Until the 1980s and the surfacing of the AIDS epidemic the gay and lesbian subculture was largely invisible within state-socialist Hungary. Although homosexuality had been decriminalized in 1961, in accordance with state-socialist rule there could be no gay organizations and there existed no Hungarian homosexual movement.
The paper will analyze how the emergence of AIDS worked as a catalyst in transforming the Hungarian gay subculture into a more organized gay movement. Rather than state-socialism being in crisis, it was a crisis of public health and perceived danger to the members of the community that instigated the creation of the first formal gay organization. Consequently, the initial politicization of homosexual subculture took place not necessarily in opposition to state-socialism: relaxing official attitudes were essential for the formation of organized Hungarian homosexual movement and most Hungarian homosexuals looked to function within existing structures of late state-socialism rather than in their opposition.
