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group’s change in direction, “my hope when I started was to be unemployed.” Drawing together
support groups, treatment information, peer education and empowerment, Body Positive began
the process of helping people with HIV readjust their lives for the long haul. Among other
services, the organization published a resource guide for living with HIV/AIDS in New York
City. Like the empowerment organizations from which it grew, Body Positive sought to develop
the expertise of the patient community. They linked experts to the newly diagnosed, and connect
isolated individuals with the support network of New York NPOs.
Analysis
The early risers of HIV/AIDS organizing established the terms of the discussion, for those
who wished to have a discussion, and established models of collective organizing for mutual aid
and self-protection. Within this emerging field, there was a constant movement of people and
information, and a shared sense of purpose. One early volunteer, who worked for several
agencies before becoming a professional service provider at a government-sponsored agency,
recalled that “there was very little duplication. No one was doing what Ganga [Stone of GLWD]
was doing. No one was doing what GMHC was doing [or] what PWAC was doing.” Their efforts
were not comprehensive, however. There were gaps within the new community space, mostly
defined along the traditional boundaries of race, class and gender. But there was also an explicit
recognition of these gaps as a feature of the field overall, rather than a failure within any single
organization. Hence, the preferred solution was to reorganize collective resources into a new
group and a new mission.
The earliest writings and discourses on HIV/AIDS emphasized the social marginality and
Convention