Continuing the Conversation
In Falsettos, solidarity begins at home, or, rather, next door. Dr. Charlotte and Cordelia offer much-needed support to Marvin and Whizzer during Whizzer’s illness. While this act of care is moving in and of itself, it is also representative of a much broader wave of lesbian activism in the fight against AIDS.
Lesbian allyship to gay men was indispensable, but not necessarily a given. In the early days of the gay and lesbian liberation movement of the 1970s and 1980s, the lesbian community faced sexism (from the gay community, the heterosexual community, and even feminists) and had to fight for visibility. However—due to President Reagan’s blatant, calculated neglect of the LGBTQ+ community during the AIDS crisis and the subsequent devastating human toll—the only way forward was together. Lesbians stepped up by providing care; raising awareness and campaigning; donating blood for treatments, as men who had sex with men were banned from donating blood (these lesbians called themselves “Blood Sisters” and the donation ban persisted until 2023); and advocating against the medical system’s violent erasure of LGBTQ+ individuals and trans people (who continue to face disproportionate rates of new infection and violence). They did so while also facing their own risk factors (such as poverty, survival sex, and intravenous drug use, for example), supporting members of their own community who had contracted HIV/AIDS, and – at times – navigating their own illness. Lesbian activists founded the Lesbian AIDS Project in 1992 and housed it in the Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) to call attention to these crucial intersections.
The actions of Dr. Charlotte, Cordelia, and the real-life advocates carrying out this work demonstrate the urgent necessity of being united in our pursuit for liberation, as described in the program for the first production in Court’s season, East Texas Hot Links. And while our world may be different from that of Falsettos, queer communities’s pursuit of justice is far from complete.
In the time of Falsettos, the lesbian community was fighting their own vulnerability and the disappearance of their brothers. In our time, we fight the disappearance of our trans and non-binary siblings, particularly trans women of color and those who live with HIV/AIDS.
We invite you to follow in the footsteps of Dr. Charlotte and Cordelia and combat invisibility with information.
- Brave Space Alliance
- The Anatomy of Transmisogynoir
- Marsha’s Plate: Black Trans Podcast
- Black Trans Feminism
- Responses to Hate