope it'll cure COVID or AIDS or whatever.

869
00:45:19,719 --> 00:45:21,320
Speaker 1: I know it's a weak comparison made, but we already

870
00:45:21,360 --> 00:45:21,600
Speaker 1: made it.

871
00:45:22,440 --> 00:45:25,000
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, but no, I mean I saw that they're

872
00:45:25,440 --> 00:45:28,840
Speaker 2: They're like ifromactine can cure cancer, and I'm just like, wow,

873
00:45:29,280 --> 00:45:31,280
Speaker 2: I should cancer exactly.

874
00:45:31,360 --> 00:45:31,600
Speaker 1: Yeah.

875
00:45:31,640 --> 00:45:34,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's just like these people are like making

876
00:45:35,239 --> 00:45:38,239
Speaker 2: they they now just needed to be magic because it

877
00:45:38,280 --> 00:45:40,800
Speaker 2: was it was it was magic before, so why wouldn't

878
00:45:40,840 --> 00:45:42,120
Speaker 2: it be you know, magic now.

879
00:45:42,239 --> 00:45:44,000
Speaker 1: No, And it's such a like even earlier when I

880
00:45:44,000 --> 00:45:45,720
Speaker 1: was like, well, the people a dying, so they'll try anything,

881
00:45:45,760 --> 00:45:48,600
Speaker 1: and you know, almost as this inspirational thing or whatever,

882
00:45:49,239 --> 00:45:53,600
Speaker 1: there's actually like thinking about the cancer comparison. Yeah, that's

883
00:45:53,640 --> 00:45:55,120
Speaker 1: just like the Land of Grifters.

884
00:45:55,520 --> 00:45:56,400
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly.

885
00:45:57,600 --> 00:46:00,520
Speaker 1: I like wonder I almost like one or why there

886
00:46:00,520 --> 00:46:02,840
Speaker 1: were I mean I'm sure there were some, but like

887
00:46:02,960 --> 00:46:05,279
Speaker 1: overall you read about this stuff and it is like

888
00:46:05,920 --> 00:46:09,040
Speaker 1: doctors who are serious doing some stuff that would look

889
00:46:09,040 --> 00:46:10,400
Speaker 1: sketchy in other situations.

890
00:46:10,920 --> 00:46:13,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, like I mean, look that might also

891
00:46:13,880 --> 00:46:16,799
Speaker 2: just be the hindsight of it there. Yeah, as you said,

892
00:46:16,880 --> 00:46:23,280
Speaker 2: there probably were like abject failures in this type of arena.

893
00:46:23,440 --> 00:46:24,840
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean one of the things I was

894
00:46:24,880 --> 00:46:28,040
Speaker 1: reading is like basically is like, look, patients are trying anything.

895
00:46:28,080 --> 00:46:30,319
Speaker 1: People are like I grew mushrooms in my refrigerator. I

896
00:46:30,360 --> 00:46:32,000
Speaker 1: literally don't know what that one means, but like that

897
00:46:32,080 --> 00:46:33,680
Speaker 1: was the thing I read. Yeah, I don't know how

898
00:46:33,680 --> 00:46:36,360
Speaker 1: you grow mushrooms and refrigerator seems too cold, but yeah,

899
00:46:36,400 --> 00:46:41,840
Speaker 1: you know, like oh that's not freezer anyway, Like yeah,

900
00:46:41,880 --> 00:46:44,120
Speaker 1: and so I think that the systematizing of this thing

901
00:46:44,160 --> 00:46:47,600
Speaker 1: that's happening, I think that's what makes it DIY or

902
00:46:47,680 --> 00:46:51,279
Speaker 1: non institutional science instead of like land of grifts and

903
00:46:51,440 --> 00:46:52,200
Speaker 1: like yes.

904
00:46:52,320 --> 00:46:56,799
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, yeah. It's like it's so hard from

905
00:46:56,800 --> 00:46:59,319
Speaker 2: a broad view to like figure out the words to

906
00:46:59,719 --> 00:47:02,040
Speaker 2: differ between this and snake oil.

907
00:47:01,880 --> 00:47:03,680
Speaker 1: Because you're like, totally.

908
00:47:05,000 --> 00:47:08,080
Speaker 2: They share a lot of like nouns and verbs, but.

