4
‘members’ in the network, and no ‘representatives’ from elsewhere.” Meeting once every two
weeks, they parsed through literally all available data from all sources, and chose short term
follow-up tasks. Some items required some discussion, but few required a decision. The group
did not take positions or plan events, as such. The Network maintained no long-term agenda, and
had no statement of purpose. The meetings were advertised and open to all, drawing up to 25
regulars and an equal number of occasional visitors.
The Network fostered elite connections, including closeted, gay political aides in New
York City and Washington, DC, who fed them the earliest possible information. “The tentacles
of the network were amazing. We had friends on the inside.” There was an “immense
underground [of sympathetic gays] hidden everywhere.” The Network collected data from
doctors throughout the city, and passed reliable statistics to the CDC. One informant indicated
that it had taken the group “a while” to realize that the CDC actually wanted them to call and
pass on their own data. Initially they had viewed this as more of a pressure tactic, more to chide
the researchers into action than to actually collaborate with them. It quickly became a form of
street-level epidemiology, which informants perceived as a mechanism for keeping government
researchers on the right track. “We called the CDC to tell them our numbers. They were a little
behind. It started in the hundreds. I remember when we reached 1,000.”
Within a few years of The Network’s founding, the group recognized that all of its
concerns were being more formally pursued elsewhere by other NPOs. This had both positive
and negative consequences. The Network, as a looser affiliation of social actors without a formal
mission, was tossed into every political storm. At the same time, their influence was being offset
by the growth of the more specialized groups that The Network had helped to seed. In 1985, with
Convention