Queer phobia increased in the U.S. too because of HIV/AIDS. This is a complicated subject more fitting as somebody's PhD dissertation than a throwaway line in an article about something else, so I apologize for that.

It's been hypothesized that at least in the United States, empathy was increased eventually because of all the involuntary outings HIV caused. So many gay men became ill or died in such a way that their friends and family came to know they were gay and had to face the reality of HIV. The red ribbon campaign was based on appealing to those people and others who had a loving stake in the issue, but weren't necessarily queer themselves.

I'm talking about an effect that might have started to become significant in the mid to late 1990s. Clearly, in the 80s, very little empathy was happening yet across society at large. Some will remember Ryan White, an HIV-positive child who died in 1990. He and his family faced intense stigma and exclusion in the 80s, the effects of which were only beginning to lessen when he passed away, still an active public figure calling for an end to fear and stigma.