Next up in our LGBT+ History Month series is all around activist and artist Larry Kramer. 

Laurence David Kramer (known as Larry) was an American playwrite, author, public health advocate, film producer and gay rights activist. 

In 1953 Larry enrolled at Yale College where he had difficulty adjusting at first. He often felt lonely and like he was the ‘only gay student on campus’. He attempted suicide not long after. This experience left him determined to explore his sexuality, live freely as himself and set him on a lifelong path to fight for all gay peoples worth. The next semester he began embracing who he truly was and experienced his first romantic relationship with a man. Larry enjoyed participating in the Varsity Glee Club during his remaining time at Yale before graduating in 1957 with a degree in English. He then served in the U.S. Army Reserve before pursuing his film writing and production career.

According to Larry, every piece of art he wrote derived from his desire to understand love’s nature and its obstacles better. Larry became involved with movie production at the young age of 23, starting as a teletype operator at Columbia Pictures. He went on to secure a position in the story department reworking scripts. This industry led him to London, where he worked with United Artists. It was there that he wrote the screenplay for the film Women in Love in 1969 and received an Academy Award nomination for his work. 

Throughout his career, Larry continued to push societal norms in his scripts and writings, remaining outspoken in using his art as an outlet. Faggots was his next controversial novel, centered around New York City’s gay subculture in the post-Stonewall 1970s. It was around this time that Laryy began to realise the societal crossover between artists and activists was not always accepted. He said: “I like to think I work very hard on my writing. And unfortunately in this country you can’t be taken seriously as an artist if you’re also an activist.”

On 3 July 1981 Larry picked up the New York Times and read about a rare cancer found in 41 gay men. As news spread like wildfire of the appearence of AIDS in America, it was branded as ‘Gay Men’s Pneumonia’. Larry took matters into his own hands by holding a meeting of more than 80 gay men in his New York City apartment to discuss the growing epidemic. Larry invited Dr. Friedman-Kien to speak and he asked the group to contribute money to help support his research because he had no access to funding. They managed to raise $6,635—essentially this was the only new money, public or private, that was raised to fight AIDS for the remainder of that year.

Larry went on to become a pioneer for the awareness of AIDS and destigmatising it within the media. He caught the disease himself in the summer of 1981. He co-found GMHC (originally known as the Gay Men’s Health Crisis) and ACT UP (the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power), two of the leading organisations that responded to the AIDS epidemic. 

When doctors suggested men stop having sex, Larry strongly encouraged GMHC to deliver the message to as many gay men as possible. When they refused, Larry wrote an essay entitled “1,112 and Counting”, which appeared in 1983 in the New York Native, a gay newspaper. The essay discussed the spread of the disease, the lack of government response and the apathy of the gay community. Tony Kushner, who won the 1993 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for his play Angels in America, about the impact of AIDS in the United States, described the essay as “With that one piece, Larry changed my world. He changed the world for all of us.”

Larry’s confrontational style meant AIDS grabbed the attention of New York’s media in a way  that no other individual could achieve. He continued to confront directors of the National Institutes of Health and government bodies about not devoting more time and effort towards research into AIDS. During a trip to Europe he felt inspired to again use his artform to express his feelings towards the American government’s lack of action and empathy to the gay community and the AIDS crisis by writing The Normal Heart.  Opening in April 1985 it ran for nine months, and was a passionate account of the early years of AIDS and his campaign to raise awareness and take action. It won the Tony Award for best revival of a play. An HBO adaptation, written by Larry, won an Emmy in 2014 too. A review in the New York Times said: “even people who think they have no patience for polemical theatre may find their resistance has melted into tears. No, make that sobs.”

His political activism continued with ACT UP in 1987, an influential, direct action protest organisation with the aim of gaining more public movement to fight the AIDS crisis. ACT UP has been widely credited with changing public health policy and the perception of people living with AIDS, and with raising awareness of HIV and AIDS-related diseases. While working within AIDS health organisations he contuined to write about gay men’s experiences  living with AIDS. Just Say No, A Play about a Farce, The Destiny of Me were all published to continue Kramer’s moral vision of drive and self-worth for the LGBT community.

In 2001, Yale’s Larry Kramer Initiative for Lesbian and Gay Studies, which would include visiting professors and a program of conferences, guest speakers and other events was opened. Larry had originally pushed for this initiative in 1997, but was met with rejection as at that time, gender, ethnic and race-related studies were viewed as unnecessary by academia. The opening in 2001 saw Larry’s activism go full circle and return to the place he had once studied and graduated. 

Larry Kramer was labelled unconventional, troublesome and disruptive by government officials and the media. He witnessed hundreds, then thousands of gay men die before the government took action to stop the spread of HIV. Larry has talked about how he’d like to be remembered, how he sees his work, and that the landmark play “The Normal Heart,” is his legacy. Perhaps his biggest is in fact saving lives through the activism he inspired and his warnings and awareness about AIDS. 

“The most important fact is that gays have been here since day one. We played an enormous part in the history of America. I think being a gay man, even today, with AIDS, is a wonderful thing. I love being gay.” – Larry Kramer

Further reading and viewing on Larry Kramer

• Larry Kramer in Love and Anger (Documentary)
• The Normal Heart (Movie)
• United in Anger: A History of ACT UP (Documentary)
• Faggots (Book)
• The Normal Heart and The Destiny of Me: Two Plays (Book) 
• Women In Love (Book)
• The Tragedy of Today’s Gays (Book)
• https://www.gmhc.org/ 
• https://actupny.com/