a Previously on 'When We Rise'. I'm gonna have a baby, Roma. And I want to raise it with you. I just can't see myself ever having a family. Maybe we're here for something bigger than ourselves. Maybe we were put here to fight. If anyone even suspects that we have a relationship` Why would they?! Thanks to you, nobody anywhere knows we mean a damn thing to each other. If we ever want to be freed, we have to stop hiding. Mayor Mascone and Supervisor Harvey Milk have been killed. Come on! From tragedy sprung new political power. (REPORTERS CLAMOUR) I promised Harvey Milk that I would make state assembly members take a public vote every session on a gay anti-discrimination bill. It was working all right. It maybe even good again. No further questions for the assemblyman, thank you. We were making headroom, using the machine to build and rebuild our dream. But that's the thing about equality; a little taste leaves you wanting more. Hundreds of teens ` gay, straight, black, white, run here every year because our city has a reputation of acceptance. But we're not equipped to receive them. They end up on the streets, turning to drugs and crime to survive. At our Haight Street drop-in, we offer support and a path off the streets. But we need more funding to get to more youth while their dreams are still intact. (JOY DIVISION'S 'LOVE WILL TEAR US APART') # When routine bites hard And ambitions are low # and resentment rides high... # Bobby! The eagle has landed, and she's thirsty. You know, a gay character comes out in 'Fame', but they cast a straight guy to play him. You think we'll ever have a gay movie star? We already do. Cary Grant, Anthony Perkins, Montgomery Clift. It is good to be home. I'm two days into a four-day weekend, and all I have to show for it is a rash on my feet. Well, maybe if you wore shoes in the bathhouses. I went hiking, and it was rotten. Mm-hmm. Any of those your thing? The blond? I don't know how it's done in Seattle, but here's how it's done in the Castro. Watch and learn. Make eye contact as they walk past. You count to three. One, two... And if they look back, that means they're interested. Then you have a quick chat, nothing too personal, take him home. Fish in a barrel. # Love, love will tear us apart again. Hi! Auntie Jean loves you so much! I'll come back to check on you on Tuesday. I'll meet you out front. She's amazing. Yes, she is. I told Jean you wouldn't want me here. But she said, 'We're lesbians. We show up. That's what we do.' Roma, the circle, all your friends, I love the help. But with Annie and my new job, I need to protect myself. When they come, you come. It's not good for me, and I know it's not gonna be good for Annie. So no more just showing up, OK? Oh. OK. Good? Hey, Daniel. What's up, man. Where you been? I been around Bay Shore area, you know. I got a work gig now, man. I'm restocking. Restocking what? Well, we got alarm clocks, we even got bird cages. We even got stuff from all over, man. Why? What's the matter? You disappear. It usually means you're using. I'm just hungry. So if you ain't gonna feed me, I'll go. Hey. Hey! Hey! I'm sorry, but if something's called chili, it must have spice. Christopher. Christopher! I got it. You know better than to come in here high. My mom, she says everything is better spicy. I want something tastes more like home, OK? You talking to your mom again? You see we're, uh, starting a social group for the gay kids in the Tenderloin? Thursday nights. I'm not a gay man. OK. I'll invite a few young ladies like yourself. OK? (SILVERWARE CLATTERS) Daniel? Daniel, Daniel, Daniel! Excuse me. Guys? Excuse me. Only family can be back here. He doesn't talk to his family. Pneumocystis pneumonia is typically seen in cancer patients, the elderly not young, healthy. He is a heroin user. Well, heroin shouldn't impact his T-cells like this. Daniel: What's happening? We're gonna figure it out. I'm not going anywhere. It's not poison oak. It's not bruises. Bruises are normally isolated and not symmetrical. But I have seen a few cases like it as of late. We'll have pathology back in a few days. How's Sacramento, Cleve? Well, we got the gay rights bill out of the labour committee, finally. Makes wearing those disgusting ties almost worth it. I, uh, I saw a spot like it on a guy's back who I was with. Tell him to come see me too, then. It's not like I got his name. Well, if you see him again. Why? If it's what I think it is, it's something I'd normally only see on old farts. Are we done here? I don't wanna waste another moment of this weekend. I called my guy in Jersey, and he said he's seen cases like this too, in homeless drug addicts. They all died, Pat. What if we've got what they have on their streets on ours now, too? Is this kid gay? What's that got to do with anything? The CDC just put out a new morbidity and mortality report. In it, they talk about immune issues in New York and California in gay men. If this is real, what is it? It's one report. Very dry. Now, do me a favour. Find out if the kid is gay, and then let's keep it amongst ourselves, OK? Don't let me go back to Sacramento! (LAUGHS) While you're in Sacramento