How Individuals Suffering From The Aids Epidemic Experienced

Heric and Glunt (1988:886) explain how individuals suffering from the AIDs epidemic experienced â€Å"intensely negative public reactions† since it was found to be a â€Å"deadly disease† and the gay men it was associated with were heavily stigmatised for their sexuality. What is more, before ACTUP was established the government s funding for AIDs was short and efforts were made to segregate AIDs inflicted people. However by 1985 gay and lesbian newspapers were bursting of reports of oppressive AIDs legislation suggesting that gay communities had taken confrontational activism years before the emergence of ACTUP, and according to Collins (2013) when ACTUP was established in 1987 â€Å"more than forty thousand people had already died in the US and five†¦show more content†¦Further, Gould (2009:50) informs us that â€Å"by the mid-1980s all levels of government were increasingly considering punitive laws† for example â€Å"tattooing HIV inflicted people. † In addition Gould (2009) highlights that gay and lesbian communities were under attack and the occasional demonstration or protest was not sufficient to stop this or make the government take correct action. Therefore, governments were able to avoid the epidemic and it was widely believed that gay men were responsible. According to Rimmerman (1998), ACTUP was established in March 1987 following Larry Kramer’s speech at the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center of New York and he stated how it â€Å"challenged the gay and lesbian movement to organise, mobilise, and demand an effective AIDs policy response.† As well Kramer made his audience of gay men aware that in the next five years two-thirds of them could be killed by the epidemic, in an attempt to mobilise them to act. Kramer relied on the mass media to frame ACTUPs events and inform the wider society of the governments’ severe misconduct towards the epidemic which would potentially give ACTUP a better chance of gaining a policy response if, for instance, policy makers were aware of and agreed with the changes to AIDs that needed to be made. This is with regard to the elite theory which according to Mills is when the â€Å"the power elite is composed of men whose positions enable them to transcend the ordinary environme nts of ordinary men and