It spread the length of the National Mall, bearing the names of the dead.
The AIDS crisis was my introduction to gay politics. Preachers inveighed against gay people, saying it was punishment, saying Cuba had the right idea with interning them. Politicians turned a deaf ear. And my generation hid in the closet, staying single, staying silent, marrying the opposite sex if we could.
Two generations gone and a third in hiding. That's what that picture means to me. A loss of history, of continuity. A descent back into oppression.
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