“A Thousand Kindred Spirits”: Reflections on AIDS Activism and Representations of AIDS in US Culture and Conversation

This article is one woman’s reflection on her experiences as a member of ACT UP/ New York in the late 1980s and early 1990s through the lens of subsequent engagement in scholarship on AIDS representation in literature and visual media. Excerpted from a keynote address at a conference on the thirtieth anniversary of ACT UP at the University of York in June 2017, this essay reflects on the legacy of AIDS activism, ACT UP meetings, women and AIDS, needle exchange, safe sex workshops, the creation of the book Women, AIDS, and Activism, and queer kinship and conversation.