World AIDS day and the beginning of Indigenous AIDS awareness week, a time of reflection and for honouring all lives impacted and lost to AIDS.

From its onset to today, the global AIDS epidemic has shaped queer politics. In the face of government inaction beginning in the 1980s, 2SLGBTQ+ activists and community organizations played a central role in establishing some of the first HIV/AIDS community groups in Canada, many of which grew into essential AIDS Service Organizations that continue the life-saving work of HIV/AIDS support, education, and prevention.

Queer Ontario celebrates the lives of all those we have lost, the steadfast persistence of HIV/AIDS activists who have fought, and continue to fight, through support, education, and prevention, against the ongoing discrimination and stigma aimed at people who are living with and affected by HIV/AIDS, and the courage of those living with HIV today.

Undetectable = Untransmittable.

Silence = Death.

?: General Idea, AIDS, 1987 (Acrylic on canvas); General Idea, Untitled (AIDS with cockroaches no. 2), 1993 (Gouache on paper).