909
00:47:08,880 --> 00:47:13,000
Speaker 1: They are different languages somehow. Even Yeah, well some of

910
00:47:13,000 --> 00:47:16,400
Speaker 1: the science, I mean Ward five B was not you know,

911
00:47:17,200 --> 00:47:17,520
Speaker 1: that was.

912
00:47:17,440 --> 00:47:19,520
Speaker 2: Institution's part of a hospital. Yeah exactly.

913
00:47:19,800 --> 00:47:22,440
Speaker 1: But then again, the last the folks in Utah who

914
00:47:22,440 --> 00:47:27,360
Speaker 1: were like sneaking people drugs were epidemiologists who worked for

915
00:47:27,400 --> 00:47:31,759
Speaker 1: a hospital too, you know. Yeah, and in Ward five

916
00:47:31,880 --> 00:47:34,960
Speaker 1: B staff were studied extensively to see if they would

917
00:47:35,000 --> 00:47:38,200
Speaker 1: catch aides, right, because they were like, no, we're pretty

918
00:47:38,200 --> 00:47:40,440
Speaker 1: sure we know how this works. Now we're going to

919
00:47:40,480 --> 00:47:43,719
Speaker 1: stare and see. And at least one person did contract

920
00:47:43,760 --> 00:47:46,920
Speaker 1: it after I believe she accidentally pricked herself with a

921
00:47:47,040 --> 00:47:51,520
Speaker 1: used needle, right, But then other people were tested after

922
00:47:51,680 --> 00:47:55,520
Speaker 1: like someone got bodily fluids in an open wound or

923
00:47:55,640 --> 00:48:01,239
Speaker 1: you know, like things happen, right, but like, you know,

924
00:48:01,680 --> 00:48:06,760
Speaker 1: it became a place where people were learning about the disease,

925
00:48:06,880 --> 00:48:10,920
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, and so they had this, you know,

926
00:48:11,120 --> 00:48:13,800
Speaker 1: despite people being mad at the homosexual hierarchy or whatever.

927
00:48:14,040 --> 00:48:14,120
Speaker 2: Like.

928
00:48:14,200 --> 00:48:16,560
Speaker 1: Patients were allowed to move around the hospital unless they

929
00:48:16,560 --> 00:48:20,960
Speaker 1: had specific contagious issues, and the care provided at five

930
00:48:21,040 --> 00:48:22,960
Speaker 1: B soon became a model for the rest of the country.

931
00:48:22,960 --> 00:48:26,799
Speaker 1: Like I was saying, one of the nurses there, a

932
00:48:26,840 --> 00:48:30,560
Speaker 1: guy named Guy Vanderberg, said to ABC in twenty nineteen,

933
00:48:31,400 --> 00:48:33,960
Speaker 1: don't wait for a leader, don't wait for someone to

934
00:48:33,960 --> 00:48:36,719
Speaker 1: show you the way, don't wait for the right presidential

935
00:48:36,719 --> 00:48:40,160
Speaker 1: candidate to show up. It's you and me. It's right now,

936
00:48:40,239 --> 00:48:43,200
Speaker 1: it's right here. You are as prepared as you need

937
00:48:43,239 --> 00:48:47,000
Speaker 1: to be. I really like that. I really like the like, yeah,

938
00:48:47,160 --> 00:48:51,000
Speaker 1: it's it's us, that's we. Yeah, we can do it,

939
00:48:51,480 --> 00:48:51,759
Speaker 1: you know.

940
00:48:52,360 --> 00:48:56,359
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have to do it. Those things are all

941
00:48:56,360 --> 00:48:59,040
Speaker 2: amith the other shit, Yeah, it has to be us.

942
00:48:59,360 --> 00:49:01,480
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's like a cliche I ran across that I

943
00:49:01,560 --> 00:49:03,359
Speaker 1: liked recently that have been on my mind a lot,

944
00:49:03,400 --> 00:49:05,680
Speaker 1: which is like, we're all we've got and we're all

945
00:49:05,719 --> 00:49:06,120
Speaker 1: we need.

946
00:49:06,440 --> 00:49:10,279
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I think the B side, the B side

947
00:49:10,360 --> 00:49:12,480
Speaker 2: helps people because I think the A side really makes

948
00:49:12,480 --> 00:49:13,040
Speaker 2: them scared.

