Who Gets Screwed When Sex is Policed?: The Lesser-Known Story of The Aids Epidemic, 1981-1993

Abstract

Esther Tsvayg researched and wrote this paper for History 209S. She was interested in studying how HIV/AIDS affected marginalized communities during the 1980s. Despite the scarcity of sources on the topic, Esther managed to write an insightful essay that helps to change our current understanding about the role of the state during the AIDS epidemic. While most historians and activists have focused on the effects of AIDS on gay men and showed how the federal government remained silent and inactive about the epidemic, Esther demonstrates that the state was, in fact, highly active and vocal about AIDS among sex workers, Haitian refugees, and intravenous drug users. Rather than helping these populations, however, the state's interventionist measures ended up hurting them: they criminalized sex workers and discouraged them from using condoms, they objected to needle-exchange programs, and they barred asylum seekers from entering the United States.