HIV infected Larry Kramer, Playwright and Mouthy AIDS Activist, Dies at 84 - of AIDS

[Bradley K. Sherman]

Larry Kramer, the noted writer whose raucous, antagonistic
campaign for an all-out response to the AIDS crisis helped shift
national health policy in the 1980s and ’90s, died on Wednesday
morning in Manhattan. He was 84.

His husband, David Webster, said the cause was pneumonia. Mr.
Kramer had weathered illness for much of his adult life. Among
other things he had been infected with H.I.V., the virus that
causes AIDS, contracted liver disease and underwent a successful
liver transplant.

An author, essayist and playwright — notably hailed for his
autobiographical 1985 play, “The Normal Heart” — Mr. Kramer had
feet in both the world of letters and the public sphere. In 1981
he was a founder of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, the first
service organization for H.I.V.-positive people, though his
fellow directors effectively kicked him out a year later for his
aggressive approach. (He returned the compliment by calling them
“a sad organization of sissies.”)

He was then a founder of a more militant group, Act Up (AIDS
Coalition to Unleash Power), whose street actions demanding a
speedup in AIDS drugs research and an end to discrimination
against gay men and lesbians severely disrupted the operations
of government offices, Wall Street and the Roman Catholic
hierarchy.

Yes, Larry was the one who encouraged drug addict queers to act
like babies and shit on public streets and in public buldings.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/27/us/larry-kramer-dead.html