"There Is No Limit to What Could Be Done": Considering the Past and Potential of Irish Queer Health Activism

A 1982 issue of Irish Gay News honered LGBTQ activists' participation in the annual Women's Day Celebration, emphasizing both their dedication to gay rights and their stance against the 1982 Irish abortion referendum. In discussing the critical intersections of the queer-rights movements, particularly within the context of the AIDS crisis and Irish reproductive justice, the article stated:

To many gay people this campaign may seem irrelevant. We however believe that there are fundamental links between a woman's right to control her own body and the objectives of gay liberation. … It is not possible to view the fight for gay liberation in isolation from other struggles seeking the control of one's own body and life. We believe the anti-amendment campaign must be supported by all gay people, and there should be greater discussion of the abortion issue within the gay community.¹

During this time feminist- and reproductive-rights activists such as Women's Right to Choose; Alliance for Choice; and Free, Legal, and Safe recognized the urgent need to support health activism for those affected by HIV. Together, these actions took the form of providing contraception in nontraditional spaces and to a wide range of social classes, advocating for sexual education, and supporting compassionate and creative spaces for community members.² While the activities of these two groups of activists are infrequently discussed together, their work collectively shared many goals that emphasize their shared values and theoretical foundations.³ Together, health activists in Ireland spoke upward to powerful institutions while also creating "ways for individuals to think about, plan for, and realize full personhood" in terms of their reproductive, creative, and social capacities.⁴ Such work grew in importance during the global HIV/AIDS epidemic as constructions of health and justice evolved rapidly, forcing communities "to examine [their] attitudes and beliefs about poverty and classism, racism, sexism, homophobia, and human rights."⁵ As Dázon Dixon of the reproductive-justice organization SisterLove explained, "We're not only fighting a virus, we're fighting the conditions that allow it to proliferate."⁶

In this article I explore the activism of gay-rights organizations before and during the global outbreak of HIV from the early 1970s to the early 1990s through a study of newsletters, correspondence, and publicity materials related to these groups held by the Linen Hall Library in Belfast, the National Library of Ireland, and the Women's Library at the London School of Economics and Political Science. I then consider the experience of the LGBTQ community in Ireland following the 2015 referendum that legalized same-sex marriage in the republic. While this referendum marked a watershed moment of acceptance and equality in Irish society, I argue that there remains a serious need for the kind of emotional-care work performed by queer AIDS activists and reproductive-justice groups in Ireland and Northern Ireland to further aid the medical, social, and personal well-being of members and the wider queer community. In doing so, I hope to contribute to a rich discussion on the history of LGBTQ activism across Ireland that brought issues of sexual-health gay rights out of the shadows and laid the groundwork for the liberating changes that would emerge from this period.⁷

The vital role of coalition work in representing needs of the community to religious authority, political power, and human-rights organizations is well-documented.⁸ However, it is equally as important to consider how individual members of the LGBTQ community met their emotional, psychological, political, spiritual, and embodied needs through coalition action.⁹ As a result, this article seeks to understand activism not only as a hierarchical conversation but also as the practice of creative self-affirmation and advocacy as well as community care.¹⁰ In both physical spaces and those that existed in the pages of newsletters, brochures, and letters, Irish AIDS activists reconceptualized forms of care that defied hierarchical power structures and prejudices and insisted on forging a livable life, creative expression, self-care...