Image credit: The “People With AIDS” contingent in the 1983 San Francisco Gay Freedom Day parade; photo by Marie Ueda, Marie Ueda Photographs (2006-12), GLBT Historical Society.
In the 1980s and 1990s, the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the U.S.—and the federal government's woefully inadequate response—led to a new paradigm of empowerment led by people with HIV/AIDS and supporters. They fought for and won radical improvements to everything from research funding and improved design of clinical research, to early access to investigational therapies, to more equitable treatment-access programs. A panel of activists, policymakers, researchers and historians will examine how the lessons learned from fighting for HIV/AIDS treatment and research might help in the fight against COVID-19.
Our “Fighting Back” series is an intergenerational discussion that brings together community leaders, experts, historians and activists to explore lessons from the past that might be useful in formulating “resistance” efforts today.
SPEAKERS
Terry Beswick (moderator) has served as executive director of the GLBT Historical Society since 2016. At the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in San Francisco, he was a founding member of the local ACT UP and was the first national coordinator of ACT NOW, the national AIDS activist network. He advocated for HIV/AIDS research and treatment with Project Inform, the Human Rights Campaign and the White House Office of HIV/AIDS Policy. After the advent of effective treatments for HIV, Beswick worked as a journalist for the Bay Area Reporter and other LGBTQ community publications. More recently, he spearheaded a successful campaign to save and renovate the Castro Country Club for the queer recovery community and co-founded the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District. He holds an MFA in playwriting from San Francisco State University. Beswick has been named a Community Grand Marshal for the 50th Anniversary San Francisco LGBTQ Pride Parade and Celebration in 2020.
George M. Carter has been an AIDS activist since he joined ACT UP New York in 1989. He helped to run DAAIR and ran the New York Buyer’s Club, two buyers’ clubs that focused on integrative approaches to managing HIV, hepatitis C and antiretroviral side effects. He started FIAR in 2001 and has more recently been working on a list of potential therapies for treating SARS-CoV-2.
Liz Highleyman joined ACT UP/Boston in the late 1980s, and her experience as an activist inspired her to study public health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She has worked as a freelance medical journalist specializing in HIV for 20 years. She is currently the Science Editor for POZ magazine and covers HIV—and now COVID-19—for the Bay Area Reporter.
Brenda Lein was a Shanti volunteer in the late 1980s and early 1990s, providing practical support for people with AIDS. She also served as a member of ACT UP San Francisco and was a founding member of ACT UP Golden Gate. She helped to form WORLD, Women Organized to Respond to Life-Threatening Diseases, an organization for, by and about HIV-positive women. Lein also held the dual positions of director of information and advocacy and director of Project Immune Restoration at Project Inform. Most recently, she served as the program director for the Delaney AIDS Research Enterprise to Cure AIDS, a large, government-funded, international, multicenter, bench-to-bedside research effort. She is currently the president of the Linda Grinberg Foundation for AIDS and Immune Research, which funds cutting edge immune and HIV/AIDS cure research.
Matt Sharp is a long-term HIV survivor and a founding member of ACT UP Golden Gate. He has a 30-year history monitoring treatment and research for HIV, advocating for ethical, speedy and comprehensive drug development and has participated in over a dozen clinical trials. He resides in Berkeley with his dog Betty.
Jeff Taylor has been HIV-positive for 38 years. He has served as a community advisor to many research groups—beginning with the UC San Diego AntiViral Research Center Community Advisory Board and the Community Scientific Subcommittee of the AIDS Clinical Trials Group. He also serves on the AIDS Treatment Activists Coalitions Drug Development Committee, which meets regularly with pharmaceutical companies and the FDA on HIV drug development issues. Locally, he produces a monthly treatment education series on HIV treatment issues for HIV patients and providers, and serves as the director of the Palm Springs HIV & Aging Project to conduct community-based research on aging and HIV.
HOW TO PARTICIPATE
This event will take place online. After you register, you will receive a confirmation email with a link and instructions on how to join the Zoom webinar as an attendee. The event will also be livestreamed, and then archived, on our YouTube page at https://bit.ly/2UyGVbG.
ADMISSION
Free | Suggested donation of $5.00
Register online here: https://bit.ly/2S0DEjQ
The event is limited to 500 attendees.
JOIN THE GLBT HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Become a member of the GLBT Historical Society for free museum and program admission, discounts in the museum shop and other perks: www.glbthistory.org/memberships