949
00:49:13,480 --> 00:49:16,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. No, it's exactly that, Like it's like, Okay,

950
00:49:16,360 --> 00:49:20,279
Speaker 1: we're all we've got, but that's okay, we can do this,

951
00:49:20,560 --> 00:49:22,920
Speaker 1: you know, like yeah, and when we say we it's

952
00:49:22,960 --> 00:49:26,480
Speaker 1: a pretty big wei Like yeah, especially when we remember

953
00:49:26,640 --> 00:49:29,680
Speaker 1: to focus on our solidarity and not our divisions, you know.

954
00:49:30,120 --> 00:49:31,680
Speaker 2: Yeah.

955
00:49:31,719 --> 00:49:33,880
Speaker 1: For good reason. Most of the attention around the AIDS

956
00:49:33,880 --> 00:49:37,680
Speaker 1: crisis is focused on gay men, but HIV can spread

957
00:49:37,719 --> 00:49:40,879
Speaker 1: to anybody, and part of the erasure of women from

958
00:49:40,880 --> 00:49:44,360
Speaker 1: AID statistics was based on the CDC's definition of AIDS

959
00:49:44,400 --> 00:49:49,279
Speaker 1: that categorically excluded women. For years, the CDC's definition of

960
00:49:49,320 --> 00:49:54,880
Speaker 1: AIDS didn't include opportunistic infections that often affected and killed

961
00:49:54,920 --> 00:50:00,200
Speaker 1: women with HIV. To quote an old Act Up pamphlet quote,

962
00:50:00,520 --> 00:50:04,200
Speaker 1: for example, thrush in the mouth of an HIV infected

963
00:50:04,200 --> 00:50:08,040
Speaker 1: person is recognized as AIDS, but the same fungus in

964
00:50:08,080 --> 00:50:12,520
Speaker 1: the vagina, chronic candiditis is not as a result of

965
00:50:12,560 --> 00:50:16,240
Speaker 1: the skewed definition, by the time women are diagnosed with AIDS,

966
00:50:16,560 --> 00:50:20,880
Speaker 1: they are almost dead. Pelvic inflammatory disease and cervical cancer

967
00:50:20,960 --> 00:50:23,920
Speaker 1: are killing women with HIV who are never diagnosed with AIDS.

968
00:50:24,400 --> 00:50:27,479
Speaker 1: Sixty five percent of HIV infected women die without having

969
00:50:27,520 --> 00:50:30,040
Speaker 1: ever been diagnosed with AIDS. And again, that's an old

970
00:50:30,080 --> 00:50:34,560
Speaker 1: pamphlet if you're listening, that's not the current statistics. The

971
00:50:34,600 --> 00:50:37,799
Speaker 1: Women's Caucus of act UP got together and worked on

972
00:50:37,840 --> 00:50:40,120
Speaker 1: the issue for years and finally managed to get the

973
00:50:40,120 --> 00:50:43,920
Speaker 1: CDC to change the definition in nineteen ninety three. And

974
00:50:43,960 --> 00:50:45,759
Speaker 1: one of the reasons that this is so important is

975
00:50:45,760 --> 00:50:48,279
Speaker 1: that by this point there is funding available for a

976
00:50:48,320 --> 00:50:51,799
Speaker 1: lot of AIDS related stuff, right, and so you need

977
00:50:51,840 --> 00:50:53,440
Speaker 1: to not be cut out of that. And it was

978
00:50:53,600 --> 00:50:59,080
Speaker 1: made available to more women with AIDS. And that's my

979
00:51:00,200 --> 00:51:04,640
Speaker 1: mutual aid in a time of accidental health war episode.

980
00:51:05,120 --> 00:51:10,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's I mean, as as you were saying, shoot,

981
00:51:10,760 --> 00:51:12,279
Speaker 2: and I can't remember if it was this episode of

982
00:51:12,320 --> 00:51:16,080
Speaker 2: the previous but like or maybe in the break like

983
00:51:16,160 --> 00:51:20,839
Speaker 2: this idea of like recently settled or like, I mean,

984
00:51:21,320 --> 00:51:25,000
Speaker 2: you know, the E's crisis is like settled, I suppose,

985
00:51:25,160 --> 00:51:27,200
Speaker 2: but not really.

