Download
1 / 12
120 likes | 121 Views
Randy Shilts was a columnist and author who expounded on things that meant a lot to the LGBT people group, like the start of the AIDS epidemic in the US.
E N D
What did Randy Shilts do? • Randy Shilts was one of the first people to write for a major newspaper while being openly gay. He wrote a lot about LGBT issues, such as the fight for gay rights. He wrote the best-selling book, And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic, in 1987. It was about the beginning of the AIDS epidemic in the United States. Because of the book, Shilts became a trusted voice on AIDS.
Early Life • Randy Martin Shilts was born on August 8, 1951 in Davenport, Iowa. Bud and Norma Shilts had six sons, and Shilts was the third one. In Aurora, Illinois, where he grew up, he was raised in a religious and politically conservative family. Shilts mother was an alcoholic. Which could be mean to Shilts both physically and emotionally.
Graduation • Shilts moved to Oregon to go to college. He went to Portland Community College and the University of Oregon. He came out of the closet at school. Randy Shits went to the University of Oregon and worked as the editor of the student newspaper. In 1975, he got a degree in journalism. • Read Also: victoriachlebowski
Career in Journalism • Shilts didn’t hide the fact that he was gay while he worked as a reporter, which made it hard for him to find work. He finally got a job at The Advocate, a magazine for gay and lesbian people. First, he worked in Oregon. Then, he moved to San Francisco and worked at The Advocate until 1978. He also helped out a public TV station and an independent TV station in San Francisco until 1980.
Reporter for the Paper • When Shilts started working for the San Francisco Chronicle in 1981, he was the first openly gay reporter for the paper. He was hired to cover stories about gay people, but he also wrote about other things. As part of his job, he wrote about how more and more gay men in San Francisco are getting sick because of problems with their immune systems. Shilts saw how important the story was getting, so he talked the paper into letting him cover it full-time.
AIDS Epidemic • Shilts eventually wrote about the need to close bathhouses to stop the spread of AIDS. This made him unpopular with gay people who were against putting limits on sexual freedom. Shilts was called a “Gay Uncle Tom” by some. Shilts told us in 1984, “Gay activists might be able to fool a Los Angeles Times reporter by saying that the baths have nothing to do with the AIDS epidemic, but they can’t fool me because I know what goes on in the bathhouses. I myself used to go there.”
The Band Played On • People, Politics, and the AIDS Epidemic was Shilts’s next book (1987). In it, he talked about how the AIDS epidemic in the United States started, how it affected the gay community, and how the government did not care. And the Band Played On was a best-seller, and in 1993, it was turned into a TV movie. GaetanDugas, a Canadian flight attendant, is called “Patient Zero” in the book, which has caused some people to say bad things about it. Dugas was linked to a group of AIDS cases in Los Angeles, but he did not bring HIV to North America or help it spread in the U.S.
U.S. military • In his last book, Conduct Unbecoming: Lesbians and Gays in the U.S. Military, Vietnam to the Persian Gulf (1993), Shilts wrote about how lesbians and gays were treated unfairly and were persecuted when they tried to join the U.S. military. He decided to write about it because he thought, “The military issue is a way to show how much prejudice affects gay people’s lives.”
HIV and AIDS Disease • In March 1987, Shilts was told that she had HIV. He asked his doctor to wait to tell him the news until and the Band Played On was done because he didn’t want his health to affect his writing. Even though the diagnosis scared Shilts at first, he quickly started his next book, Conduct Unbecoming.
Shilts illness • Shilts’ illness became AIDS in 1992. Because his immune system was weak, he got pneumonia and Kaposi’s sarcoma, a type of cancer. But Shilts didn’t tell anyone about his illness until 1993. He told them, “Every gay writer who tests positive for AIDS becomes an AIDS activist, and I don’t want to become one. I wanted to be a reporter for a long time.”
Death • Shilts died on February 17, 1994, in Guerneville, California. He was 42 years old. AIDS was the cause of death. His funeral was take issue by the Westboro Baptist Church.
