Matthew Hodson

A 🧵 on #AIDS in the 80s/90s: I was 15 when I first had sex with a man. I’d snuck off to London’s Heaven nightclub with the express intent of ridding myself of my ‘gay virginity’, a goal I achieved easily with a visiting American photographer. 1/13

27 years ago, two years after the introduction of effective HIV treatment, the Bay Area Reporter, San Francisco’s lesbian and gay community newspaper, ran ‘No Obits’ as its headline. It was the first edition not to report an AIDS death in almost 15 years.

Who could have predicted that harassment of cis women, who do not conform to feminine stereotypes, in public toilets and changing rooms would increase after the Supreme Court ruling? Pretty much everyone who paused to consider it, that’s who.

1987 / 2026.

Viktor Orban banned Pride and passed a law to prevent lesbian or gay couples from adopting. Viktor Orban got booted out and his homophobic laws are being scrapped. Good!

It’s been a year since Domzee, my companion for 20 years, died. I miss him every day. I think I always will.

I was diagnosed with HIV and told I had 20 years to live. That was 29 years ago. It’s a flex!

The first gay kiss on a children’s TV programme was edited out by the BBC - and then secretly reinserted by a mystery employee. A fascinating story from the era of Thatcher and Section 28 by @scottygb.bsky.social.

A potential game changer in HIV prevention, ‘two jabs a year’ PrEP, fails to be approved for use on the NHS. i-base.info/htb/54605

I don’t need AI to show you what I looked like in the 80s. AI consumes huge amounts of energy and scarce water resources and rips off genuine creatives. Do you really need to use it?

Strength and love to all those taking part in the mass lobby of Parliament today, demanding that the cruel, costly and practically unworkable EHRC guidance be scrapped. Making rules about trans lives without trans people being involved in that process makes no sense. @transsolidarity.bsky.social

A man looking like a bearded somewhat the draggled Keanu Reeves sat opposite me on the tube. He seemed to be glancing at me rather a lot and as I got off, it was clear that he was cruising me. That almost NEVER happens to me these days. 🥰

The actor Brad Davis (Midnight Express, Querelle, Chariots of Fire) died of AIDS aged 41 on this day in 1991. I think he may have been the most beautiful man ever.