986
00:51:27,560 --> 00:51:30,799
Speaker 1: Globally it's not. Yeah, and in the United States it's

987
00:51:30,840 --> 00:51:34,399
Speaker 1: like ongoing, but there's a lot better treatment and shit

988
00:51:34,560 --> 00:51:36,520
Speaker 1: like that. You know, it's not it's not the same

989
00:51:36,560 --> 00:51:38,400
Speaker 1: thing it was in the yes.

990
00:51:38,320 --> 00:51:41,520
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes, I don't know. I mean it's just

991
00:51:41,600 --> 00:51:44,839
Speaker 2: like like the again not to be too like dark

992
00:51:44,880 --> 00:51:48,120
Speaker 2: time to come in or hear or ben to come in,

993
00:51:48,600 --> 00:51:53,040
Speaker 2: but like, yeah, these these are the times that like

994
00:51:53,680 --> 00:51:59,200
Speaker 2: fucking we can do something and we will. So yeah,

995
00:51:59,520 --> 00:52:03,600
Speaker 2: not like it's gonna be okay because someone will save us.

996
00:52:04,280 --> 00:52:07,280
Speaker 2: It's gonna be okay because we got to do it.

997
00:52:07,400 --> 00:52:07,800
Speaker 1: Totally.

998
00:52:07,840 --> 00:52:10,239
Speaker 2: It's not gonna be fun. Yeah, but we got to

999
00:52:10,280 --> 00:52:10,560
Speaker 2: do it.

1000
00:52:11,800 --> 00:52:14,239
Speaker 1: And when we say it's okay, it's like, well it's

1001
00:52:14,239 --> 00:52:17,080
Speaker 1: okay in the like larger sense where bad things happen too.

1002
00:52:17,600 --> 00:52:22,000
Speaker 1: You know. Yes, it doesn't mean like we're gonna win everything,

1003
00:52:22,440 --> 00:52:24,360
Speaker 1: but it's gonna be okay, and that we're like gonna

1004
00:52:24,360 --> 00:52:28,600
Speaker 1: do the best we can and we're gonna try and yeah,

1005
00:52:28,680 --> 00:52:31,080
Speaker 1: like all this people were saying, you know, it's just like, well,

1006
00:52:31,840 --> 00:52:35,719
Speaker 1: you find the way to be useful and you do it,

1007
00:52:36,560 --> 00:52:42,959
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, yeah, well anything you want to plug

1008
00:52:43,000 --> 00:52:43,279
Speaker 1: here at.

1009
00:52:43,200 --> 00:52:46,440
Speaker 2: The end, I don't know, I have a podcast. You know,

1010
00:52:46,480 --> 00:52:49,200
Speaker 2: it's this is racist. It's pretty depressing too, honestly, but

1011
00:52:50,080 --> 00:52:54,000
Speaker 2: what but looking at look you know, as as as

1012
00:52:54,120 --> 00:52:58,080
Speaker 2: with uh as here, it's like, it's not about depressing,

1013
00:52:58,160 --> 00:53:02,960
Speaker 2: it's about looking for you know what light and connection

1014
00:53:03,120 --> 00:53:06,560
Speaker 2: there can be, so you know it ebbs and flows,

1015
00:53:06,600 --> 00:53:07,959
Speaker 2: the light and the dark, ebb and flow.

1016
00:53:08,120 --> 00:53:08,520
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1017
00:53:08,560 --> 00:53:12,719
Speaker 2: Inversely, yeah, we'll end with that.

1018
00:53:14,200 --> 00:53:16,640
Speaker 1: Everyone knows the plugs that I was already gonna plug

1019
00:53:16,719 --> 00:53:19,439
Speaker 1: and I will see you all next week with more

1020
00:53:19,480 --> 00:53:27,479
Speaker 1: Cool People Do Cool Stuff. Cool People Who Did Cool

1021
00:53:27,480 --> 00:53:29,600
Speaker 1: Stuff is a production of cool Zone Media.

1022
00:53:29,920 --> 00:53:32,800
Speaker 2: For more podcasts on cool Zone Media, visit our website

1023
00:53:32,880 --> 00:53:36,560
Speaker 2: Foolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,

1024
00:53:36,600 --> 00:53:39,480
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.