fighting for our freedom, they're all landing here to get their first taste of it. Hundred new ones a day. And I'm gonna screw every one last one of them. Daniel's smart. He convinced a whole block on Geary to let him wash their windows for five bucks each. Ah. But as soon as he gets enough to score, he disappears. When he comes back, I think, 'All right, this time I'll get through.' Yeah, I get that. Want me to go with you to see him? I went to see Pat Norman about him. But, yeah, you have more experience with kids like that, so, yeah, I'd love you to come. (LAUGHS) It's Tuesday night. The boys await. And you are ruining our floors. Ah, come on. MAN: The Gay Liberation Front was the name first chosen to describe the organization of homosexuals coming together to assert their pride, their feeling that they had been denied their rights and that they were very angry. We want the freedoms. The freedoms to love and sometimes even to love a bit in public that belong to the heterosexuals in this country. # Lost inside. Adorable illusion. And I cannot hide. # I'm the one you're using. # Please don't push me aside. We could've made it cruising, yeah. You know, now that I'm a public official, I really should stop coming here. Don't you think? You're more an assistant to a public official. Aren't you? (LAUGHS) Oh, the thing about Ken is he has a lover, but they're emotionally monogamous. But only emotionally. You see, he doesn't like this place. It's not Oakland enough for him. Too many white boys here. Which I don't mind one bit. Your plan for day one is take vitals, Q4, you say hello, clear some meal trays, change beds, PRN, and make a written report. Got it? Phlebotomy order has to be in by 6 or you're gonna get stuck with an intern who doesn't know the difference between an artery and an artichoke. (CHUCKLES) (COUGHS) No, no, Diana, I don't want you going in there. That's an isolation room. Let's go get you a hospital I.D. Come on. You know, sometimes teenagers I work with trade sex for things they need ` money, food. Have you ever done that? I think what Ken is asking is if you've ever had sex with men. You can tell us. We'll be discreet. Get away from me. Both of you. Is that what you do to all your kids? You give them things, and you try to turn them into your little bitch? Daniel! I'm not a queer! You ain't doing me, and I ain't doing you. I'm sorry. We're` We're sorry. We don't want anything from you. (COUGHS) I do have experience with this, you know. Being gay and black? Those ideas don't exist side by side for most. You gotta get to that truth sideways, Richard. Here we go. Wouldn't expect you to understand. I'm taking a walk. Ken? Hey! Hey. What are you doing here? Hey. Mm. Do me a favour? Keep an eye on the patient in 220 for me. In Isolation? His name's Daniel. I got to go, and I don't want to leave him alone. He's just a kid. OK. Thank you. (DANIEL COUGHS) KEN: My mother used to say, 'Everybody's got a second brain in their belly. 'They got instinct that tells you the things your head can't handle.' I knew it in my gut. My instincts were tripping the alarms at every turn. MAN: Cleve, a third of those men have already died. The CDC wants to call it gay-related immune deficiency or GRID. So, it is a gay disease. Gay people have been around forever, so I can't see how it is, but that's what they call it. These lesions I'm seeing are called Kaposi sarcoma, or KS. It indicates the immune system is failing. Is that KS on Bobby's feet? You know I can't tell you that. The big question is, what's causing it? What things set gay men apart? Clothing, plants, our bars, or is it` is it gay sex? I've helped start a KS education research foundation. With research, we pressure the government for funding. We have legal support, the Bay Area Reporter, but politically we don't have anyone. I know you've got Sacramento, but this community trusts you. We need you. We work together, maybe we can get some answers before this gets out of hand. If sex is the problem and it is fatal, then we're all dead. 5 KEN: Labelling this a gay disease is part of the problem. The kid from our teen centre said he's straight. You believe him? Maybe, maybe not. But isn't it possible that kids here and Jersey and New York and L.A. are getting sick another way? A gay disease is a gift to the moral majority. And I don't wanna sit back and watch years of political progress roll back because of some mythology they've created and labelled 'the gay plague'. So your silence, the silence of City Hall, is about politics? About the community, your community, not panicking. And, yeah, a little bit is to try to stem the tide of more anti-gay backlash. Why would we panic? Listen, man, I work for the Department of Health. And nobody wants to get this more right than I do. You represent our community in City Hall now. I'm not going to say anything until I know that we have a treatment and a cure. But we don't know how long that's gonna take. I won't be quiet any more. Our friends are dying. If you know anything... anything, Pat, you have to share it. MAN: OK, let's ventilate the patient. Do you have I.V.? Here. I'm getting it now. WOMAN: Line