biphobique:
i’m watching an AIDS documentary right now, and i can’t believe ronald reagan spread the completely false idea that HIV/AIDS can be spread through basic skin contact, toilet seats, spit etc…. and it’s not at all true that doctors “weren’t completely sure” if you were 100% safe from HIV by doing those things back then, because many doctors came out and spoke about how wrong he was almost immediately after he had started spreading this.
there’s no doubt in my mind reagan knew that HIV/AIDS could not be spread these ways, but purposefully decided to fear monger the public anyways. and this had a huge impact on how the public thought of/interacted with people who had HIV/AIDS, which was already horrible to begin with.
people started wearing rubber gloves around HIV-positive people because they were scared to simply touch a person who had HIV. parents started to take their kids out of school if they found out their child went to school with a student who had HIV, because they didn’t want to have their child in the same classroom as said student. some parents went as far as bullying HIV positive students and threatening them if they went around their kid/didn’t leave the school.
it just makes me so, so sad. my heart is always heavy when i think about how people with HIV/AIDS were treated, but it’s particularly heavy today for some reason. these people were dehumanized and treated like animals, and reagan directly contributed to this.
(via honeycombvisions)