THE END OF HIV IS IN SIGHT

RYAN WHITE AND I would be the same age if he were alive today. He’s not. He died in 1990 at the age of 18, right before he was going to graduate from high school, of an AIDS-related respiratory tract infection.

For the final few years of White’s life he became famous—a household name—fighting for the right to attend school in Indiana at a time when Americans were still not entirely certain about how the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) was spread. He was a hemophiliac who became infected from a blood transfusion, but at the time, most of American culture thought of HIV and AIDS as something that only afflicted gay men and those who injected street drugs.

White’s court fight with the local school board became a cultural rallying point to drive an important point home: HIV and AIDS were going to kill off a whole lot of people unless Americans got serious about addressing the risks.

If you were a closeted gay teen, like I was, White also represented a fearful look at a dangerous future. I reached sexual maturity as a member of a high-risk class. My early adult life was shaped by the full awareness that I could very easily share White’s fate.

White was one of more than