Content Warning: This section contains references to anti-gay bias, the stigmatization of HIV/AIDS, and death.

The symptoms of acquired immunodeficiency virus (AIDS) and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) were first documented in the United States in 1981, when the first patients began showing evidence of suppressed immune systems. Early cases appeared to be limited to gay men; a physician in Los Angeles discovered five instances of lung cancer in otherwise healthy individuals, and reports to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicated a rare and aggressive cancer called Kaposi’s sarcoma that was affecting gay men in both New York City and in California. After extensive research, scientists from the United States and France identified HIV as the retrovirus that causes AIDS (“A Timeline of HIV and AIDS.” HIV.gov). HIV attacks the body’s immune cells, thus preventing the body from being able to fight infection. If left untreated, HIV becomes AIDS—the final stage of the disease (“What Is HIV?” HIV.gov, 13 Jan. 2024).

Because HIV was a novel virus at the time of its emergence, scientists knew little about its modes of acquisition and transmission. By 1984, panic about HIV/AIDS spread as it became widely known by the public.