From BlueSky:

Mark Milano, a founding member of Rise and Resist, the Reclaim #Pride Coalition, and a world-renowned AIDS activist with ACT-UP #nyc, was a fierce warrior. He died of complications from #cancer on Jan. 3, 2026.
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Ed note: I remember the #ActUp days and remember Mark. We still #resist, now also in his honor.

#activism #lgbtq #hiv #aids #deaths #whodied #rip #RestInParadise

https://bsky.app/profile/riseandresist.bsky.social/post/3mc5kmw2xdk2i

https://freedomnews.org.uk/2025/12/13/in-aids-activism-silence-still-equals-death/

#Activism #ActUp #AIDS #Organize #Solidarity

"Zynische Politik"

Linke fordert Moratorium für Abschiebungen von HIV-Positiven

Maik Brückner wirft der Bundesregierung vor, mit ihrer Abschiebepolitik den Tod vieler HIV-positiver Geflüchteter "billigend in Kauf" zu nehmen.

https://www.queer.de/detail.php?article_id=56138

Keine Abschiebungen von HIV-Positiven!

Keine Abschiebungen bei unklarer medizinischer Versorgungslage!

Keine Abschiebungen!

#abschiebung #actup #actupagain #aids #bah #bekam #berlun #dah #deutscheaidshilfe #dielinkebt #globalfund #hiv #refugees

AIDS activist group ACT UP changed the world. Here's why its work still matters today

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.advocate.com/news/why-act-up-mattered

Il y a beaucoup de choses que j'ignorais de la vie de Didier Lestrade.
Fondateur d' #ActUp France il est une figure du monde gay et militant.
J'ai eu beaucoup de plaisir à parcourir son livre,aujourd'hui à la retraite je lui souhaite le meilleur pour la suite.
#lecture

I Am One of 20 Million in US With Long COVID. RFK Pulled the Rug From Under Us.

https://murica.website/2025/10/i-am-one-of-20-million-in-us-with-long-covid-rfk-pulled-the-rug-from-under-us/

Today in Labor History September 14, 1989: Seven members of ACT UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) infiltrated the New York Stock Exchange, chaining themselves to the VIP balcony to protest the high price of AZT, the only approved AIDS drug at the time. They also unfurled a banner that read, "SELL WELLCOME" referring to Burroughs Wellcome, the manufacturer of AZT, who had set the price at $10,000 per patient per year. Several days later, Burroughs Wellcome lowered the price of AZT to the still unaffordable price of $6,400 per patient per year.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #ACTUP #lgbtq #aids #HIV #aids #directaction #wallstreet #stockexchange

Here's a link to the website of a new, wonderful podcast called Art of Resistance. It has episodes about Act Up, Riot Grrl, & Claude Cahun using art to resist Nazi occupation.

I listened on the podcast app Castbox.

https://www.theartofresistancepodcast.com/

#resistance #art #LGBTQIA #ArtAsResistance #ResistanceArt #ActUp #RiotGrrl #ClaudeCagun #antifascist #antifa #fascism #resistfascism #feminism #QueerArt #FeministMusic

Today in Labor History August 24, 1945: LGBTQ activist Marsha P. Johnson was born. She was one of the central players in the Stonewall Uprising of 1969. She was also founding member of the Gay Liberation Front and co-founded the radical activist group Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries . Johnson was also an insider in New York's art scene, modeling for Andy Warhol, and performing with the drag group Hot Peaches. Some referred to her as the "mayor of Christopher Street" for her warm presence in Greenwich Village. From 1987 through 1992, she was active with ACT UP. When asked what the ”P” stood for in her name, or asked about her gender, she’d say the “P” stood for “pay-it-no-mind.” She died in 1992, likely from a transphobic attack.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #lgbtq #marshapjohnson #gayliberation #actup #newyork #stonewall #uprising #drag #andywarhol #aids #revolutionary #TransRightsAreHumanRights

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

ACT UP Beyond New York:
Stories and Strategies from a Movement to End the AIDS Crisis
Edited by Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

(Hey @mbsycamore come post here!)
 
