The writer and activist had founded the organisations Gay Men’s Health Crisis and ACT UP during the AIDS crisis. With his aggressive style of argumentation, he represented the gay community at a time when the government under Ronald Reagan let them down. He died of pneumonia on Wednesday.

Kramer leaves behind his husband, the architect David Webster. He had been at his side for 29 years, and in 2013 the two were legally allowed to marry. Kramer also lived openly with HIV. In 2017, he explained his furious activism in the New York Times by saying that AIDS had changed everything. The first people who became ill had been friends of his, he said.

“I was trying to make people united and angry. I was known as the angriest man in the world, mainly because I discovered that anger got you further than being nice. And when we started to break through in the media, I was a better figure on TV than someone who was nice.”

Many enemies and an Emmy nomination

The most famous play of the late writer was the autobiographical The Normal Heart, which he published in 1985. In it he deals with the tragedy that afflicted the gay community of New York in the 1980s. The script was adapted for television in 2014 and Kramer was nominated for an Emmy in the process.

During his time as an activist, Kramer did not only make friends. His style of argumentation turned many people against him, and he repeatedly attacked pharmaceutical companies, politicians and the media directly. But almost all his opponents now also paid tribute to the deceased and retrospectively described his activism as very effective.

Among them was Dr. Anthony Fauci, the long-time director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases – the two of them were united by a love-hate relationship. In the New York Times, Fauci now stated that Kramer had played a major role in the development of treatments for HIV+ people, and had repeatedly and successfully advocated the rapid introduction of new drugs.

“Once you got past the rhetoric, you found that Larry Kramer made a lot of sense, and that he had a heart of gold.”

Sir Elton John also said goodbye to Kramer. He said that the death of the writer was the saddest news. He bowed before him:

“His anger was needed at a time when gay men’s deaths to AIDS were being ignored by the American government, a tragedy that made the Gay Men’s Health Crisis and ACT UP movements so vital. He never stopped shouting about the injustices against us. His voice was the loudest and the most effective.”

Alphonso David, President of the Human Rights Campaign, also paid tribute to Kramer:

“Larry’s unending courage and tireless efforts helped awaken a nation to the urgent crisis of HIV and AIDS and brought us closer to a cure than ever before. Through his life and work, Larry Kramer inspired generations of advocates, many of whom are alive today because he dared to speak out and act up.”

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