HIV/AIDS campaigns and queer activism in Athens and their transnational context, ca. 1985-ca. 1997

Abstract

Abstract: This article explores the significant but complex impact of transnational flows of ideas in the West on the emotional vocabulary and safer sex perceptions of queer activists in Athens between ca. 1985 and ca. 1997. It shows that the increasing engagement of several queer activists in Athens with HIV/AIDS campaigns, and the diversification of their safer sex perceptions, were catalyzed by a selective reception of emotion-laden ideas from HIV/AIDS campaigns in the USA and Western Europe. The Athens-based queer activists in question developed an affective solidarity deeply inspired by HIV/AIDS activism elsewhere in the West without necessarily being directly involved in it. In this vein, this article helps diversify the emerging research on cross-border transfers between HIV/AIDS activists in Europe and North America in two ways: it recalibrates the geographical focus on northwestern Europe and, crucially, it nuances its emphasis on the transnational coordination and synchronicity of HIV/AIDS campaigns in northwestern Europe and North America. My analysis also helps refine a powerful public health scholarship narrative focusing on biomedical progress regarding HIV/AIDS: it shows the complex involvement of transgender activists in HIV/AIDS activism in Athens, namely their participation, which was more substantial compared to some other ACT UP chapters in the West. Simultaneously, the article demonstrates the lack of references to trans bodies in those campaigns. Recent multidisciplinary research illuminates the experiences and exclusions in HIV/AIDS activism of individuals from diverse social backgrounds but has largely neglected transgender HIV/AIDS campaigners.