#lindalaubenstein

“[She] felt compelled to help gay men because no one else at the time would.” – Priscilla Laubenstein, mother of Dr. Linda Laubenstein (May 21, 1947 – August 15, 1992) (pictured c. 1985) to John Portmann (“Women and Gay Men in the Post War Period”)
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Dr. Linda Laubenstein, who was born seventy years ago today, was among the first doctors in the United States to recognize what became known as AIDS, co-authoring the seminal July 1981 article linking the disease to Kaposi’s Sarcoma. She was, as Larry Kramer said upon her death, “incredibly important in the history of AIDS, a genuine pioneer, and a real fighter for what she believed”; Kramer based the character of Dr. Emma Brookner in his “The Normal Heart” on Laubenstein.
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As a child, Laubenstein had severe asthma and, at age five, contracted polio. She spent months in an iron lung and was left paraplegic; she used a wheelchair the rest of her life. Physically unable to attend elementary school, Laubenstein participated via an intercom system installed in her home; other students at her high school, the campus of which was not wheelchair accessible, carried her up and down stairs so she could attend classes. She went to Barnard College because the campus was accessible; she studied medicine at New York University.
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In 1979, Dr. Laubenstein saw the first patient, a young gay man, whom she diagnosed with Kaposi’s Sarcoma; two weeks later, she diagnosed a second patient, also a young gay man, with the same disease. By 1982, she had seen sixty-two patients with AIDS—a fourth of the total cases recorded in the U.S. at the time. She spent the rest of her career focused on AIDS.
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Laubenstein also was a vocal AIDS activist who criticized the American government for its neglect in fighting the epidemic. Along with Kramer, she took stances that were unpopular with many in the gay community, namely the opinions that bathhouses should close and gay men generally should decrease sexual activity.
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Starting in the mid-1980s, Laubenstein’s mental and physical health suffered, though she continued working. She died unexpectedly of a heart attack on August 15, 1992; she was forty-five. #HavePrideInHistory #LindaLaubenstein