Greg Louganis: This Is What HIV Looks Like | LGBTQ+ Elders Project
LGBTQ&A
Jeffrey Masters
4.7 • 703 Ratings
🗓️ 19 April 2022
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
"When I was in the pool, HIV/AIDS didn't exist. That was a sanctuary for me. It was a place that I could go to, really to seek refuge from the stress of the HIV diagnosis."
Four-time Olympic gold medal winner, Greg Louganis joins us to talk about his infamous concussion at the Seoul Olympics in 1988, sharing his HIV status with the world in 1995, and what life's been like since retiring from diving.
This is part of our new LGBTQ+ Elders Project. Click here to listen to our recent interview with the titan of trans history, Jamison Green.
Greg's bestselling memoir, Breaking The Surface, was co-written by Eric Marcus, host of the Making Gay History podcast.
LGBTQ&A is hosted by Jeffrey Masters and produced by The Advocate magazine, in partnership with GLAAD. A condensed transcript of each week's interview is posted on The Advocate's website in the afternoon (or earlier, if I get enough coffee). Follow us on Twitter: @lgbtqpod
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The next time you think about what HIV looks like, I want you to think about Greg Laganus. |
| 0:08.4 | In 1988, six months before he was about to leave for the Olympics in Seoul, Greg found |
| 0:13.9 | out that he was living with HIV, and from there, well, you probably know the rest. |
| 0:19.7 | He did go to Seoul, and during one of his first dives, he hit his head on the diving board. |
| 0:24.6 | They immediately gave him stitches, and 30 minutes later, he got back on the board to continue diving. |
| 0:30.6 | And he won. Two gold medals. |
| 0:33.6 | This made him the first man and only the second person to ever sweep both diving events |
| 0:39.8 | in two consecutive Olympics. |
| 0:42.5 | He is widely considered the greatest diver of all time, so that is what HIV looks like. |
| 0:49.7 | That is what is possible. |
| 0:52.0 | I wanted to talk to Greg about this moment because it was bigger than just him, of course. |
| 0:57.4 | And even though he wasn't open about his HIV status then, when he did share the public in |
| 1:03.1 | 1995, HIV was no less of an issue, as it unfortunately remains today. |
| 1:09.2 | So all of that is coming up. |
| 1:11.1 | And from The Advocate magazine in partnership with Glad, I'm Jeffrey Masters, and this is |
| 1:17.0 | LGBTQ and A with the world's greatest diver Greg Laginus. |
| 1:31.9 | I'm going to start off by going back to the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. |
| 1:39.5 | I'm fascinated by that moment because we have incredibly few examples of athletes living with HIV and competing at the highest levels. |
| 1:42.4 | And so at that Olympics, you walked away with two gold medals. |
| 1:46.2 | But going back to that time, 1988, that was not a certainty by any means. |
| 1:52.4 | At that time, how were you thinking about how HIV might affect your diving career? |
| 1:57.0 | I really didn't know. |
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