On July 3, 1981, newspapers reported an aggressive cancer outbreak among a group of men:
Doctors in New York and California have diagnosed among homosexual men 41 cases of a rare and often rapidly fatal form of cancer. Eight of the victims died less than 24 months after the diagnosis was made.The cause of the outbreak is unknown, and there is as yet no evidence of contagion. But the doctors who have made the diagnoses, mostly in New York City and the San Francisco Bay area, are alerting other physicians who treat large numbers of homosexual men to the problem in an effort to help identify more cases and to reduce the delay in offering chemotherapy treatment.
From the outset the discovery led everyone to believe it was solely a gay man's illness. Homosexuality was of course already stigmatized in society, but now there was an explicit reason to treat gays differently. Never mind that research was just beginning on this rare form of cancer and its underlying causes, it was seemingly easy to blame gays and their immoral behavior, saying, much like they do today when there's a disaster or tragedy, that gays' moral depravity is responsible.