Thirty years after his death, gay journalist Randy Shilts is still controversial. But with the publication of a second biography in five years, Shilts' significance as a groundbreaker is being appreciated in "When the Band Played On: The Life of Randy Shilts, America's Trailblazing Gay Journalist" (Chicago Review Press, $30). The author is Michael G. Lee, who worked for several years in community-based HIV services before pursuing a Ph.D. in social work from the University of Minnesota.
Lee, a gay man, starts his book with an incident in the 1970s with Shilts meeting a trick at a leather bar in San Francisco's South of Market neighborhood and, after their encounter, he says to the guy, "I'm one of the most interesting people you'll ever meet." Lee comments for all his limitations, Shilts was making history at the same time he was reporting it and concluding yes, he was all he said he was.
Lee will be appearing at the James C. Hormel LGBTQIA Center at the San Francisco Public Library Tuesday, October 8, to discuss his book.
Shilts' achievements are now well-known. He became managing editor of the Oregon Daily Emerald, the student newspaper at the University of Oregon in Eugene. He was a staff writer for The Advocate, a reporter for KQED-TV for three years as well as Oakland's KTVU-TV for a year. He became the first openly gay reporter for a mainstream newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle, and the first to cover the queer community full time.
He published "The Mayor of Castro Street: The Life and Times of Harvey Milk," in 1982, as much about the cultural and political rise of the LGBTQ community in San Francisco as a biography of Milk, the first gay man elected to office in California when he won a seat on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. Milk was assassinated, along with then-mayor George Moscone, in November 1978.
Shilts began covering AIDS from the very start of the pandemic at the Chronicle, eventually penning his 1987 bestseller, "And the Band Played On," which reported its origins in the U.S., indicting the federal government on its inaction, the medical establishment on its slow embrace of the disease, and gay organizations for ignoring and/or denying the pandemic in its first five years. The book was nominated for a National Book Award and was made into an HBO movie in 1993.
Shilts' third and final book, "Conduct Unbecoming: Lesbians and Gays in the U.S. Military," which he considered his definitive work on homophobia, detailed the history of the persecution of gay and lesbian soldiers. Then-President Bill Clinton read the book, and it was central to the 1993 debate on the issue that led to the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" compromise, which prevented gays and lesbians from serving openly in the armed forces. DADT was repealed by Congress in 2010.
Shilts learned he was HIV-positive on the day he finished the "Band" manuscript, though Lee suggests he might have known earlier. Worried that his illness would overshadow his reporting, and not wanting to be labeled an AIDS activist, he didn't publicly reveal his illness till February 1993, dying of the disease a year later at age 42.
Lee interviewed 73 people for his book, adopting an open-ended, oral history style to encourage long-form conversations, remembering, and feeling. Lee, 47, was interviewed by the Bay Area Reporter via email.
Lee was asked what it was about Shilts that inspired him to write the biography.
"From my years in the field, I gained a fascination with AIDS organizations, their unique cultures, and their origins in post-Stonewall gay activist communities," Lee stated. "Midway through my doctoral program, I had the chance to conduct historical research and chose to look at the challenges faced by early gay community service organizations from Stonewall through the mid-1970s. Reviewing back issues of The Advocate from that era, I was impressed with how Randy, who was freelancing for that publication, was detailing pandemic-level conditions that were later associated with co-morbidities around HIV in urban gay communities, namely alcoholism, drug abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, social isolation, and so on. I thought it was interesting that he was picking up on these concerns half a decade before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention first reported on the mysterious illnesses that were killing gay men, and I wondered what his biography said about it."
Lee continued, "When I couldn't find one, I decided to make this book my next project after graduating. I had the idea in 2012, took my first (limited) research trip to San Francisco in 2014, and made the project my main focus the following year after defending my dissertation."
The first biography of Shilts, "The Journalist of Castro Street: The Life of Randy Shilts," by the late Andrew Stoner, Ph.D., was published in 2019.
"Dr. Stoner reached out to me at the very beginning of my research, over 10 years ago, and offered his encouragement. We had a small number of friendly emails but that was the only contact. I was aware of the book but waited to read it until the week before I finished my first draft because I didn't want it to unduly influence my writing," Lee stated.
Early criticism
Shilts was severely criticized within San Francisco's gay community for advocating closing gay bathhouses as a way of containing the spread of AIDS. Many gay men felt at the time this was a betrayal of the sexual freedom for which they had fought so hard, and Shilts said he was spat upon as he walked down Castro Street.