ACT UP (the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) started in New York in 1987 as a direct action activist group “united in anger to end the AIDS crisis.” Within a few years, there were over a hundred autonomous chapters in the US and around the world, but beyond the story of the New York City chapter this history has largely disappeared from the public record. ACT UP Beyond New York seeks to change this—part historical corrective, part rallying cry, and part activist handbook, this anthology will include essays, conversations, and documentation from dozens of ACT UP chapters, from the 1980s to the present, in order to bring these crucial stories to public attention.
 
ACT UP Beyond New York will consist entirely of writing by activists about their experiences in ACT UP, on their own terms. Each ACT UP chapter intervened in a specific cultural, political, and social environment, and I am particularly interested in the specificities of each group. Each chapter had its own methods of fighting for HIV/AIDS treatment and healthcare access, resisting structural homophobia and discrimination against people with AIDS, building community, and shifting consciousness.

More:

https://www.mattildabernsteinsycamore.com/other

#ActUp

Symptom: Guilt that a treatment is working.

When I was trying to wrap my head around this new experience, I learned about AIDS Survivor Syndrome. As I’ve referenced in earlier pieces, and said in interviews, I often find kinship as I learn more about the HIV/AIDS pandemic. I see highly politicized, post-acute viral illnesses, which disproportionately impact queer people. I see pandemics which are ongoing yet treated as finished, and have their important social supports threatened or dismantled.

It’s important to note that my Long Covid has not jeopardized my life explicitly, and there are differences in how these illnesses are/were stigmatized. And yet I think this kinship matters less to me in easily defined traits than in the murky, isolating ones. Chronic illnesses don’t always fit in sick/healthy or get better soon/terminal dualities. There’s a wide range of symptom presentations and severity in Long Covid: from the people who have it for a few months and recover, to those of us whose illnesses are expected to be lifelong. Even for people who have “mild” Covid and “fully recover” without Long Covid, there are increased risks to their hearts, brains, lungs, and more, regardless of age.

And perhaps most on-theme for this blog, the overlap of these two pandemics mean we can create our own version of the art activism which changed the course of the AIDS Pandemic, and we should.*

* email illmarks @ nyx mir . com if you want to make a long covid ACT UP together

I was glad to learn this weird feeling was not just me, and because it might also be someone reading this blog’s too, here are a few quotes from Understanding “Post-AIDS Survivor Syndrome”: A Record of Personal Experiences by Stacy N. Broun, PhD. The situations are different, Long Covid today has nowhere near the efficacy of treatments as those for HIV in 1998. The medication which is helping me with the severity of my ME/CFS doesn’t help with the aggressively chronic migraines, joint pain, and many other symptoms.

I hope that there will be more effective treatments for us, and hopefully this blog will still be around then. If anyone feels some kind of way about having an effective treatment at long last–maybe they’ll be able to end up here and feel less alone.

Some excerpts from Understanding “Post-AIDS Survivor Syndrome”: A Record of Personal Experiences:

• “For those HIV/AIDS affected persons, who have lived past 10 years or so and have been preparing to die, have not been working, have been viaticating life insurance policies, etc.—what happens to those people when they suddenly feel, as one patient put it, ‘sentenced to live.’ I have chosen to call this post-AIDS survivor syndrome.”

• “The good news is that you may live, bringing with that hope, better health, new relationships, and fresh starts. The bad news is that you may live, bringing with it fear of change, fear of loss of support, new responsibilities, and compromised health. It is quite a paradox, one that for many has forced a reevaluation of their lives, sometimes bringing about a severe depression. The fear and uncertainty mixed with hope and the prospect of a long life has produced clinical symptoms of depression in many HIV-impacted patients.”

