My mother is an amateur genealogist. I learned in school that people in the “olden days” always died so much younger than we do today. While it is generally true, I was always struck by my mother’s research showing how we had ancestors in the 1700s and 1800s that lived well into their 70s and even 80s – just as long as we live today. What I was learning in school didn’t seem to fit with what I learned helping my mother.

Later I learned about “averages” and how averaging people’s ages would make it seem like everyone died very young. In reality the cause was a high infant mortality rate, so someone dying with less than one year would totally skew the results when combined with those living into their 70s. So if you made it passed childhood, you stood a decent chance of making it to a ripe old age.

I think the same is true of HIV/AIDS. I know in the early days of the disease, many men had never come out until they were diagnosed. When the passed at a young age, their deaths skewed the reality of LGBT mortality rates. Today we are coming out more and more and I imagine that the public will eventually see a more realistic picture that isn’t clouded by disease.