in. Standing by. Keep bagging him. Taking it now. (MONITOR BEEPS) Right away, Doctor. BP's dropping. You have a child, Diane. No one would blame you if you wanted to stop. This is unlike anything we've ever seen. You don't have to be a saint. Polio, influenza, cholera ` those are all deadly. The only difference here is it's affecting gay people. If straight people were dropping dead, the world would have redirected it's resources right to us. We'd be swimming in volunteers. Instead, you and I are working double shifts 'cause the hospital's understaffed, and GRID patients are being sent here from everywhere. That pullback, that avoidance, that neglect ` that's homophobia disguised as caution. And if it continues, you could call this a genocide. So, no, I don't... I don't think it takes a saint to not participate in that. Men are dying in hallways in New York City. We can't let that happen here. We could build a San Francisco standard of care. I'm saying if it's a gay male issue, is it any surprise? Seriously, come on. I mean, they go out at night, they do tons of drugs, they drink all the time, and they have sex with strangers. Is it a shock that they catch something? This is not herpes, though. People are actually dying here. Yeah, well, women are dying of breast cancer. I don't see many gay men up in arms about that. ALL: You've got that right. OK, let me just put it to you this way. OK, go. If this thing turns out to be sexual, that means women are at risk as well. The invisible women, the housewives, the prostitutes. Then, of course, there are the children. I just wanna have a forum here so I can maybe quell the gay men's hysteria. (CROWD CLAMOURS, GAVEL BANGS) Woman: Keep it down! PAT: I do not have definitive information on how GRID is spread. So then what is the city's prevention strategy? As soon as I have the appropriate data` At this point, I'm more interested in inappropriate data. ROMA: This isn't a joke, people. No, it's not a joke. There's a thousand theories and a million rumours and absolutely no information. It's the lack of information that creates panic, Pat, not the other way around. Incomplete information does not help, either. There, she just said it. Incomplete information implies that you know something! What do you know? Yes, please. Stop talking in circles and answer our questions. Should we stop having sex? Yeah, I think that would be a good idea. (CROWD MURMURS) Do you have proof? Based on what? One at a time! What do you know? One at a time! What do you know? Just tell us! What do you know? Give it a rest, Cleve. Raise your hands. Maybe until we know what this is for sure, no more bathhouses? No more roller rink Tuesdays? Just us. Like a boring old straight couple. I don't want to die. And I don't ever want to hurt you. Yeah. 4 REPORTER: Many religious groups have far less trouble defining homosexuality. When you break the moral laws of God, you mentally, physically, and spiritually pay the price. You're saying that this is a result of lifestyle` Absolutely. ...and immorality. You know that's true in your heart. Thank you. That is` That is very helpful. (SIGHS) That was a community health liaison from Miami. They've got a cluster of new cases in Haitian immigrants, mostly women. This could be the proof we need to rip off the 'gay' label and get federal action. Proof of what? That it's not just a gay thing. I.V. drug users, black folks, poor folks, immigrants, women. You think any of those groups are gonna get Reagan to give a damn? If I didn't know any better, I'd say it's a government plot. (LAUGHS) Yeah. I work for the government. They couldn't pull something this intricate off. Wilfully letting it spread, that's another story. MARVIN: When did they start installing those ionizers in all the bars? Last year or two. What if it's the ionizers? Who'd go through all that trouble? The cops, the Pope, Jerry Falwell. This isn't a conspiracy to kill us. Maybe just to knock us back down to size, take our political power. Marvin, go on, tell them. I got an audition with the Prince Street Players to play the White Rabbit in 'Alice in Wonderland'. Back in New York? They're getting sick in New York, too. Not running away. This has always been my dream. OK? Would you stand up? I need you to open your robe. If you take me to dinner first, maybe. (CHUCKLES) I said I need you to open your robe or leave. What are you doing? Hey! Whoa! Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa! Sir! Sir! Stop it! Take your hands off of him! Hey! Come on! Sir! You can't be in here like that. I'm sorry. Do you ever share towels with anyone else? No. Perfect. Who are you? Oh, are you Cleve? I asked you first. Mike-Mike Gorman. Well, Mike, the last thing I need right now is some straight government suit hanging around here screwing with my head. I don't-I don't represent any government interest. I'm part of a UCSF research study on KS that may help determine risk factors for what the CDC is calling GRID. Glad to see our little plague here is so exciting for you. Now, how do you know my name? You're what we call a-a key informant. Your profile in the community could lend credibility to help encourage participants. I delayed talking to you because I'm not a Castro clone, but that doesn't mean I'm not attracted to men, and you're... you're out of my league, so I-I got nervous. (CHUCKLES) (LAUGHS) You need these men to tell you their dirty secrets? Yeah. Well, that just might be my superpower. Have you ever had any of the following diseases or conditions. Syphilis? Nope. Do you have multiple sexual partners? Yes. In a good week? Yes. Do you have an open relationship? Openish. Yeah, 'ish'. Do you have unprotected sex? Yes. Depends on the day. Do you frequent bathhouses? Occasionally. Together? Sometimes. Yes. Do you own any ficus plants? Yes. I'm sorry. I'm not sure I don't actually know what a fi` ...what it is. Have you travelled abroad in the last six months? I travelled with a broad, but only to New York. Is there anything else you'd like to tell us or you want us to add to this? I saw some bumps once. It's not really a big deal. When did they first appear? Three... Maybe a month. Maybe a month. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have KS or think you might? I don't know. What sort of symptoms are you experiencing? I'm seeing the spots. Have you seen a physician? No. Do you have health insurance? No. You guys are gonna figure this out, right? We're going to try. I spend all day making vegetable soup, and you bring him chocolate pudding? It's what he asked for. It's all sugar! He's still got a metabolism. He can handle it. Unlike some people. (CHUCKLES) (SAD MUSIC) KEN: I'm not a god or a healer. I thought the way to help was to look for the truth. The truth shall set you free. But he died on a Tuesday night... all alone. I'm so sorry about Daniel. I was doing the best I can. It's not enough. Where are the rest of the women? Or is it just when it's politically helpful that we act like a family? DIANE: Every traditional support system has turned it's back on these men, and nobody knows better how to work outside the system than us. What are you asking for, Diane? This institution, and all the things that we know how to do because we're used to being left out. (CHUCKLES) Which programmes do we sacrifice? Rape crisis? Right. Battered women? Childcare? The Roma I knew years ago wouldn't be so easily deterred in a crisis. We don't have endless funds. What gets cut? What I'm saying is this isn't something nice we can do. This is a necessity. And it's gonna take vision for us to step up. So I'm asking you to dig deep for our brothers, Ms. Visionary Roma Guy. They are dying. I heard about Daniel. He didn't have anyone. He had more than I would've. It's nice to see you. You gave him more than any of us here will ever get. He got family from you. What do you think about a job here so I can keep an eye on you? Hey. Do you have a minute? No, I don't. The other night, I sensed some unresolved crap towards me. I understand, but I was at work. It wasn't the place for that. You do realize that now you're at my work. You wouldn't return any of my calls. I wrote you letters after Toko, Diane, love letters. And you never responded. I took that to mean you moved on, so I moved on too. Love letters? They were weird detailed updates about your professional status. 'Hey, Diane, I had an interview with N.O.W. today. They bought me a Caesar salad!' Well, clearly, we are just in two very different places now. Yeah, I'm in hell. You're on planet narcissism. I'm trying to clear the air. Then maybe we can truly be done. Take a lap around this ward. If at the end of it you still think that my bid for volunteers is some excuse to work out unresolved feelings, then, yes, Roma, we can be done. (MAN COUGHS) (PEOPLE COUGH) MAN: And it was the Kaposi sarcoma that triggered everything. It's such a rare malignancy, and yet now we're seeing apparently about 10 to 15 new cases per day in the country, with a doubling rate every six months. Come on in. I think there's some room back there. Hi. Hi. Happy birthday. My journal from the Peace Corps days. I thought you might want to know what a love letter looks like. This map was used by Harvey Milk in his last election. It marks the population of gay men in the city. The red areas indicating where the gay men live. (CROWD MURMURS) These blue points indicate opportunistic infections associated with GRID, and as you can see, they line up perfectly. The geographic pattern combined with the behavioural surveys support that this is likely a sexually-transmitted disease being contracted almost exclusively by men from other men. No, how do we know this isn't just you feeding the media storm? Yeah! All these cameras to beat us down? No, I'm not one of them! I'm one of us! And this is happening in our neighbourhood, our homes. This is what the beginning of an epidemic looks like. It's a shape seen in other large-scale outbreaks, such as hepatitis. Does it have a long latency period, like hepatitis? Latency is a period of time one is infected and contagious before showing any symptoms. In hepatitis, this period is several years. Could this be the same? Yes. So you're saying many of us in this room already have it? It's possible. Maybe even