LARRY KRAMER

It's been 40 years since the first U.S. AIDS cases were were reported, and some who experienced the early years of the crisis say the effects of denialism then have carried into the COVID-19 pandemic.

Casting a straight actor in landmark gay role isn't a misstep. It's a recognition of shared struggle.

This image released by Pixar Animation Studios shows a scene from the animated short film "Out," featuring a gay protagonist, the first in Pixar's 25-year history. But there were scenes he never expected to animate until he began working on his short, Out.Hunter wrote and directed the nine-minute Pixar film, which recently debuted on Disney+. While frantically trying to hide evidence of his boyfriend, Manuel, Greg discovers the courage to reveal his sexual orientation to his parents. Greg, whos loosely based on Hunter, is Pixars first LGBTQ protagonist. To animate it, Hunter approached Wendell Lee, the only other gay animator still at Pixar from Hunters early days with the company.

(AP Photo/Jeff Christensen, File)NEW YORK Reaction to the death of Larry Kramer, the AIDS activist and playwright who turned his fury into mass protests and helped raise the profile of the disease:"If you remember the early days of the AIDS crisis then you remember Larry Kramer. Author and fellow founder of the Gay Men's Health Crisis Edmund White, in a statement. His anger was needed at a time when gay mens deaths to AIDS were being ignored by the American government. Elton John, in a statement. Thank you, Larry Kramer. Lin-Manuel Miranda, via Twitter. ___Rest in power to our fighter Larry Kramer.

FILE - This May 12, 2014 file photo shows playwright Larry Kramer at the premiere of HBO Films' "The Normal Heart" in New York. Kramer, the playwright whose angry voice and pen raised theatergoers consciousness about AIDS and roused thousands to militant protests in the early years of the epidemic, died Wednesday, May 27, 2020 in Manhattan of pneumonia. Please know that AIDS is a worldwide plague. Kramer, whose angry voice and pen raised consciousness about AIDS and roused thousands to action, died Wednesday at 84. As support for AIDS research increased, he found some common ground with health officials whom ACT UP had criticized.

FILE - In this Dec. 10, 2014 file photo, playwright Larry Kramer attends Acria's 19th Annual Holiday Dinner Benefit in New York. (Photo by Donald Traill/Invision/AP, File)NEW YORK Larry Kramer, the playwright whose angry voice and pen raised theatergoers consciousness about AIDS and roused thousands to militant protests in the early years of the epidemic, has died at 84. Bill Goldstein, a writer who was working on a biography of Kramer, confirmed the news to The Associated Press. Kramer's husband, David Webster, told The New York Times that Kramer died of pneumonia on Wednesday. But for many years he was best known for his public fight to secure medical treatment, acceptance and civil rights for people with AIDS.

Larry Kramer, HIV/AIDS and discrimination activist, sits down with CBSN to talk about volume one of his new book "The American People."