John Cameron Mitchell Quotes

I remember my first friend who got sick. It was 1981, and the disease was called the gay cancer. I don't think the word 'AIDS' came out until '84. I just remember it being terrifying as more people got sick. We didn't know how you could catch it, you heard all kinds of crazy things.

I was a gay man living in the epicenter of 20th-century America's worst health epidemic.

My mom's brother was gay, and he actually passed away from AIDS when I was 13. He was quite a character, but he also worked at the electrical plant, so he was this complicated guy with a big laugh who would wear a trucker hat and do impressions. He was gay, but to me, Uncle Alan was just the funniest person in the world.

The gay people I knew in real life were soft spoken and didn't want to call attention to themselves because they were terrified of exposing themselves, of people finding out that they're gay.

Because of the lack of education on AIDS, discrimination, fear, panic, and lies surrounded me.

AIDS is a shared truth - it's not selective in its wrath.

We didn't exist. Ronald Reagan didn't say the word 'AIDS' until 1987. I've tried desperately to get a meeting in the White House; Gay Men's Health Crisis is already an established organization. I have a certain presence.

In the earliest years of the AIDS crisis, there were many gay men who were unable to come out about the fact that their lovers were ill, A, and then dead, B. They were unable to get access to the hospital to see their lover, unable to call their parents and say, 'I have just lost the love of my life.'

I didn't choose the fact that I was gay, but I did choose whether to live my life as a gay woman-that was the terrifying thing for me. Especially being a gay actress.

AIDS is a complex situation that's sure to bring out the best and the worst in people.

AIDS occupies such a large part in our awareness because of what it has been taken to represent. It seems the very model of all the catastrophes privileged populations feel await them.

If Carter had been there when the AIDS crisis came up, it would have been a whole different story. It could have been treated like a legitimate disease.

I don't think closeted homosexual morticians have the market cornered on self-loathing or sense of shame.

The message has become clearer to the nation about AIDS. People used to think they could catch it all kinds of ways, but we now know that it is absolutely passed through bodily fluids.

I'm the only gay person my parents know.

For gay people, we learned about our lives in secrecy and a lot of fear.

I have covered wars, before the epidemic began and since. They are all ugly and painful and unjust, but for me, nothing has matched the dread I felt while walking through the Castro, the Village, or Dupont Circle at the height of the AIDS epidemic.

I guess there have been a few questions about my sexuality, and I'd like to quiet any unnecessary rumors that may be out there. While I prefer to keep my personal life private, I hope the fact that I'm gay isn't the most interesting part of me.

When I was outed, it was like, That's done.

And I've known people who came out with a sense of torture.

HIV does not make people dangerous to be with. So you can shake their hands and give them a hug. Heaven knows they need it.

Before I came out, the thought of someone calling me gay, even when I knew very well that I was, was petrifying.

I was terrified about people knowing I was gay. I'd cringe inside at the idea that they'd be talking behind my back.

I have a lot of gay friends, and some have not come out, and... it just hurts me that there are some people who can't feel like they can be themselves because society is not accepting to them. I literally see their happiness deprived.

When your doctor and neighbours and child's schoolteachers know you are gay, there is no closet for you to hide in.