Copyright 2009 Studio 180 Theatre. | Website Design & Development by Marie Poulin
This timeline provides historical context for The Normal Heart, while also shedding light on the Canadian experience that is not a subject of the play, and extends beyond the timeframe of The Normal Heart to bring the issues of the play into a contemporary context.
The Stonewall riots in New York City. As a result of a police raid of the Stonewall Tavern on June 28, the Gay Liberation movement is born, focused on an explicit civil rights agenda via protest, political action, legislative changes and court/tribunal challenges.
The assassinations of gay San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone occur at San Francisco’s City Hall.
The epidemic later discovered to be AIDS becomes evident in Haiti.
During Toronto’s municipal election, mayoral incumbent John Sewell endorses openly gay alderman candidate George Hislop. The defeat of both Hislop and Sewell on November 10 reflects the city’s anti-gay climate.
On Feburary 5, Toronto police raid the city’s four largest bathhouses, causing major property destruction, verbally abusing and publicly humiliating hundreds of gay men and conducting one of the largest mass arrests of citizens in Canada’s history. The incident becomes a catalyst for LGBTQ action, galvanizing the community with street demonstrations involving thousands of people, and prompts the Right to Privacy Committee to establish a model of community organization, leadership and advocacy that will lay the groundwork for the soon-to-come fight against AIDS.
Outbreaks of pneumocystis carinii pneumonia (“PCP”) and a rare cancer, Kaposi’s Sarcoma, are reported by doctors in Los Angeles and New York among gay male patients. On June 5, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the US publishes news of the outbreaks and the deaths of five gay men. The syndrome is first referred to as “gay cancer” and, later, GRID (Gay-Related Immune Deficiency). One month later, on July 3, the New York Times publishes an article: “Rare Cancer seen in 41 homosexuals.”
In New York, Larry Kramer invites 80 friends into his home to discuss these sudden deaths of otherwise healthy gay men and the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) is formed.
In March, the first Canadian AIDS case is officially reported.
The syndrome, linked to blood, is identified not just in gay men, but also in recent Haitian immigrants, women, male heterosexual injection drug users, hemophiliacs, blood transfusion recipients and babies. On July 27, GRID is renamed AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome). Fourteen nations report AIDS cases.
Fifty-one AIDS cases are reported in Canada. The US reports 3,000 cases and over 1,000 deaths due to AIDS-related illnesses.
On July 19, the AIDS Committee of Toronto (ACT) makes its debut to the community.
At the Pasteur Institute in France, a team of scientists led by Dr. Luc Montagnier isolates the virus that may cause AIDS. They name it lymphadenopathy-associated virus (LAV).
American Dr. Robert Gallo and his team confirm the discovery of the virus causing AIDS, claiming it as their own and renaming it human T‑lymphotropic virus type III (HTLV-III). Montagnier and Gallo eventually agree to rename the virus human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), but their acrimonious ownership dispute continues for years.
Western scientists become aware that AIDS is widespread in parts of Africa.
The first needle exchange program is established in Amsterdam to help stop the spread of infection among injection drug users.
In San Francisco, the bathhouses are closed down. The community protests adamantly and, after a legal battle, they reopen.
In the US, AIDS rates have doubled within the year and over 6,000 cases are reported. About 150 cases are reported in Canada.
The Normal Heart opens at New York’s Public Theatre on April 21.
At the end of the 1985 march commemorating the assassination of San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone, Clive Jones and others stand on ladders taping placards with the names of friends and loved ones who had died of AIDS to the walls of the San Francisco Federal Building. The wall of names looks like a patchwork quilt – this eventually gives rise to the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, which will grow to more than 44,000 individual 3-by-6-foot memorial panels.
On September 17, US President Ronald Reagan publicly says the word “AIDS” for the first time.
In November, an HIV antibody test is made available in Canada. Community leaders fight for anonymous testing, though until any treatment becomes available, people are encouraged by activists to not get tested for fear of stigmatization. The Hassle Free Clinic immediately starts offering anonymous testing, even though anonymous testing is illegal is Ontario at the time.
