Memories of an Epidemic

Aids was heralded by the press as the "Gay Cancer" or "Gay Plague", even with evidences showing that it was not a gay-only disease. 

This conception of the disease, whith associated homosexualith with promiscuity, still permeates the popular imagination today.

Marcus Vinícius Resende Gonçalves, better known as Markito, was a famous stylist, icon in the 1970s. 

Even with this important legacy for Brazilian fashion, his memory remains as the openly homosexual first public figure to be victimized by AIDS in 1983.

One of the first figures that the media sought to ask if she has the disease was Roberta Close, an iconic muse of travestis in the country. 

Prejudice against travestis in relation to AIDS was not only linked to gender identity, but also because they were associated with prostitution.

Bisexual people suffered specific prejudices with the outbreak of the epidemic, being identified as the bridges to AIDS. 

The disease was seen in the popular imagination as exclusively gay and bisexual people would be the transmitters to straight people. 

Even with a non-significant number of HIV infections among lesbians, prejudiced speeches and speculations about sexual exclusivity circulated in the media. 

The production on sexual health of this group remained scarced, marginalized and neglected.

The AIDS panic has intensified a climate of hatred and incitement to violence and the organization of neo-Nazi groups. 

This period became emblematic in figures such as the Maniaco do Trianon and in episodes such as the brutal murder of the theater directos Luiz Antônio Martinez.

With the death of actor Rock Hudson in 1985, the media began to speculate on the sexuality of victims of the disease. 

Progressively, AIDS gained new faces from celebrities who promoted public debates about sexuality and discrimination. 

In Brazil, the most emblematic figure associated with AIDS was the singer and composer Agenor de Miranda Araújo Neto, better known as Cazuza.

He was on the cover of several publications and made his fight against AIDS public, being a reference of resistance that marked generations.

The 1989 cover of Veja magazine, printed by Cazuza, is a record that remains today in the collective memory of media sensationalism and disrespect for health and life. The publication decrees the artist's public death.

Risk epidemiology translated into everyday life has transformed groups and communities into synonymous with the virus itself. 

Their confrontation generated a moral fight against “risk groups”: in addition to homosexuals, travestis and bisexuals, prostitutes, drug users, prisoner and black people. 

With the expansion of the epidemic, AIDS took on new faces that did not fit into “risk groups”. 

In addition to hemophiliacs, other groups came to represent AIDS “victims”: straight cisgender women, straight couples and children. 

In 1983, the group Outra Coisa was a pioneer in the production of informative material made by homossexuals for homosexuals.

The booklet was developed in conjunction with academia and public service, with Dra. Valéria Petri and Dr. Paulo Roberto Teixeira. 

The alternative press produced by homosexual groups and NGOs/AIDS, was essential for accessing reliable information about the epidemic and fostered debates within the gay, lesbian, black, travestis and people living with HIV/AIDS communities.

Even before the notification of the first cases in Brazil, the Gay Group of Bahia (GGB), in 1982, published the text “The Pink Plague kills gays” with information about the epidemic in the United States, explaining the symptoms associated with the disease.

Another important space for debate and the creation of other AIDS images was the Brazilian pornographic production. 

In 1982, Rose Magazine and the Homo Pleiguei newspaper brought, with irony and throwing shade, information and news about a disease that was affecting homosexuals in the United States.

Aids images have diversified with new possibilities for living with HIV, with access to antiretrovirals, biomedical technologies and combination prevention and positive pride gaining greater visibility. 

At the same time, discriminatory discourses were updated.