Summarydan glass was born in 1983, the year HIV was first identified as HIV rather than the gay plague. They grew up under Thatcher's Section 28 with only EastEnders' Mark Fowler and tombstone adverts for reference. Death, isolation, internalised stigma - that was all HIV meant. When dan was diagnosed in their early twenties, they got drunk, went to a friend's house, cried, and she helped them to the toilet. The next morning, they told their boss it wasn't flu after all.
For five years, dan refused treatment. The fear was too deep, the conditioning too absolute. Section 28 had taught them they were wrong, that whatever happened was their fault, that no one would help. The gravity of that silence was lethal. When dan finally saw a doctor in Berlin who told them their CD4 count meant they had AIDS, they collapsed in the shower the next day.
What followed was transformation through community. A friend in Berlin, Juliana, threw a party where everyone screamed in each other's faces and painted their feet white to pre-empt the side effects dan feared most. The next morning, in Tempelhof park, dan took their first pills. A lover named Terry introduced them to ACT UP. dan went down the rabbit hole and never came back.
Since then, dan has co-founded the reformed ACT UP London, organised die-ins in Trafalgar Square, helped secure PrEP access through spectacular direct action, written two books on queer radical history, co-founded Bender Defenders for queer self-defence, and is about to open London's first community-run LGBTQ+ space at the Joiners Arms. According to Nigel Farage, they're scum. dan takes that as a compliment.
This is the final episode of series two, and it's a fitting end: grief alchemised into action, silence challenged at every turn, and friendship held up as political resistance.
Timestamped Takeaways00:02:43 - Section 28 meant death. Growing up under Thatcher, HIV meant death, isolation, internalised stigma, your own fault. Mark Fowler on EastEnders was the only reference. There were no queer friends, no ropes to hang on to.
00:04:22 - Missing stories. What was missing from those messages was the brilliance of the community. People weren't told the true human stories. Section 28 silenced homosexuality in schools, libraries, public institutions. dan grew up in a religious, conservative environment where being gay was an abomination. Silence layered on silence.
00:06:27 - Seroconversion. dan had what seemed like flu but wasn't. A doctor in Brighton said those three letters. It struck deep. dan didn't know what it meant scientifically or socially—just death. They got drunk, went to a friend's house, cried, and she helped them to the toilet.
00:08:23 - Telling friends one by one. It was emotionally exhausting. So dan decided to do it all at once: a show called Shafted, based on Stars in Their Eyes, on the 25th anniversary of ACT UP. At the end, they were fired from a 12-foot cock-shaped human cannon across the audience, announcing: "Tonight everyone, I'm living with HIV."
00:10:47 - Five years without treatment. dan refused medication despite it being available. Living with HIV is more than pills into bodies. Fear, internalised stigma, the conditioning that you were doomed—Section 28's pathology was hyper-individualism. You had to parent yourself because you were told you were wrong.
00:12:08 - Shingles in Glasgow. dan's nurse called it "the red roses from hell." Their immune system was in a bad way. Stress correlated with sickness. White things on the tongue, red rashes—signs the body was failing. Still, dan was rigid with fear.
00:13:44 - Berlin and the truth. A doctor in Berlin, smoking fags in a tight white shirt, gave dan the statistics. They went home, looked up what it meant, and realised they had AIDS. They collapsed in the shower the next day.
00:15:09 - Juliana's party. dan was terrified of the side effects—nightmares, white feet. Juliana threw a party where everyone screamed in each other's faces and painted their feet white. You face fear by facing it.
00:17:03 - First pills in Tempelhof. The next morning, in dan's favourite park, they swallowed the pills. Game changer. Choice made. The physiological symptoms cleared rapidly.
00:17:51 - Terry's challenge. A lover named Terry, an ACT UP Paris activist, challenged dan's shame. "It's not your shame. It's society's." They went to bed. The next morning, Terry told dan about ACT UP. dan went down the rabbit hole.
00:19:13 - The second silence. Around 2014, HIV was in what activists called "the second silence": rising transmissions among certain populations without access, cuts to education and support due to austerity, and a general belief that HIV was a thing of the 80s and 90s.
00:20:28 - Peter Staley and reformation. dan contacted Peter Staley, protagonist of How to Survive a Plague, organised a screening in London, and met Andrea Morden, a lifelong ACT UP activist whose partner John had died of AIDS. That meeting led to the reformation of ACT UP London.
00:21:28 - What ACT UP is. AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power. A diverse, non-partisan group united in anger, committed to direct action to end the HIV pandemic. It started in New York in 1987 with Larry Kramer's speech asking the room to stand up: half of you will die. What are we going to do about it?
