Tribute: Iris de la Cruz, 1954-1991

AIDS activist who focused on the needs of women living with HIV/AIDS and wrote a real talk column for the People With AIDS Newsline called ‘KOOL AIDS WITH ICE.’

(Note: Although it’s my understanding that De La Cruz was cisgender and heterosexual, the history of AIDS activism is inexorably tied with the history of LGBTQ+ health advocacy, so I wanted to highlight her work here. Also, the archived version of KOOL AIDS WITH ICE is a must-read.)

I got a lot of love and support [from the gay male community] but I also had women's issues. I needed to hear what other women had to say. That was really important. When I walked into a room and there were twenty five women in this room and they were all seropositive or were dealing with AIDS, all of a sudden I wasn't the only one. – Iris De La Cruz

Iris commanded attention, always bursting into a room, turning an outsider into a friend with a blunt remark, confronting people who looked at her struggle with drugs and prostitution and finally with AIDS as shameful and telling them she was not ashamed. – Beverly Rotter (Iris’s mother) from Reflections on Iris De La Cruz

Seriously, just go and read her writing in KOOL AIDS ON ICE.

The world’s worst patient
Takes no shit
And people say she’s hostile.
Don’t they know she’s a soldier
In a war?
And she’s fighting for her life.

from “The World’s Worst Patient,” by Iris De La Cruz, 1989.