Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

This day, August 29th, 1987, the home of the Ray Brothers, three HIV positive Florida boys,

burns down in what is almost certainly a case of arson.

The brothers were 10, 9, and 8 years old at the time. Each of them had

hemophilia which required them to get blood transfusions and through those

transfusions they had contracted AIDS from HIV positive blood donors.

When their HIV status became known in their community, which is a town just east of Sarasota, Florida,

the family was largely shunned.

This was a moment when AIDS was largely

largely still known as a quote-unquote gay disease.

Enormous fears and misinformation were spreading about the illness and the

people who had it. There were threats at the school where the boys went.

They were ostracized from their church and

then this incident an arson at their home which was later shown to have

started in the boys bedroom reports indicate that in that bedroom there was a poster hanging on the wall that

said please hug me I have AIDS I can't make you sick let's talk about the Ray

brothers arson the stigma around AIDS the larger context of this time and more.

And we have a very special guest for this episode, Eric Marcus, founder and host of the Making Gay History

Podcast, which is an oral history project to bring largely forgotten voices and stories of the

LGBTQ community to life.

Eric, welcome to the show.

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