Them, Me, or Us: PWA Voice and Self-determination in San Francisco
Covering a brief history of the little known but vibrant publication PWA Voice for Contingent Magazine was a favorite of mine.
When I immerse myself in the archives shaped by the traumatic first decades of the AIDS epidemic, I am often surprised by the joy I find amid so much dark heaviness. One joy is reading the rich content in various publications made by and for people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA). Surprisingly, San Francisco did not have a publication by and for people with AIDS until the late 1980s. After all, New York City-based groups PWA Coalition and The Body Positive had flourishing publications run and led by PLWHA—Newsline and The Body Positive, respectively. 1
As a result, when PWA Voice showed up in San Francisco bookstores and AIDS agency waiting rooms in 1988, it did more than fill a knowledge gap. It served as a space of connection and community for PLWHA. Its brief and scattered publication history between 1988 and 1990 provides a front-row seat to the landscape of early AIDS care, treatment, and the interior lives and ideas of PLWHA–things that are not always reflected in histories of AIDS organizations that are shaped around the memories or agendas of HIV-negative individuals. Its contents reveal how its writers understood their experiences through connections with each other, with the broader community of PLWHA, and with others who they felt shared similar experiences.