x-tricks:

salliethesalad:

During the 1980s, more gay men died in New York City during the AIDS crisis than all recorded deaths of American soldiers in Vietnam. You need to know that.

Essentially, the gay male community lost a generation - the mentors, the guides, many were instrumental in building (pre-AIDs) gay male experiences.  There’s no knowing what things would be like now, if that generation of gay men hadn’t been decimated.