• “There is survivor guilt; these people have watched friends and lovers die, and now they may not. While feeling grateful, they are angry that their loved ones did not have the same chances.”

This is a lot of what I feel with regard to having a helpful medication for my ME/CFS-like Long Covid symptoms. So many people I know and love, have ME/CFS and have been sick for much, much longer, and are significantly more severely impacted. We have also (CW suicide!) lost many in our communities.

• “One of my patients, a woman, has been through so many wonder drugs that she does not comply with her medications because she does not want to get her hopes up and then have them smashed again.”

• “I was interviewed by Laura Beil with the Dallas Morning News. She asked me […] How can anything that is so clearly good news be met with anything other than joy? My patients talk about living in the world of AIDS and, that if you are not there, you simply cannot understand.”

I think that is another aspect, less so about the specific art upthread, but a larger and more difficult issue. My pocket friends, you are such wonderful company. Most people understand, here, maybe because you are already covid conscious, or because the art is helpful, or something else. I’ve also built a world and literally filled it with hundreds of bodies, each impacted by the ongoing pandemic.

When I muster the ability to go do a thing, most of the bodies I see do not behave as though there is a pandemic. They also do not understand that I am sick, and have very different expectations of me. I often do not have the words or energy to explain either, which furthers the disconnection.

• “As David Levithan wrote in Utne Reader: ‘At first when my T cells went up, I was ecstatic. Then I got scared, because now I have more to lose. I’ve survived the experience of almost dying, then come back as healthy as before. But sometimes I wonder if I have the strength to go through that loss again. Moreover the loss cuts both ways: Even when things change for the better, there’s a sense of loss. As much as I want to recover, part of me got attached to an image of myself as fragile and needy. I was afraid of losing the support I’d gotten being sick.'”

We are not yet at this place in Long Covid and related conditions, and many of us are still indefinitely ill. But when different treatments are effective and accessible, I hope people won’t blame themselves for feeling grief when losing an identity they had no choice but to accept to survive.

“So, where do we go from here. I imagine that everyone with HIV wants answers and direction. Of any population that can deal with these new developments, you can. You have learned to live for today and in doing so, live your future. You have felt less control and lived with that too.”

https://www.illmarks.com/symptom-guilt-that-a-treatment-is-working/

#actup #aids #aidspandemic #art #bodyMapping #chronicIllness #covid #granfury #hiv #hivpandemic #longCovid #longcovid #meCfs #mecfs #medart #medicalArt #MillionsMissing #Pandemic #pwLC #pwme #queerArt #sarsCov2 #SciArt #survivorSGuilt

Today in Labor History July 24, 1969: The Gay Liberation Front was founded in New York City less than one month after the Stonewall Riots. Members of the GLF would go on to found other radical queer activist groups like the Gay Activists Alliance, Gay Youth New York, and Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), and later groups such as ACT UP, the Lesbian Avengers, Queer Nation, and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. The GLF had a broad political platform, that was anti-racist and anti-capitalist. They supported various Third World struggles and the Black Panthers. They attacked the nuclear family and traditional gender roles. Some of their earliest direct actions were protests against the negative portrayal of queer people in the media, with an early focus on the homophobia of the Village Voice. Later in 1969, they started publishing their own magazine, “Come Out!”

#workingclass #LaborHistory #lgbtq #gayliberationfront #Revolutionary #liberation #anticapitalist #blackpanthers #ACTUP #lesbianavengers #QueerNation #sistersofperpetualindulgence #stonewall #Riot

Today in Labor History June 28, 1969: The Stonewall Uprising began after an early morning police raid of the Stonewall Inn, in New York. Initially led by trans women, lesbians and gay street kids, the riot grew into several days of street battles with the cops with thousands of LGBTQ people participating. At one point, when the riot squad tried to clear the streets, the crowd formed kick lines and sang: We are the Stonewall girls/We wear our hair in curls/We don't wear underwear/We show our pubic hair. In the days that followed, residents of Greenwich Village and members of the LGBTQ community began demanding the right to live openly, regardless of their sexual orientation, and without fear of being arrested. As the police beat and arrested people, protesters overturned police vehicles, smashed windows, and fought back. Some of those in the vanguard of the resistance were Marsha P. Johnson, Zazu Nova and Jackie Hormona. The next year, to commemorate the uprising, the first Pride Parades were held in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

