Perth’s Queer Book Club will explore All The Young Men, the autobiography of Ruth Coker Burks which is written alongside Kevin Carr O’Leary.
The book details how Burks became involved in tackling outrageous stigma and discrimination during the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s and beyond.
In 1984 the 26-year-old single mother visits a friend at the hospital when she notices that the door to one of the hospital rooms is painted red. Outside nurses are drawing straws to decide who will go in and tend to the patient in the room. He has been diagnosed with what we know now as HIV.
Burks stepped up to care for the young man, and soon found herself in the role of looking after a growing number of young men dying from AIDS.
Her journey took her to the highest levels of the US government arguing for a better response to the crisis, and she eventually became an adviser on the issue to President Bill Clinton.
Her work put her family in danger, she was shunned by community members, and she was targeted by the Klu Klux Klan.
The Queer Book Club will meet on Wednesday 25th February from 6.00pm at the Pride Centre in the Northbridge Piazza at 142 James Street, Northbridge.
