The Tragedy of Today's Gays

by Larry Kramer

Discusses the current situation of gay men and women in the United States, maintaining that the current conservative agenda and the gay community's own lack of political involvement have eroded their legal rights.

Genres: Nonfiction, LGBT, Gay, Politics, History, Queer Studies, Queer

128 pages, Paperback

First published April 21, 2005

About the author

Larry Kramer (born June 25, 1935) was an American playwright, author, public health advocate and gay rights activist. He was nominated for an Academy Award, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and was twice a recipient of an Obie Award. In response to the AIDS crisis he founded Gay Men's Health Crisis, which became the largest organization of its kind in the world. He wrote The Normal Heart, the first serious artistic examination of the AIDS crisis. He later founded ACT UP, a protest organization widely credited with having changed public health policy and the public's awareness of HIV and AIDS.[1] "There is no question in my mind that Larry helped change medicine in this country. And he helped change it for the better. In American medicine there are two eras. Before Larry and after Larry," said Dr. Anthony Fauci.[1] Kramer lived in New York City and Connecticut.

Reviews

[Sue Online · Rating 5 out of 5]

We went to the Reference Library to buy some cheap a** books at their book store. Ten cents a book, for select books. But the book store didn't open for another half an hour, so we looked up into that beautiful building, and decided to hit the gay and lesbian section. The directory said it was on the 2nd floor, and so we headed up. I asked a bored looking librarian where the gay and lesbian section was, and he kindly (and rather excitedly) lead me to the section, all the while explaining that if I wanted medical books about gays and lesbians, I'd have to go to medical. And if I wanted biographies of gays and lesbians, I'd have to go to biographies. This area, he explained, was social sciences.

I thanked him, and started browsing. There are hundreds of thousands of titles in this library, and the “gay and lesbian” section I was shown to was about 200 books at most. They were tucked in between political analyses of porn and child molestation (really). It reminded me of my favourite Indigo bookstore, which is a massive 2 stories and has many thousands of titles. But there is 1.5 shelves (not book cases, just shelves) of gay and lesbian books. Or the Strand in New York, with a tiny gay and lesbian section because, I was told, it's all mixed in with everything else. I guess that makes sense, but then you can't just go browse the lesbian books. You have to know what you're looking for. Anyway…

Mostly I was taking photos of book titles for the LesbianFunWorld bibliography collection, but then one caught my eye. The Tragedy of Today's Gays, by Larry Kramer. I don't know who Larry is, but the foreword was by Naomi Wolf so I started reading. Well, partially reading. I only had about 30 minutes. So I skipped the foreword and the afterword, and went right to the meat of the book. Text from a speech Larry gave.

I read quickly. First, just standing by the stacks. Then I got tired and leaned against a half-wall. Eventually we made our way to a table and chairs and I read. And read. And read.

I started off being kind of bemused by Larry's pronouncements. “The new Supreme Court, due any moment now, will erase us from the slate of everything possible in no time at all. Gay marriage? Forget it. Gay anything good, forget it. Civic rights for gays? Equal protection for gays? Adoption rights? The only thing we are going to get from now on is years of increasing and escalating hate.”

Strong and angry words, and I thought, ha! Was he wrong. We have gay marriage, and they sort of have it in the US. And we have rights and…

And then I kept reading. I wasn't bemused for long, but intrigued. Does he really suggest that we are responsible for our own AIDS epidemic? Yes, that's exactly what he says. He calls it murder, willful murder, for gay men to have sex without a condom. He says he's a murderer, having possibly killed dozens of young men by having unprotected sex with them. “We were the first free gay generation, and we were murdered because of our freedom… I wish we could understand and take some responsibility for the fact that for some thirty years those f*cking without condoms have been murdering each other with great facility and that down deep inside of us we knew what we were doing…”

Stronger words and stronger ideas follow. He attacks those who disdain the history of the gay and lesbian communities because without an understanding of the past, you won't see the “monstrous acts” the future has in store for you at the hands of the few right, white Christians who run everything. He says we are disappearing before our own eyes.

“As much as I love being gay and I love gay people, I'm not proud of us right now. It's slowly disappeared, this pride. It's becoming injured. I almost could say we've disappeared… They are killing us. They are eradicating us from this earth. Little by little by little we are disappearing. I do not see us, and I am beginning to see us less and less.”

