The History of Pride From a 29-Year Survivor of HIV and AIDS

Dab Garner

First, I should let everyone know I grew up in a small city in northeast Florida during the 60s and 70s in a religious, conservative and military family. I also knew from a very young age I was "different" from the other boys, but did not truly realize what the difference was until puberty. But when I did, I knew it was something considered dirty and wrong. I was told by the church and Catholic schools I attended I was a sinner and going to hell for even having the thoughts of being with another male.

During that time period in the South, there was no "Pride" in being gay. There were no openly gay men or women in my city. In fact, there were only two small gay bars in the 70s, which both ended up being firebombed. Luckily, the acts of arson happened after closing so none of the patrons were injured.

I was outed during my junior year of high school. I had started modeling the year before and had fallen in love with a photographer from San Francisco on one of my shoots. He was also the first openly gay man I had met, which was a very powerful experience for me. He showed me I was not some deviant, but a gay boy who had no reason to be ashamed or afraid.

Some of my friends from my Catholic high school happened to see us going into the gay bar, which was located in the downtown area of our city. I went from being semi-popular to an outcast overnight. Luckily, the bullying I received during the last part of my junior and all of my senior years was not as bad as it might have been if I had been in public school, but it was torture enough for me to be ready to leave my hometown as soon as I graduated.

"I moved to San Francisco right after graduation to be with my boyfriend. It was like I had found the motherland."

I moved to San Francisco right after graduation to be with my boyfriend. It was like I had found the motherland. Here were other guys like me, except they were celebrating who they were. The bars for us were right on the main street in the Castro. We could walk hand in hand without fearing verbal abuse or physical threats for loving another man. This is when I first came out openly about being a gay man to my friends.

I quickly met friends from Los Angeles and New York through my boyfriend and my modeling career, which helped me realize San Francisco was not the only place we could be open about our sexuality. I also attended my first gay Pride events, which made me so emotional I wanted to cry, because I knew there were many other young men living in other parts of our country who did not have the experience of knowing they were not alone.

Then in 1981, everything changed and my world slowly started to fall apart. First, a close young gay friend of mine went into the hospital and died from a rare type of pneumonia. He died in quarantine, which I did not understand and which angered me. I went out and got him a teddy bear to give him comfort and show him someone cared, since he was not allowed visitors.

A couple of months later, another friend had these purple lesions on his skin, which spread quickly, and died in the hospital while in quarantine. I gave him a teddy bear also. I later found out it was a form of rare cancer called Kaposi's sarcoma. This was around the time I first heard the term "GRID" -- gay-related immunodeficiency disease (what HIV was called until 1983).