Stephen Gendin

Stephen Gendin (February 20, 1966 – July 19, 2000) was an American AIDS activist in the late 1980s and the 1990s, whose advocacy is credited with having promoted changes in government policy that improved the lives of HIV positive people. He was involved with the ACT UP, ActUp/RI, Sex Panic!, the Community Prescription Service, POZ Magazine and the Radical Faeries. HIV positive himself, he dedicated the last fifteen years of his life to helping care for those also living with HIV/AIDS.

Death and legacy Gendin died on July 19, 2000, at the age of 34, from AIDS-induced lymphoma. In the summer of 2000, he was eulogized in a widely reprinted speech by Larry Kramer. The chemotherapy he was receiving to treat the disease put him into cardiac arrest. His activism was pivotal in reforming the FDA drug approval process to expedite HIV and AIDS patients' access to more effective anti-retroviral treatments.

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