One month later, the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) was founded in New York City. Members of the GLF would go on to found other radical queer activist groups like the Gay Activists Alliance, Gay Youth New York, and Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), and later groups such as ACT UP, the Lesbian Avengers, Queer Nation, and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. The GLF had a broad political platform, that was anti-racist and anti-capitalist. They supported various “Third World” struggles and the Black Panthers. They attacked the nuclear family and traditional gender roles. Some of their earliest direct actions were protests against the negative portrayal of queer people in the media, with an early focus on the homophobia of the Village Voice. Later in 1969, they started publishing their own magazine, “Come Out!”

Today, it is well known that Pride commemorates the Stonewall uprising. However, there were other queer uprisings that preceded it, like the Cooper Do-nuts Riots (1959), when the cops tried to arrest two drag queens and 2 male sex workers outside of Cooper Do-nuts, in Los Angeles. Onlookers began throwing coffee, donuts, and trash at the police until the cops fled without making any arrests. People continued to riot and celebrate, drawing even larger crowds until police backup came and began to savage beat people.

And there was the 1966 Compton’s Cafeteria riot, in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, in response to the constant violent police harassment of drag queens and trans women in the area. Many were sex workers, out of necessity, due to job discrimination against them in other lines of work. Compton’s was one of the few places where trans women could socialize publicly, as they were often unwelcome at gay bars, also due to transphobia. In those days, you could get arrested simply for wearing clothes of the “wrong” sex, including even just having the buttons on the “wrong” side of your shirt. Many of those involved in the riot were members of Vanguard, one of the first known gay youth organizations in the U.S. Because they refused to buy anything, management would routinely kick Vanguard members out and call the police on them, leading to a picket of Compton’s July 19, 1966, one of the first demonstrations against transphobic police harassment. One night in August, a Compton’s employee called the police on an “unruly” trans woman, who threw coffee in his face when he tried to arrest her. The cafeteria erupted, with people throwing tables, dining ware and other items at the cops and smashing windows. They hit the cops with their purses and shoes. The cops fled and called for backup. The next day, larger crowds showed up to picket Compton’s again.

The annual Trans March, held in many cities on the Friday before Pride weekend, commemorates the Compton’s Cafeteria riot. One of the goals of the Trans March is to increase visibility, activism and acceptance of all gender-variant people. In San Francisco’s Trans march, people meet in Dolores Park for music, speeches, and celebration, before marching to the corner of Turk and Taylor, in the Tenderloin, the site of the now defunct Compton’s Cafeteria.

#workingclass #LaborHistory #stonewall #lgbtq #trans #lesbian #TransRightsAreHumanRights #Riot #policebrutality #police #acab #pride #actup #sistersofperpetualindulgence #queernation #lesbianavengers #comptonscafetera

Ahhhh…are the bad old days of #ActUp back?

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:hialbbc7emjgfcofemiolees/post/3lrxjyls64c2k

Holy Fuck! This had me checking the calendar to make sure it was 2025 and not 1987. #ACTUP

Today in LGBTQ History May 27, 2020: Author and LGBTQ rights activist, Larry Kramer, died. He wrote the screenplay for the film Women in Love, (1969) and a novel called Faggots (1978), which was denounced within the gay community for its portrayal of shallow, promiscuous sex in the 1970s. However, he is probably most remembered for founding the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (1980), which became the world’s largest private organization assisting people with AIDS. And then cofounding the AIDS activist organization ACT UP (1987).

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #lgbtq #writer #author #fictin #books #LarryKramer #ActUp #aids @bookstadon