Despite the availability of the HIV antibody test, the Canadian Red Cross does not halt the distribution of tainted blood products until 1987, resulting in a class action law suit from the hemophilia community.
The first International AIDS Conference is held in Atlanta, Georgia, and 2,000 people, primarily doctors and scientists, attend.
Movie star Rock Hudson publicly reveals he is living with AIDS.
38,000 AIDS cases have been reported globally from 85 countries.
The CDC reports significant racial disparities in rates of infection, recognizing that Black and Hispanic Americans are developing the disease at three times the rate of Caucasian Americans. Among children, the disparity is even greater.
Toronto becomes the first city in Canada to develop an AIDS strategy including funding for community-based organizations.
The Ontario Human Rights Code is amended to protect against discrimination based on “sexual orientation.”
In New York, Mayor Koch shuts down the bathhouses.
Dr. Jonathan Mann founds the World Health Organization’s Global Program on AIDS, alerting international leaders to the crisis and establishing AIDS as a global human rights issue.
The first anti-viral drug – AZT (zudovudine) – is approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and becomes available for people living with HIV and AIDS (PHAs) in America. There is limited access to AZT for Canadian PHAs, and over the next several years in Canada PHAs will regularly fight for access to experimental treatments already available outside of Canada.
The Toronto People With AIDS Foundation (Toronto PWA Foundation) is formed.
In New York, Larry Kramer, ousted from GMHC, which he founded, joins with other activists to form the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) – a “nonpartisan group of individuals united in anger and committed to direct action to end the AIDS Crisis.” On March 24, ACT UP organizes its first demonstration on Wall Street, to demand affordable life-saving medicines be made available to patients, an end to discrimination against PHAs, AIDS education and a coordinated government response to the crisis.
In April, President Reagan delivers his first major speech on AIDS.
In October, hundreds of thousands of people take part in the March on Washington for Lesbian and Gay Rights. ACT UP’s now iconic “Silence = Death” logo gains visibility. The inaugural display of the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt happens on the National Mall. It covers a space larger than a football field and includes 1,920 panels. Half a million people visit the Quilt that weekend.
AIDS ACTION NOW! (AAN!) forms in Toronto as a result of continuing frustration with government inaction and health care bureaucracy.
By the end of the year, 1,790 AIDS-related deaths have been reported in Canada.
The first World AIDS Day is recognized.
Several ethno-cultural AIDS service organizations are established in Toronto, including the Black Coalition for AIDS Prevention (Black CAP) and the Alliance for South Asian AIDS Prevention (ASAAP).
Canada’s first needle exchange program is established in Vancouver.
The fifth International AIDS Conference is held in Montreal in June. AAN! and ACT UP members take over the opening ceremonies. AAN! Chair, Tim McCAskell, officially opens the conference, calling attention to the fact that Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, slated to open the conference, is about to make his very first public speech about AIDS after five years in office as Prime Minister.
An estimated 8 million people are living with HIV and AIDS worldwide.
Canada’s Federal Health Minister Perrin Beatty announces the first National AIDS Strategy.
Developing from an AAN! initiative, the Community AIDS Treatment Information Exchange (CATIE) is established.
Darien Taylor and Andrea Rudd found Voices of Positive Women Support Services Ontario – funded primarily by the Ontario Ministry of Health and Health Canada – to serve the specific needs of women living with HIV.
Magic Johnson (professional basketball player) announces his positive HIV status, challenging the popular notion that HIV is a gay disease, but sidestepping the issue of homophobia and the need for gay-specific AIDS programs – information phone lines in community AIDS groups across Ontario report higher than average calls from concerned Canadians as result of Magic Johnson’s announcement.
The Red Ribbon is first worn publicly by Jeremy Irons at the Tony Awards. The red ribbon later becomes an international symbol of AIDS awareness.
In January, the Ontario government legalizes anonymous HIV antibody testing.
