A post from an older gay man has gone viral after he explained why his generation is “so mad all the time.”
Scott Abel posted his comments on Facebook on Thursday (5 June) after a conversation he had with a younger gay man.
Abel said “younger gay men” he had met recently had been asking “honest, wide-eyed, sometimes awkward” questions. “The kind that remind you they didn’t live through what we older gay men did”, he added.
One “sweet, sweet, smart 27 year old, with eyebrows better groomed than my entire social circle in 1987”, asked him why his generation appeared angry the whole time.
Abel then shared what he offered by way of an explanation, recognising the question was meant genuinely and came from a place of curiosity.
“Back in college, I called 911 when a friend needed emergency care. He was in bad shape. When the ambulance showed up, the [paramedics] did their thing – until they found out he was HIV positive.
“Then they did something that still makes my stomach turn. They got back in their ambulance and drove away. They left us there. Like we weren’t worth the risk, like he wasn’t worth saving”.
The younger man “welled up” and said: “I didn’t know that kind of thing actually happened… that’s horrible,” Abel revealed.
Abel then told him there were countless stories from the Aids epidemic as horrific as that: of lost loved ones, people being fired or evicted because of their sexuality, and dying without a dignified funeral. “It wasn’t just a public health crisis, it was a moral failure. A slow-motion disaster with a soundtrack of silence.”
“So, if you’ve ever wondered why your older gay friends have a certain tone when talking about the Supreme Court, or Florida, or anyone who starts a sentence with [the words] ‘family values’, this is why. We remember, and can’t forget.
“Young gays: please keep asking, keep listening. We don’t tell these stories because we want pity or praise. We tell them so you’ll know what was lost and what’s still at stake.”
The post has been shared almost 4,000 times and the comments are full of people sharing their own stories.
Speaking to Queerty about the impact it has had, Abel said he wrote it “because I was tired of carrying these stories around like old luggage with broken wheels”.
He also pointed to the importance of oral history. “Younger guys were asking real questions. They deserved real answers, not a TED Talk, not a trauma dump – just the truth.
“We tell these stories not for pity or nostalgia but because history doesn’t have to repeat itself. If we don’t speak up, we’re leaving the next generation to learn from scratch. And we’ve lost too much already.”
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