Courtney: Friendship Superhero and American Girl Consumer

It's 1986, and Courtney Moore's summer break is off to a great start. After participating in Hands Across America, she's ready to hit the arcade, read her American Girl catalogue, and make new friends, including a boy named Isaac. But Courtney faces unexpected challenges when she hits the books that fall. When others learn that Isaac is HIV positive, he is forced to leave Courtney's school. For this episode, we brought in an expert to talk about Courtney's ensuing public health campaign and what someone her age would have known about the HIV crisis in the mid-1980s. Our special guest Myrna Moretti, a PhD Candidate at Northwestern University, also gave us great insight into how Courtney consumes technology, '80s arcade culture, and the real queer-led activist movement that fought for a cure for HIV/AIDS.

Special Note: As we shared in the introduction, we have decided to end the show after covering "Meet Isabel and Nicki" on our next episode. We are so grateful for five wonderful years with this amazing community of listeners! We will keep the Discord community active and hope it continues to thrive (we love being part of it ourselves!) and will not produce a Patreon episode in April.

We will be recording the final episode soon and would love to share your messages and answer a few questions. You can share messages and questions with us here: https://forms.gle/uzDk7A9DpScA5RvK8

We will also post on Instagram to collect messages and questions there.

Thank you again for enriching our lives, and this show, beyond measure.

Resources:

Here is a lecture by Dr. Cait McKinney referenced by our guest, Myrna: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHjXxV16So8&t=2006s 

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