Timeline is a regular feature in each issue looking back to events and milestones that have helped us evolve into the community we are today.

October 14, 1988

The newly formed Connecticut group ACTOUT held their first demonstration on Sept. 29, 1988 in response to the AIDS crisis in Connecticut prisons. At the time, ACTOUT was only a month old, however, almost 25 demonstrators picketed in front of Hartford’s Department of Corrections to condemn the agency for their refusal to hand out condoms and dental dams to inmates.

Demonstrators walked with signs that read “Stop AIDS—Not Sex,” “Condomize the Prisons Now,” and “We Support Prisoners’ Rights to Safe Sex.” While ACTOUT garnered the support from a large segment of Hartford’s gay and lesbian community, the state commissioner refused to acquiesce to mounting pressure. Lizz Toledo, a member of ACTOUT, could be heard chanting “Meachum Says No, We Say Yes,” a reference to the commissioner’s refusal to disperse prophylactics.

ACTOUT used as their argument the fact that sex is natural human behavior and that a prison sentence should neither stifle nor prohibit such an act. The group further asserted that if inmates were to violate rules prohibiting sex they should not be made to “die in agony as punishment.”

By denying inmates with protective devices to use during sex, many ACTOUT members accused the Department of Corrections as acting homophobically, possibly causing the death of thousands of people. To avoid such a widespread threat, the group demanded that the Department of Corrections provide free condoms and dental dams along with directions and guidance for proper use.

“Perhaps officials at the Department of Correction would like to turn their heads and pretend sex does not occur in our prisons...must prisoners risk making each other mortally ill whenever they do have sex?” asked a press release circulated by members of ACTOUT.