00:23:14 - The ashes action. In 1992, people took the ashes of their murdered loved ones in a procession to the White House and threw them over the gates. Grief alchemised into rage. For dan, the alchemy of grief is one of the most potent forces in the activist toolkit.
00:24:03 - The condom on Jesse Helms' house. Peter Staley and others put a house-shaped condom on the notoriously homophobic senator's home while he was out. In Paris, they covered the obelisk. In London, they tried Nelson's Column but didn't get a photo.
00:25:08 - What a die-in is. You lie on the ground with tombstones, red ribbons, red roses. A vigil and a protest. Anyone killed by government inaction—their death is a protest. Die-ins have happened outside pharmaceutical companies, financial institutions, and in Trafalgar Square as homage to the generation before.
00:27:32 - Rebuilding community. dan has a deep need for reconnection because of Section 28 and because of their Jewish ancestry—grandchildren of Holocaust survivors. Complete obliteration creates a need for rebuilding.
00:28:19 - Intergenerational dialogue. At an early ACT UP London meeting, an older activist told younger ones: "I don't know what you've got to deal with. We lost all our friends." dan stopped him. This isn't the oppression Olympics. Listen to each other's realities.
00:29:49 - The importance of space. Queer spaces like the Joiners Arms are where ACT UP meetings happen. Space is fundamental to power. In the daytime, HIV testing and community meetings. In the evening, cabaret and cruising. An ecosystem of needs.
00:32:40 - Connecting people. dan didn't know what activism was, just had a lot of rage with no productive outlet. Through meeting incredible people, they realised their purpose was connection—intergenerational, cross-cultural, weaving the tapestry that's been denied.
00:33:08 - Section 28's wound. A quote from Samuel Delany: "I was never taught how to love or what it might mean for someone like me to feel desire. And by the time I came of age, there was no one left to teach me." dan had to stop every ten minutes watching Heartstopper to cry. The discrepancy from Section 28 is a parallel universe.
00:35:18 - Holocaust and HIV. dan's two busiest times of year are World AIDS Day and Holocaust Memorial Day. Their grandparents were survivors. The silence equals death mentality comes from that heritage. The persecuted can become oppressors if they don't work on their trauma.
00:37:15 - Whose story gets told. Gay men's stories dominate HIV narratives. But what about women, people of colour, drug users? The hierarchy of acceptable stories must be constantly challenged. Until there's healthcare for all, we have to challenge our own conditioning.
00:50:22 - Inside-outside strategy. ACT UP taught dan about working with doctors, nurses, scientists on the inside while doing direct action on the outside. Without that combination, we wouldn't have antiretrovirals or PrEP access. Protest is fundamental to humanity. The chilling effect of recent legislation tries to make it a dirty word.
00:52:27 - Three books. United Queerdom (interviews with founders of Pride), Queer Footprints (a radical queer tour guide to London), and the forthcoming ACT UP, Rise Up (working title), about what made activists get out of bed in the morning—not strategy, but soul.
00:54:57 - The empty room argument. Those who think freedom was won with gay marriage need to zoom out. Homophobic hate crime is real. Police persecution continues. Not everyone can have public displays of queer affection. Four million people are expected to die by 2030 because of foreign aid cuts. Who decides whose lives are worthy?
00:56:53 - Remembering Ray Navarro. An actor-activist from ACT UP New York who dressed as Jesus outside Saint Patrick's Cathedral during the church occupation. He died of AIDS, young. The look on his face in the footage: mischief, joy, defiance. He probably knew he was dying.
00:58:50 - The postcard. "Friendship is political. Our chosen family, our friends we can be intimate with, will get us through all the crises and barriers and bullshit. My friends mean everything to me—in a kind of dry way, but in a beautiful, joyful, mischief-making way as well."
Guest Biodan glass is an activist, author, and according to Nigel Farage, scum. Born in 1983, they grew up under Section 28 and were diagnosed with HIV in their early twenties, initially refusing treatment until their CD4 count crashed to AIDS-defining levels. They co-founded the reformed ACT UP London, helped secure PrEP access through direct action, and have written two books on queer radical history: United Queerdom and Queer Footprints. They are about to open the Joiners Arms, London's first community-run LGBTQ+ space.
Resources- ACT UP London - https://actuplondon.wordpress.com/
- Friends of the Joiners Arms: https://www.friendsjoinersarms.com/
- How to Survive a Plague (film) - Documentary on ACT UP New York
- 120 BPM (film) - Trailer, see ACT UP Paris in action.
- United Queerdom (Book): Buy here
- Queer Footprints (Book): Buy here
- Bender Defenders: https://www.benderdefenders.com
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