As I read that, I was torn between doubting him and being afraid to believe him. And then I thought to myself, if I take just this one experience today, where I went looking for gay and lesbian books and they are all but disappeared, cast down among the pederasts, injured in that fall, I could say we're disappearing. They are eradicating us from the bookstores and libraries. Little by little by little we are disappearing. We are becoming harder and harder to find until eventually we are blended in completely and hidden in plain sight.

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

If a friend asked me what this book was about I would say "It's about how Larry Kramer is both justifiably pissed at the apathy, stupidity, and inaction of the gay rights movement, and about how he is so blinded by his own white male privilege that he manages to insult the entire GLBT community with his complete lack of understanding of how racism, biphobia, and sexism intersect with homophobia and cause activists to not always do what he wants. He is full of righteous rhetoric about getting off your lazy gay ass and doing something for your people, but only if you are going to do the something that he wants in the way that he wants. If you're going to teach multidimensional LGBT history that looks at the intersections of gender and the changing landscape of queer theory, you're doing it wrong because to Kramer, we should all only be taught the history of rich gay white men because anything else is "confusing". He is also full of an illogical pessimism that is borne out of the hyperbole surrounding the re-election of George W. Bush and not the realities of the numerous important legal and cultural gains of the last 4 years. I can't deny his importance to the history of the AIDS movement, but overall he seems more like a child who ignores anything that doesn't go his way then bitches about how everyone and everything sucks."

[Heather scarlett victoria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow. Larry Kramer predicts the future again and again. Modern day prophets, now I believe.

[Seth Lowery · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really important and pertinent content for today's LGBTQ community. As it is a transcript of a speech, it isn't the most elegant read, but it is very short and easy to get through.

[Adam Messinger · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little outdated, easier said than done, but an absolutely necessary read after brat gay guy summer

[Alina · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Tragedy of Today's Gays
By Larry Kramer
Foreword by Naomi Wolf
Afterword by Rodger McFarlane
Reviewed by Alina Oswald

"WE HAVE LOST THE WAR AGAINST AIDS," Larry Kramer announces in his new book, The Tragedy of Today's Gays. Based on Kramer's Cooper Union speech just five days after the 2004 election, The Tragedy of Today's Gays offers an encore, a second chance to learn from the 69-year old activist, the one who's always been the first to voice issues threatening the LGBT community.
Today, Larry Kramer still opines his views on the "plague of AIDS" and the "cabal" (the right wing conspiracy), while challenging and encouraging his community to revisit and redefine its goals. Although in his book he addresses gay men in particular, his message offers all his readers a soul-searching opportunity and a chance to rethink their lives and their future. The Tragedy of Today's Gays is a wake-up call for all of us, but especially for today's young generation-those growing up in a time of life-prolonging AIDS medications and AIDS complacency.
Looking back at more than two decades of AIDS, readers can only ask themselves the same question Kramer asks his audience: "Does it occur to you that we brought this plague of AIDS upon ourselves?" His answer to this question attempts to explain what Kramer considers the tragedy of today's gays.
Throughout the read three topics interweave and stand out, in particular. One is the meaning of a history of AIDS, which, for some readers, may bring to life candid memories from the early years of the pandemic. Another is a brief lesson in gay history-one that should be taught in schools, but, unfortunately, is not. The third one has to do with the survival and the future of Larry Kramer's community-the gay community-and the dreams and ideals ignited by the gay revolution some three decades ago.
Larry Kramer's message is of vital and timeless significance, traversing this short but poignant read: in order to better appreciate our present and make a better future for ourselves and for the next generations, we need to learn from the past. In this sense, The Tragedy of Today's Gays serves as a survival guide in our fight against the AIDS pandemic, securing our future achievements and dreams.

Review originally published in A&U Magazine--America's AIDS Magazine

[Callum McLean · Rating 1 out of 5]

The points Kramer makes herein are valid and bear thinking about.

This is as much praise as I can muster to give 'The Tragedy of Today's Gays'. The book is a transcription of a speech that Kramer gave in 2004, warning of the damage that HIV/AIDS and continued unprotected sex could do to the gay community. However, don't expect a rousing speech to the masses, or the voice of reason.

