LGBT Hollywood

LGBT Hollywood

12 hours ago

🇺🇸 The Blood Sisters was a movement of lesbian activists who organized and sponsored specialized blood drives and medical care for gay men during the height of the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s.

Founded in San Diego, California, in 1983, the group filled critical medical shortages and battle the social abandonment confronting gay men.

During the early 1980s, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) implemented a strict ban on blood donations from men who have sex with men. At the same time, many AIDS patients developed severe anemia and desperately needed blood transfusions. To bypass this barrier, activists Wendy Sue Beagle and Barbara Vic established a dedicated account with a private San Diego blood bank. This system allowed individual donors to legally designate where their blood went—specifically earmarking it for regional AIDS patients.

The Blood Sisters held their first drive on 16 July 1983. While organizers hoped for 50 volunteers, nearly 200 women lined up around the block to donate.

The group hosted 12 massive drives in San Diego up until 1992. They inspired similar grassroots networks in major cities like San Francisco, Boston, and Los Angeles.

Beyond blood, these women served as nurses, hospice volunteers, and bedside advocates. They provided vital physical and emotional touch when institutional medical staff and families often refused to enter patients' rooms out of fear. #whatisrememberedlives ... See MoreSee Less

LGBT Hollywood

4 days ago

Lea DeLaria loves San Francisco. The self-described “big dyke” returns to the city May 29 and 30 to perform a two-night stand at Feinstein’s at the Nikko. DeLaria has been performing for a long time. She began in 1982 at the late, lamented queer performance space The Valencia Rose, where she wowed audiences with a show called “Raging Bull.”

DeLaria has done it all. An accomplished jazz singer, she has recorded albums, performed on Broadway, and appeared in movies like “The First Wives Club.” She has also done television, where she was lauded for her portrayal of Carrie “Big Boo” Black on the acclaimed Netflix series “Orange is the New Black.” In 1993 she appeared on “The Arsenio Hall Show,” where the studio audience cheered her when she announced to the world that she was indeed a “big dyke.”

She has never been one to hold back. In a phone interview with David-Elijah Nahmod, DeLaria spoke about why she loves San Francisco.

“I really love it,” she said. “As much as I know people in San Francisco who say it changes, it changes, it changes, and I love to see those changes, there are things about the city that always remain the same that make me very happy and I do them every time I go there.”

Read more: www.ebar.com/story/166299 ... See MoreSee Less