ABSTRACT
In the United States, especially following the Stonewall Riot in 1969,1 lesbians and gays have gained some power of social expression and other rights. Lesbian and gay activism has also succeeded in achieving the de-pathologization of homosexuality.2
However, the disease later named AIDS was discovered in 1981 and was initially identified as a disease peculiar to (male) homosexuality. This contributed to the remedicalization of homosexuality (Blasius 1994: 153-4), and as such the regulatory discourse on AIDS in the US may be seen as a reaction against the rights won by lesbian and gay movements. On the other hand, when ‘the first AIDS patient’ was discovered in Japan in 1985, there was essentially no similar power of social expression or political activism among lesbians and gays. Japanese homosexuals were thus thrown into the midst of the age of AIDS and their struggles with pathologization continued until 1995, when the Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology (finally) declared the de-medicalization of homosexuality.