No, this is not a speech so much as a tirade, a sheer outburst of Kramers' spite and loathing. Herein, Kramer sits in terrible glory upon his throne of self-declared moral superiority and screams bile and vitriol whilst we, the mass of simple plebeians who have stabbed him in the back simply take our punishment lying down.

He bemoans the lack of awareness of the risk of HIV infection and the apathy of the young gay community towards casual sex. The utter shame in this book is that the message he is trying to deliver is true and needed -- needs -- to be heard. Unfortunately, Kramers' exaggeration and hyperbole do nothing but to sabotage any and all credibility that his words might otherwise have had.

This book could have been an edifice of socio-political oratory. Instead, it became the vitriolic ranting of a bitter old man in a changing world.

One of the very few books that I'm sorry I wasted my time ploughing through.

[Sara Jaye · Rating 3 out of 5]

I originally wrote an extremely lengthy review. Perhaps it's for the best that it got deleted due to internet problems. Kramer's not wrong.

My problem was that his argument fails. He wants to fight HIV by building movement around a very exclusively defined gay identity. Unfortunately, lots of MSM who don't identify with that term (for reasons Kramer subtly denigrates instead of recognizing as a valid difference) and *gasp* people besides gay men are a huge part of the HIV positive population these days. You can't insult folks and then expect them to jump on a boat you're not willing to share with them (say, by respecting other identities). Or, you can - Kramer does - it just may not work out so well. And maybe it's because I came up very much in a harm reduction school of HIV prevention, but my limited knowledge leads me to believe that thus far, moralistic tirades, however deadly accurate they may be, haven't been very effective at inspiring behavior change amongst at-risk folks.

If only telling people to do the right thing was all it took! This book would change things. But then we wouldn't be here to begin with, either.

[erin · Rating 3 out of 5]

While there are issues w/much of what Kramer states as historic truth, I genuinely believe this speech (as well as the foreword and afterword) is a must read for anyone who is GLBT or Q/supports gay rights and is determined to aid in the ongoing struggle for both visibility and relevance that too few have been fighting for, for too long.

Much of what he says you may already know, and some of his words may shock and even insult, but by the end of his speech it is undeniable that you will question your role in helping or hindering today's gays.

I'm very glad to have read this, and I hope those who will read it can see past what many seem to have shrugged off as ~more radical jargon from another fag w/AIDS~ to the absolute truth that he is very angrily getting at.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm sure much of this was better as a speech, but I am very interested by a lot of the claims that Kramer makes, like that Ed Koch is gay, and what to make of the lack of response of the NYC government in the early 1980. It really makes me think of the claim that just as things get better, they can't get any worse, and that is for sure the state of AIDS and the some aspects of the gay community that Kramer is putting forth.

[LARRY · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read for everyone! Larry Kramer doesn't mince his words. He's really frank about gays in regards to how they treat each other and how America treats gays. Be prepared to be smacked in the face with Larry's brutally honest words. After reading this little book (100 pages), you won't be able to just read it and move on to the next book. You'll read it and do something (I hope).

[David]

This was a quick rant in which Larry Kramer complains that Gays are more concerned about sex while not doing enough to fight against the conservative agenda or support others in the community with HIV/AIDS. He comes off as rather crotchety but highlights aspects of the Gay Liberation struggle that were meaningful, like the early days of ACT UP, and reminds us that the fight is not over.

[Michael Engel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Makes you think real hard about dedication and apathy. He was wrong on his prediction for gay marriages, and possible the courts, but his insight and passion is nonetheless important and relevant still.

[Dan R · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book inspired me to do my best to go out and change the world, because apparently no one else is. Larry Kramer must be one of my greatest heroes.

[Jules · Rating 4 out of 5]

infomative and interesting read. I share a lot of his irritations with gay culture.

[texas · Rating 4 out of 5]

pretty good tirade about how the gays are truly better than other people but are wasting our potential by not kicking enough ass.

[Phil Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very important look at gays in America today. Larry Kramer should be seen as one of our founding fathers instead of the outcast he has been rolled as.

[Bradley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This speech was delivered in 2004 and published in 2005. While I agree with some of what Larry Kramer says I'm amazed at how far the LGBT community has come in ten years.

[Tyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

This. This this this. Flawed and perfect at the same time. It's an important speech that everyone should read.