By Anna Lucente Sterling New York City PUBLISHED 6:30 PM ET Jun. 15, 2021 PUBLISHED 6:30 PM EDT Jun. 15, 2021
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It’s been 36 years since Eric Sawyer was told by his doctor that he had two years left to live.
It was 1985, and his boyfriend Scott was dying of AIDS.
The trauma of that time is why his doctor initially withheld that life sentence when Sawyer first found out he was HIV-positive years earlier.
“The doctor said, ‘I didn t want to let you know that Scott literally had less than a year to live at that point, but you have probably less than two years to live so you should get your affairs in order, ” said Sawyer.
LGBTQ Activists Remember Carmen Vázquez thebody.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thebody.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Carmen Vázquez, a Force on L.G.B.T.Q. Issues, Dies at 72
Often outspoken, she was a fixture in advocacy groups in San Francisco and New York. She died of Covid-19.
Carmen Vázquez was called âone of the most brilliant activistsâ in the L.G.B.T.Q. rights movement.Credit.National L.G.B.T.Q. Task Force
Published Feb. 5, 2021Updated Feb. 12, 2021
This obituary is part of a series about people who have died in the coronavirus pandemic. Read about others
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It was 1996, and President Bill Clinton was running for a second term against Bob Dole, the Republican candidate. In the gay/lesbian/bi/trans world, there was talk of boycotting the election to show displeasure with the center-right politics of compromise that characterized Mr. Clintonâs first term. But Carmen Vázquez was having none of it.
Coral Hairstreak, 2020. (Courtesy of Chapter NY)
Nearly two centuries ago, as cholera made its way from Canadian ports down the Hudson River, New Yorkers scrounged for respite from and within an increasingly unlivable city. It was a time not dissimilar to ours. Some mostly white New Yorkers found refuge in the city’s patronage system, with political candidates in poorer wards securing votes by paying for ferries to transport constituents to “pleasure grounds” upstate. Others enjoyed exclusive “pleasure gardens,” outdoor havens which existed throughout the country but were especially prominent in New York. With much of the city’s resources restricted to the white and the wealthy, autonomous communities built their own sanctuaries; throughout the 1820s, on the outskirts of lower Manhattan, Black-owned pleasure gardens flourished. The spirit of these gardens joyful, recuperative, filled with wonder run through the work of artist and activist Tourmaline, permeating her dream