likely. Please, everyone, look at the map. Look at our neighbourhood. This is ours. This is our truth. Each one of us must own who we are and start to demand the same health and protection straight people would demand in a plague! KEN: That night, things became clear that whatever it was standing between each of us and our truth, be it fear, denial, shame ` that those forces would hold us back and steal our lives away just as quick as any infection would. All my life, I was told I had to choose gay or black. We make this a gay fight, a lot of black people are going to die. Have you ever thought instead of taking the 'gay' out of GRID, what if you take 'gay' to the black community? You know? I don't think you realize how long that road would be. I can't go back to Sacramento, not for a while. MAN: I understand. What use is a gay rights bill if there's no lives to protect? Stay there for now. Thank you, sir. Please, your job is safe here, all right? But be careful. Your people need you alive. We'll figure this out quickly, sir. Make eye contact as they walk past. And then you count to three. One, two... (GROANS) GRID is God's gift to fags. (COUGHS) 5 CLEVE: Somebody call Randy Shilts at the Chronicle. If I'm gonna be assassinated, I sure as hell want to get some good press out of it. What? Marvin had a seizure at the airport on his way to New York. It's meningitis. His immune system is gone. No. No, he's a dancer. He's strong. Hey! Whoa, Cleve? Where are my glasses? What are you doing? Put that back. (GROANS) You're all sweaty. Shh. It's OK. It's OK. I'm right here. Shh. Now, you're gonna go to New York and you're gonna... you're gonna play the White Rabbit. You're gonna be so good. Everybody loves a winner. So nobody loved me. Lady Peaceful. Lady Happy. That's what I long to be. REPORTER: AIDS, or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, kills four out of 10 people who acquire it, and that mortality rate might climb. KEN: It wasn't until women started dying and babies were born with it that the CDC changed GRID to AIDS. But it didn't matter that the word 'gay' was gone. To straight America, it was still that disease that kills fags. My proposal is for a mobile needle exchange aimed at our neighbourhoods dispersing condoms and clean needles. You want to encourage our children into a life of homosexuality? Or you just want to turn them into drug addicts? These are measures aimed at members of our community who are already participating in risky behaviours. Start-up cost is $2000. To encourage our children to embrace sin? I say this as someone who served three tours in Vietnam. This is a war. And it is going to come to our community ` the black community. There is no gay in a real black man. No real black man is a homosexual. I am standing in front of you as a proud gay black man telling you that if you continue to force gay black men to live closeted double lives, a decade from now you will be burying their wives, their children, our children. We cannot allow fear and bigotry and ignorance to allow this to happen to our own! Mr. Jones. Next is the Ellis Street playground. Diane? We're with the women's building. Roma said you could use some help. She did? Uh, yeah, thank you. Follow me. Hi. I'm here with the women's building. Is there anything you need? No. No, I'm, um, I'm up in Trauma. He's my best friend. Why don't you take a break? I'll stay here with him. Ouch. (CLEARS THROAT) Visiting a friend? Yeah. Are you on this ward? No, no I'm up in Trauma. Just visiting a friend. Up or down? Oh. (CHUCKLES) Down. Ground floor. Funny. That's exactly where I was headed. I read your journal. We were in love. The kind of love that makes people cross oceans, have babies, and grow old together. And if we were straight, we would've designed our whole lives around that. But two women... then. We had no words for it. No paradigm. Nothing. And you're right. It's my lack of vision that's kept me from having this... a family. Roma... I know I've hurt you. I know I've made a big mess of it all. And the world's falling apart around us and untangling. It may be impossible. But the truth is, we're not done yet. To most of America, to white people, black people, straight people, people of God, we were invisible, untouchable pariahs to anybody but our own. CLEVE: We send this message to America. We are the lesbians and gay men of San Francisco. We are survivors. We shall survive again, and we shall be the strongest, most gentle people on this Earth. How many of you have lost a friend co-worker or a lover? If we are to survive, we cannot die in silence. We must make their names known. Write their names. Write their names and put them on this federal building. Write their names so they know we are their sons and we are their daughters. Write their names. Write their names. It's a quilt. KEN: Richard and I knew that the truth might be frightening, that we know that we're both positive. Some people say we're all gonna die. I say they're wrong. We're gonna fight this together. And we're going to live. We are going to live. Captions by Anne Langford. www.able.co.nz Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2017