Homophobia surrounding the 1980s AIDS crisis

Rory Herbert, final year History student and President of the History Society at the University of Portsmouth, has written the following blog on the 1980s AIDS crisis and the homophobic behaviour it triggered. Rory is a Gale Ambassador at the university and contributes to The Gale Review Blog. The role of the Gale Ambassador is to increase awareness of the Gale primary source collections available to students at their university. The University Of Portsmouth Library hosts a large collection of Gale primary sources which History students can use when undertaking archival research for their dissertations and other research projects.

During the early 1980s, AIDS became an ever-growing concern in the minds of Americans, and brought to the fore the deep-seated tensions and homophobic tendencies that plagued the nation’s media and political institutes. Gale’s Archives of Sexuality & Gender  provides access to a wealth of sources that help us to understand the issues and struggles experienced by these long-oppressed and ignored members of society during a particularly trying period.

To read the rest of Rory’s blog, click here.

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