The Seattle Gay News (SGN) was founded in 1976 to provide news coverage focusing on Seattle’s gay community; it is the third oldest LGBTQ+ newspaper in the US. Seattle Gay News started as a newsletter produced by the Gay Community Center. It provided news to a community that was largely ignored by mainstream newspapers and advocated for gay rights in numerous campaigns. Especially during the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the 1980s, it was an important source of information and helped members of the community to support each other. Since its founding, the SGN has widened its focus to Seattle’s LGBTQ+ community more broadly.

This issue was published on November 19, 1982 and its headline reports on the first case of AIDS diagnosed in Seattle. At that time, three quarters of those diagnosed with AIDS in the United States were gay men. In the early 1980s, AIDS was very poorly understood: nothing was known about cause, means of transmission, or cure. Treatments were also extremely limited. In 1983, Seattle's first AIDS clinic opened with support from the city and from King County, though activists and public health officials faced a decades-long fight to understand and stop AIDS.

Caption information source: “A History of HIV/AIDS,” AIDS Memorial Pathway, retrieved from https://theamp.org/history/.