The ''New York Native'' was a biweekly gay newspaper published by

Charles Ortleb Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English language, English and French language, French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic, Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''* ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

from December 1980 until January 13, 1997. It was the only gay paper in New York City during the early part of the

AIDS epidemic The global pandemic of HIV/AIDS (human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) began in 1981, and is an ongoing worldwide public health issue. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), by 2023, HIV/AIDS ...

, and pioneered reporting on

AIDS The HIV, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is a retrovirus that attacks the immune system. Without treatment, it can lead to a spectrum of conditions including acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). It is a Preventive healthcare, pr ...

when most others ignored it.Final edition – analysis of the cause of closure of the New York Native gay issues publication
Chris Bull, ''The Advocate'', February 18, 1997 The paper subsequently became known for attacking the scientific understanding of

HIV The human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) are two species of '' Lentivirus'' (a subgroup of retrovirus) that infect humans. Over time, they cause acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), a condition in which progressive failure of the im ...

as the cause of AIDS and endorsing

HIV/AIDS denialism HIV/AIDS denialism is the belief, despite conclusive evidence to the contrary, that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) does not cause acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS). Some of its proponents reject the existence of HIV, while other ...

First news story on AIDS

On May 18, 1981, the ''New York Native'', then America's most influential gay newspaper, published the first newspaper report on the disease that became known as

. Having heard of a very rare type of pneumonia that struck some gay men, Lawrence D. Mass, the paper's medical writer, called the

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the National public health institutes, national public health agency of the United States. It is a Federal agencies of the United States, United States federal agency under the United S ...

(CDC) and was advised that the rumors of a "gay cancer" were unfounded. He then wrote a story headlined: "Disease Rumors Largely Unfounded." Mass wrote: Next month, on June 5, 1981, the CDC published the world's first clinical report on what became AIDS in ''

Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report The ''Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report'' (''MMWR'') is a weekly epidemiological digest for the United States published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It was originally established as ''Weekly Health Index'' in 1930 ...

'' (MMWR). On that same date, the CDC report was picked up and reported by the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'' as the first mainstream newspaper coverage of the new disease. ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' followed suit on July 3, 1981. Although the ''Native'' covered the story almost three weeks prior, the June 5th date is often used as the first report of AIDS.

Larry Kramer article on AIDS

In 1983, Larry Kramer wrote a famous impassioned front page piece for the ''Native'', entitled " 1,112 and Counting", which was published on March 14, 1983. From a profile on Larry Kramer in the ''

New Yorker New Yorker may refer to: * A resident of New York: ** A resident of New York City and its suburbs *** List of people from New York City ** A resident of the New York (state), State of New York *** Demographics of New York (state) * ''The New Yor ...

'', published in 2002: "...it was a five-thousand-word screed that accused nearly everyone connected with health care in America—officials at the Centers for Disease Control, in Atlanta, researchers at the National Institutes of Health, in Washington, doctors at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, in Manhattan, and local politicians (particularly Mayor Ed Koch)—of refusing to acknowledge the implications of the nascent AIDS epidemic." In his piece, Kramer said: "If this article doesn't rouse you to anger, fury, rage and action, gay men may have no future on this Earth."

AIDS Activist History

Between 2014 and 2018, 70 interviews with AIDS activists were conducted by the AIDS Activist History Project. The interviewees actively organized movements around Canada between the 1980s and 1990s. These interviews shared a variety of tales of resilience, loss, and struggle. An interview with Barry Deeprose reveals his first interactions with AIDS, how he only was able to access information from newspapers, specifically the ''New York Native'', and how Public Health Canada neglected to discuss it. "Nevertheless, they had really strong and good stories. And there was nothing else! We could get nothing from Public Health; Health Canada didn't even know, they just weren't interested. It seems to me, and I'm not sure if Perrin Beatty was the Minister of Health at that point, but he couldn't even say the word "AIDS" or "gay."

Controversy and demise

In a ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' article on the demise of the ''New York Native'',

, the magazine's publisher and editor, said that he was shutting down due to financial problems, but he conceded that the paper failed largely due to its controversial AIDS coverage. After its initial and pioneering success in making the gay community aware of the AIDS crisis, the paper later became unpopular for promoting conspiracy theories about AIDS and its causes, including the claim that HIV did not cause AIDS. The gay activist group

ACT UP AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) is an international, grassroots political group working to end the AIDS pandemic. The group works to improve the lives of people with AIDS through direct action, medical research, treatment and advocacy, ...

boycotted the publication in the mid-1980s.Controversial Gay Magazine Shuts Down
''The New York Times'', Robin Pogrebin, January 9, 1997 While there was initially some support for the ''Native's'' criticism of the governmental and scientific response to the AIDS epidemic, it eroded as Ortleb and the paper endorsed increasingly unlikely alternatives to HIV as the cause of AIDS. The cultural critic and AIDS activist

Douglas Crimp John Douglas Crimp (August 19, 1944 July 5, 2019) was an American art historian, critic, curator, and AIDS activist. He was known for his scholarly contributions to the fields of postmodern theories and art, institutional critique, dance, film, ...

wrote in 1987 that "...rather than performing a political analysis of the ideology of science, Ortleb merely touts the crackpot theory of the week, championing whoever is the latest outcast from the world of academic and government research."^{, p. 101} The paper's circulation consequently fell from 20,000 in 1985 to 8,000 in 1996. Another contributing factor is that New York City, with an LGBT community that was often fractious and bitterly divided along gender, age and racial lines, has a long history of being a graveyard for gay publications. Those that have come and gone include '' Gaysweek'' (which was sued out of existence in 1979 by ''Newsweek'' magazine for trademark infringement), the ''New York City News'' (1980–83) '' QW'' (1991–1992), '' OutWeek'' (1989–1991), the '' New York Blade'' (which was actually the New York edition of the ''

Washington Blade The ''Washington Blade'' is an LGBTQ newspaper in the Washington metropolitan area. The ''Blade'' is the oldest LGBTQ newspaper in the United States and third largest by circulation, behind the '' Philadelphia Gay News'' and the '' Gay City New ...

'') (1997–2009), and '' LGNY'' (now '' Gay City News'', the city's only surviving LGBT newspaper, 1995–present). All of these publications also had to compete with the ''

Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture publication based in Greenwich Village, New York City, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Ma ...

'', a citywide weekly alternative newspaper that extensively covered the 1969

Stonewall Riots The Stonewall riots (also known as the Stonewall uprising, Stonewall rebellion, Stonewall revolution, or simply Stonewall) were a series of spontaneous riots and demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of ...

that are credited as the birth of the modern gay liberation movement, and had enjoyed a large LGBT readership ever since—although it had a reputation for having an anti-gay slant in the late 1950s and early 1960s prior to the Stonewall Riots. The ''Voice'' published an annual Gay Pride issue in June.

References

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