In the US, the CDC, FDA and National Institutes of Health (NIH) declare a joint statement that condoms are “highly effective for prevention of HIV infection.”
The female condom is approved in the US, but the CDC refuses to test the device in an anal sex context citing the fact that sodomy is illegal in several states.
In the US Congress, the HIV Travel and Immigration Ban is passed and HIV status becomes a factor in determining permission to enter the US.
Canada’s First Nations Peoples emerge as significant pop-ulations in the Canadian AIDS epidemic. Before 1993, 1.2% of reported AIDS cases were among Aboriginal peoples. This increases to 13.4% in 2003. (In the 2001 Census Aboriginal peoples make up only 3.3% of the Canadian population.)
AAN! Successfully pressures the Ontario government to establish Ontario’s Trillium Drug Program, a catastrophic drug program granting medication treatment access to all, with deductibles based on income.
AIDS is the leading cause of death for Americans ages 25 to 44.
The United Nations establishes the Joint United Nations Program on AIDS (UNAIDS).
By the mid 1990s women in Canada begin making up almost 25% of new HIV-positive test results, with Health Canada revising the definition of AIDS to include female opportunistic infections (invasive cervical cancer and some forms of bacterial infections in the respiratory system).
Dr. David Ho pioneers a multi-drug HIV treatment approach that leads to what is now called Highly Active AIDS Retroviral Therapy (HAART). The treatment drastically curtails deaths in a few short months. Time Magazine suspects treatment might lead to a cure and names Dr. Ho Man of the Year.
In the US, AIDS is no longer the leading cause of death among all Americans ages 25 to 44. It remains, however, the leading cause of death of African Americans ages 25 to 44 and the third highest among women in this age group.
In Ontario, there are about 950 new HIV diagnoses this year. Diagnosis continues at this steady rate over the next five years.
Activists are successful in pressuring the Canadian government to renew the National AIDS Strategy.
An estimated 22 million people are living with HIV and AIDS worldwide.
The Supreme Court of Canada reaches a decision in the case of R. v. Cuerrier and the act of not disclosing HIV status before engaging in an activity that poses a “significant risk” of HIV transmission becomes a criminal offense. The courts, however, provide no definitions, resulting in an inconsistent, subjective, case-by-case approach to interpreting the law.
One million people in Africa are newly infected with HIV this year. The UN Security Council discusses HIV/AIDS for the first time.
In Toronto, rates of infection among gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men (MSM) are on the rise.
Ontario HIV diagnoses increase to about 1,100 per year and remain at this rate.
Insite, North America’s first legal supervised injection site, opens in Vancouver.
The community-based Ontario Working Group on Criminal Law and HIV Exposure is formed to oppose the expansive use of the criminal law to address HIV non-disclosure. The Attorney General establishes guidelines for interpreting the law in 2011.
President Obama announces plans to lift the travel ban on HIV-positive people entering the US, effective January 2010.
An estimated 33 million people are living with HIV and AIDS worldwide – 2.5 million of these are children and 52% are women. This year, about 2.6 million people become newly infected with HIV and 1.8 million people die of AIDS-related illnesses.
Since the beginning of the epidemic, over 20,000 people in Toronto have tested positive for HIV. 87% of these people have been men. 82% of HIV-positive men are gay, bisexual or other men who have sex with men.
The Toronto PWA Foundation estimates that one third of Canadians living with HIV do not know they are infected.
Information for this timeline was gathered from the following organizations, media sources and publications: AVERT, AIDS Committee of Toronto, Toronto People With AIDS Foundation, Stephen Lewis Foundation, Toronto Star, Ontario HIV Epidemiologic Monitoring Unit, Pride Toronto, ACT UP, HIV & AIDS Legal Clinic (Ontario), Public Broadcasting Service’s FRONTLINE, Ann Silversides, AIDS Activist: Michael Lynch and the Politics of Community (Toronto: Between the Lines, 2003). Special thanks to Tim McCaskell and Rui Pires.
Copyright 2009 Studio 180 Theatre. | Website Design & Development by Marie Poulin