Decades before Covid-19, the AIDS epidemic tore through communities in the US and around the world. It has killed some 40 million people and continues to take lives today. 

But early on, research and public policy focused on AIDS as a gay men’s disease, overlooking other vulnerable groups—including communities of color and women. 

“We literally had to convince the federal government that there were women getting HIV,” says activist Maxine Wolfe. “We actually had to develop treatment and research agendas that were about women.”

This week on Reveal, reporters Kai Wright and Lizzy Ratner from the podcast Blindspot: The Plague in the Shadows take us back to the first years of the HIV epidemic in New York City. 

One of the most influential activists for women with AIDS was Katrina Haslip, a prisoner at a maximum-security prison in upstate New York. In the 1980s, Haslip and other incarcerated women started a support group to educate each other about HIV and AIDS.

Haslip took her activism beyond prison walls after her release in 1990, even meeting with leaders of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. One of the main goals was to change the definition of AIDS, which at the time excluded many symptoms that appeared in HIV-positive women. This meant that women with AIDS often did not qualify for government benefits such as Medicaid and disability insurance. 

The podcast series Blindspot: The Plague in the Shadows is a co-production of The History Channel and WNYC Studios. 

This is an update of an episode that originally aired in February 2024.