"This is why I thought it was important to detail the summer of 1974, in which Randy spent working in a Portland bathhouse, and how, even as he felt a sympathy for its customers, he cringed at many of the exploitative and exclusionary practices he witnessed from that establishment's manager," Lee stated. "Undoubtedly, it influenced his later reporting on the bathhouses, as I believe he felt protective of its patrons and skeptical of the owners' resistance to change, or even having conversations about adopting more protective measures in response to the early warnings coming from public health."
Initially, Shilts said the queer community saw AIDS more as a civil rights issue than a public health crisis, a public relations problem rather than an actual threat. Lee was asked if these charges were fair.
"I think we must distinguish here between the community, and the community's political and business leaders," Lee stated. "As a community at large, we queer folks don't often get a chance to elect the leaders of the movement, unless they run for public office. Randy felt very strongly that certain leaders were slow-footing efforts to sound a warning in 1983, when Drs. Andrew Moss and Michael Gorman were beginning to share the first epidemiological data about the prevalence of AIDS cases in gay San Francisco neighborhoods. Printing that story provoked a backlash."
Shilts was concerned that a quarter million people would be coming to that year's Gay and Lesbian Freedom Day in June (now called the Pride parade) and had hardly any knowledge of this new public health threat.
"I would posit that he was absolutely concerned with the safety of the community and wanted gay political and business leaders to act more quickly," stated Lee. "And keep in mind, some — like Bill Kraus and leaders of the Harvey Milk [LGBTQ Democratic] Club — were trying to do just that. As for Randy's portrayal of gay men, I found multiple examples in his stories of people who weren't acting out of selfishness or amorality, but who admitted to struggling with the new reality they faced. It was really difficult for many men to change long-standing behaviors, and I include Randy in that grouping as well."
Shilts wasn't liked very much in or out of the gay community due to his tremendous ego (even at the end when he thought he should have been given a public memorial in the rotunda of San Francisco City Hall). In Lee's book, Shilts came across as ambitious, self-righteous, and nasty/angry (i.e. after a fight, puncturing his father's condom, which may have led to an unwanted pregnancy of his mother, his younger autistic brother).
Lee was asked how challenging it was to craft an empathetic portrait of Shilts.
"It wasn't hard at all. I didn't start with any sort of premise over who or how many people liked Randy," Lee stated. "And in fact, many of the 70-plus people I interviewed still expressed fondness for him, even in their criticism. The further out I went from people who knew him directly, the stronger I found the animosity."
There were charges within the LGBTQ community that Shilts was a hypocrite, for example complaining how dehumanizing gay bars were yet patronizing them, or wanting to close down bathhouses after working in one and using them personally for his own pleasures, or attacking outing when he engaged in the practice. Others called him self-hating and assimilationist. Lee was asked why Shilts was such an open target of criticism.
"In nearly every instance this question mentions, I uncovered a more complicated personal side of Randy that experienced real trauma — terror even — at the prospect of his community's 'biological extinction,' to use one of his phrases, and that he struggled to cope with the emerging reality of AIDS in some very painful ways," stated Lee. "His alcohol and drug use increased substantially, to the point where he told friends that on his worst nights of blackout drinking, he couldn't remember what he had done. Lots of people struggled during this period, and I don't think he had the self-awareness or coping skills at that stage of his life to handle the trauma. To many, that could lead to the conclusion that he was hypocritical. I see a person who struggled with overwhelming circumstances and needed more help than he was receiving at the time."
Lee stressed the importance of recovery from alcohol and drug addiction as key to Shilts producing his best work, but also the way he covered those subjects in his writings.
Lee claims joining 12-step groups gave Shilts an LGBTQ+ community where he could self-reflect but also share his struggles without worrying about being attacked. "He had an AA sponsor, who I never was able to locate, but I did correspond with someone who was sponsored in AA by Randy Shilts. I think that he needed social spaces where he could be vulnerable, anonymous, and service-oriented. Readers of 'And the Band Played On' and 'Conduct Unbecoming' may notice that in his acknowledgements, Randy thanked the 'Friends of Bill W. (Wilson),' a bit of in-speak acknowledging his membership in the 12-step community. He also tried to leave a substantial donation to 18th Street Services in his will, but unfortunately the estate was unable to honor those wishes." (18th Street Services was an old HIV/AIDS nonprofit.)
In his early chapters, Lee paints an in-depth and graphic portrait of Shilts' sexual life. Shilts wrote about his sexual escapades for porno magazines. Lee believes this is critical in understanding who Shilts was and why he chose the subjects on which he reported.
"I thought it was important to be true to the life Randy led, and in his 20s, he kept journals that extensively detailed many of his sexual adventures," Lee stated. "Obviously, they were important enough for him to write about and to preserve, and I found valuable information about the ways he gained experience, how he felt about himself, and how he wished to find a longer lasting, fulfilling relationship even as he played the scene. Moreover, I wanted to reinforce how the early AIDS crisis affected him privately as someone who had, both for better and for worse, been an active participant in the scene."
