The grassroots response to HIV and AIDS in Middle America
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What is the overall focus of Katie Batza’s book on AIDS in the Heartland?
The story of AIDS and HIV in the United States isn't a medical, geographic, or political monolith. The history of this public health crisis touched the Midwest differently than the East and West Coast. The response was different in Kansas and other places in the heartland, uh and and lessons, lessons of that history in terms of building coalitions for change have something to say about LGBTQ politics today. Katie Batza, Associate Professor of Women and Gender and Sexual Studies at the University of Kansas captures these ideas in a new book, AIDS in the Heartland, and she took time out of her busy day to join Kansas Reflector to delve into this important subject. Professor Vatza, welcome to the podcast.
Thank you so much for having me.
Thank you. So I think to begin with, so people kind of understand where you're coming from, wonder you could tell listeners about a little bit about yourself and why you were drawn to write about the American experience regarding AIDS.
Uh yeah, so um well I became a big fan of history in my first history class when I was Um in seventh grade and I um came out shortly thereafter and went to the library to learn about the history of the LGBTQ community and found that the shelf was empty. Um and in that moment I thought, this isn't this isn't right, this isn't good. Um I need to figure out how to fill this bookshelf. And so I kind of set off on this path and in coming out in the early mid nineteen nineties, um Yeah. coming out was kind of part and parcel with learning about HIV and AIDS, uh and and doing a lot of volunteer work with that community. And so, um as I kind of became a graduate student I I became more interested in in the intersections of health, sexuality and politics.
Uh my first book was about gay health activism in the nineteen seventies, what happened before AIDS. Uh and so then this book is just kind of the next um obvious course a step in the course, right, of uh what comes next.
You've you've I obviously you've read a lot of history and and and materials about HIV and AIDS, but you have a sense that there's really nobody not enough people talking about uh this health issue in terms of this part of the country. Where we're sitting in Lawrence right now.
Yeah, that's correct. Uh I think even historians who study HIV and AIDS, they kind of gloss over the middle part of the country as a place that was really not impacted by HIV and AIDS. And I think that that uh does a huge disservice for the history that is here as well as the people that are here uh fighting to make sure that that the AIDS epidemic doesn't kind of rear its ugly height head again.
Mm. So part of what you're saying, I think, uh I should say without benefit of me having read your book, uh, is that uh what has been written and research maybe centers on places such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City, uh, and and part of what you're attempting to do is fill these gaps uh and uh in and and and focus on an area that is broadly the heartland. Which uh Kansas would be part of the Mm-hmm. Yeah,
absolutely.
All right. Uh I uh maybe we can touch later on some of the under representation specifically uh in that. So uh W why not more written about the Midwest and Aids?
Yeah, I mean I think one, there were fewer people who were impacted here by HIV and AIDS. Um so just looking at the numbers, you know, you're looking at New York and that's thousands and thousands of people. Here it's hundreds, you know. Um so there's that part of it. But also I think This is true of of many different parts of research, is that there are a lot more universities, there's a lot more archives, there's a lot more funding uh in coastal settings. Uh whereas here people just assume that there aren't a lot of archives. Um there's not a ton of funding. It's difficult to get here and stay here for a long time.
Why did Katie become interested in LGBTQ history and the AIDS crisis?
Um and Do you think
there was any inhibition on a academics and scholars? In a in a conservative historically conservative state like Kansas to do this?
I don't I don't think so. I think academics here I think we just needed the right person at the right time and so I just happen to have the skill set and I learned about the archive and you know, I feel very fortunate.
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