The story of the onset of the HIV-AIDS crisis in New York City in the early 1980s, taking an unflinching look at the nation's sexual politics as gay activists and their allies in the medical community fight to expose the truth about the burgeoning epidemic to a city and nation in denial. In the early 1980s, the onset of the HIV-AIDS crisis in New York led to an emergence of homosexual activists. With support from the medical community, they try to raise awareness about the disease.