Journalism
Shilts feared letting his personal situation (i.e. being HIV-positive) or his views on sexuality and politics influence his reporting, yet he clearly struggled with being objective, even going so far as to make sure his AIDS stories appeared in the Chronicle on Fridays before gay men pursued their sybaritic interests on the weekend. Lee was asked how Shilts balanced objectivity with reporting and advocacy with journalism.
"How skillfully would any of us balance objectivity in the face of an existential threat?" Lee asked. "I know that my training in social work didn't fully prepare me for every disturbing situation I experienced in frontline HIV prevention work. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Laurie Garrett, who covered AIDS during the same period as Randy, recounted to me the astonishing levels of post-traumatic stress that everyone who worked close to AIDS experienced during that period, even her. Trauma changes the way each of us experiences a particular phenomenon, and not everyone who goes through the same traumatic event will remember or interpret it the same way."
Lee observed that journalists often witness unsettling events in real life that can have a negative impact on them.
"Randy's colleagues shared with me how he likened the AIDS crisis to going through a war, only to come to work and see how, for his heterosexual colleagues, it seemed to not be happening at all," stated Lee. "If there is a lesson for journalists today, I would say that it's to not shy away from seeking help when they encounter stories that deeply trouble them, whether it's therapy or some other kind of mechanism for self-reflection, rebalancing, and healing."
Patient Zero controversy
The Patient Zero controversy has marred the reputation of "And the Band Played On." Shilts' friend and source, Dr. Selma Dritz, who worked at the San Francisco Department of Public Health, told him about a study of gay men, which placed Gaetan Dugas, a gay flight attendant, as the primary sexual transmitter of the disease, claiming Dugas intentionally infected others with the virus, becoming the prime agent of the epidemic in the U.S. Shilts and others misinterpreted the letter "O" for Outside Los Angeles for the number 0, calling him Patient Zero. Shilts' editor, Michael Denneny, was worried the media was going to ignore his book. He convinced Shilts to promote Patient Zero so it would drum up headlines and sell copies of the book. (Dugas died in 1984.)
Subsequent research after Shilts died showed the HIV pandemic could be traced back to strains spread from Zaire in Africa to Haiti around 1967, years before Dugas was of age. This evidence exonerated Dugas, though Lee reports there were times when Dugas did intentionally not tell his partners he was HIV-positive.
"For people who hold this particular opinion, I don't expect that my book will change their minds. I saw it as my job to try to understand the context and chronology surrounding Randy's interest in and pursuit of the Gaetan Dugas story. For people interested in a more singularly focused, scholarly appraisal of the controversy, Dr. Richard McKay has done some important work that deserves the positive recognition it has received."
As a journalist, Shilts' prodigious amount of research and dogged running down of facts was undeniable.
"He was a quick thinker and a prolific cultivator of sources, who saw it as his role to hold people in power accountable. He liked longform journalism (especially writing books) more [than writing] brief pieces, and I think he cultivated a writing style that was evocative, even though it could sometimes mask a number of the flaws in the conclusions he drew." Shilts was criticized for his use of literary techniques to recreate dialogue as well as his final copy in terms of how he interpreted the research he accumulated.
With all this criticism, Lee was asked if "And the Band Played On" holds up in 2024. Shilts believed "Unbecoming Conduct" was his best work and would stand the test of time better than "Band."
"I agree with Randy that 'Conduct' was his strongest work," Lee stated. "It was also the first book where he had the resources to pay his business manager, Linda Alband, and a small team of researchers and field investigators. The source notes supporting his conclusions are far better organized. I do think he was learning and improving from book to book, and I think that refinement would have continued if he had lived."
Lee knew going into this project that many people held strong feelings about Shilts, both for negative and positive reasons.
"My aim wasn't to change anyone's mind, but to situate his work in the context of his lived experiences, developmental milestones, and influential relationships," stated Lee. "A great deal has been written about his work. I wanted to understand his essential character and give him space to be fully human."
It is worth noting that in spite of all the controversy he engendered, both personally and due to his work, Shilts' image was among the first 20 installed on the Rainbow Honor Walk (honoring queer individuals who made a significant impact in global history) memorialized near the corner of 19th and Castro Streets.
Michael G. Lee will appear in conversation with Leah Garchik and Randy Alfred Tuesday, October 8, at 6 p.m. at the Hormel LGBTQIA Center, 3rd floor in the San Francisco Main Library, 100 Larkin Street. Admission is free.
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