Living Lessons from the AIDS Crisis – Queer Elders on Care, Activism, and Community

KALWKALW hosts an intergenerational conversation about queer solidarity during the AIDS crisis and how those lessons are still relevant today. What does one generation of queer people owe the next? What wisdom, strategies, and stories can help us navigate uncertainty, isolation, and political backlash today? Through personal storytelling, oral history, and audience dialogue, LGBTQ+ elders who lived through the height of the epidemic will share their experiences of community, activism, caregiving, resistance, and love in San Francisco. As today’s queer communities face renewed political attacks, ongoing public health challenges, loneliness, and questions about how we care for one another, the lessons forged during the AIDS crisis remain deeply relevant. How did people build community in the face of fear? What forms of mutual aid and collective action emerged when institutions failed? What can younger generations learn from those who organized, protested, cared for the sick, and refused to let their communities disappear? Featuring activists, caregivers, and community members who witnessed and shaped this pivotal era, the evening will weave together personal testimony and collective reflection. Audience members will be invited into the conversation, sharing their own experiences and questions as we explore how stories of survival become blueprints for solidarity. Together, we’ll examine how the networks of care, cultures of resistance, and models of community that formed during the AIDS crisis continue to inspire queer life today. Patrick Batt has been a part of San Francisco’s LGBTQ+ community for decades and owns AutoErotica in the Castro neighborhood. His life and work are the focus of AutoErotica: We Buy Gay Stuff, which was selected for the 2025 Frameline Film Festival. Rev. Jim Mitulski has pastored LGBTQ and HIV affected churches since 1983. His first church was the Metropolitan Community Churchin Greenwich Village in NYC, where he had been a student minister prior, a ground zero for AIDS in the United States. He worked next at Metropolitan Community Church of San Francisco 1986-2001, in the heart of the Castro. His work on HIV is both personal and political. He is a long term HIV /AIDS survivor of over 30 years, and has been active in many social justice cause , especially Immigration, racial justice, and LGBTQ rights. Travis Raburn is an audio-visual journalist and a recent graduate from San Francisco State University. He has led multimedia production for the Golden Gate Xpress, had his work featured in a film festival, as well as a few other publications in the United States and abroad. Come early for Pollinating The Possible, on view in KALW’s gallery until July 31. CreatingAS1, the art team of Sara Corbett and Aaron Haldiman, is transforming KALW’s public gathering space into a living gallery—an invitation to pause, reflect, and engage with artwork that explores connection, renewal, and possibility. Together, KALW and CreatingAS1 invite you into a process of discovery, connection, and collective imagination. Please become a KALW member today and receive your first drink on us at all 220 Montgomery events. 220 Montgomery St., San Francisco, 2 blocks from BART/MUNI Reception doors open at 6:00 ️ Program begins at 7:00 🆓 The event is free with an RSVP — and you are welcome to donate what you want Please note: The event space is just to the left of the main entrance to the Mills Building at 220 Montgomery Street We recommend taking BART/MUNI, exiting at Montgomery, and walking two blocks north Ride-shares can drop off and pick up directly in front of the venue If you drive, there are several garages within two blocks of the event location; free street parking is available across from the venue at 7:00 pm Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.