Mass was born in
Macon, Georgia, in 1946, received his B.A. from the
University of California at Berkeley in 1969, and his M.D. from the University of Illinois's
Abraham Lincoln School of Medicine in 1973. Completing his residency in
anesthesiology at Boston's
Massachusetts General Hospital (in association with
Harvard Medical School), Mass encountered
homophobia during his interviews in Chicago for a residency in
psychiatry when he disclosed that he was gay. This treatment became the catalyst for his activism that he pursued via journalism, making him the first openly gay physician to write on a regular basis for the
gay press.
Early focus on psychiatry Mass focused initially on the field of psychiatry, which retained many of its past homophobic practitioners, practices and positions even after the
American Psychiatric Association in 1973 declassified homosexuality as a mental disorder. Besides writing for the gay press, Mass became newsletter editor for the Gay Caucus of Members of the American Psychiatric Association, the fledgling organization of gay psychiatrists that began organizing in the aftermath of the declassification. Under Mass, the newsletter ran politically charged headlines such as its first, "Psychoanalytic Statute Prevents Legal Entry of Gay Aliens," calling attention to the fact that discredited psychoanalytic theories of "the homosexual" as a form of "psychopathic personality" were still sources of discriminatory public policies.
Writing for the gay press His writing for the gay press examined the leading roles of sociology and sex research in shaping contemporary thinking about sexuality and homosexuality. Mass chronicled the shift in academic and scientific thinking about homosexuality and sexuality. He conducted and published many interviews with such leading figures in the discourse as
Judd Marmor,
Richard Pillard,
Thomas Szasz,
John Money,
Charles Silverstein,
Masters and Johnson, Richard Green,
Mary Calderone,
John Boswell,
John D'Emilio and
Estelle Freedman, and
Martin Duberman. A selection of these interviews is republished in his two
Dialogues of the Sexual Revolution collections. As a physician writing for the gay press, Mass also was one of the first to address the 1970s spread of a number of sexually transmitted diseases, including
syphilis,
gonorrhea,
hepatitis B and
amebiasis. In May 1981, Mass authored the first press report appearing in the
New York Native, followed in July 1981 by the first feature article, "Cancer in the Gay Community," on the then-new HIV/AIDS epidemic. "Disease Rumors Largely Unfounded" was the headline of Mass's article. The
New York Native cover story was among the opening displays of the
Newseum in Arlington, Va., now in Washington, DC. Mass continues to report on HIV/AIDS.
Co-founder of Gay Men's Health Crisis In 1982, Mass joined
Larry Kramer,
Edmund White,
Paul Rapoport, Paul Popham and Nathan Fain in co-founding Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC), the world's first and still largest AIDS information and service organization. For 10 years, through four revisions, Mass authored GMHC's guide,
Medical Answers About AIDS, which usually concluded with an appeal for civil liberties for sexual minority persons and the sanctioning of same sex relationships as "essential considerations in the preventive medicine of AIDS and other STDs." At the start of the AIDS epidemic, the issue of
anti-Semitism also interested Mass. As described on the dust jacket of his memoir, "Confessions of a Jewish Wagnerite": "Confessions of a Jewish Wagnerite" is the story of Mass's voyage of discovery from his adolescent infatuation with Wagner to his friendship with the great-grandson of the composer and life-partnership with a fellow gay activist and Jewish-American writer.
Editor of anthology on Larry Kramer Mass's entangled concerns about
Jews,
Jewishness, anti-Semitism, and the internalization of antisemitism provide an unanticipated lens through which to view the subject of his subsequent book, a collection on the life and legacies of author and AIDS activist Larry Kramer. The anthology
We Must Love One Another or Die: The Life and Legacies of Larry Kramer begins with "Larry versus Larry," the story of Mass's sometimes stormy 40-year relationship with Kramer, and includes contributions from a number of key figures from the AIDS movement, including historical and critical evaluations by
Rodger McFarlane,
Anthony Fauci,
Michelangelo Signorile,
Gabriel Rotello,
Tony Kushner, and
John D'Emilio. While Kramer is likely to remain best known for his achievements around AIDS and grass roots activism, Mass was most inspired by Kramer's experience as a writer, especially his very personal voice, bravery and perseverance in the face of harsh criticism and rejection. Chapters by
Andrew Holleran,
Christopher Bram,
Alfred Corn,
Michael Denneny and others complete the picture of, as the dust jacket puts it, "one of the most original and influential voices of the twentieth century."
Ongoing interest in gay health issues By the mid-1990s, thanks largely to the efforts of Kramer and ACT UP, HIV infection had become largely manageable with medical care, and gay activist concerns began to shift. Mass has continued to write about more recent health problems afflicting gay men, including the escalation of HIV among minority teens and the elderly, the crystal meth epidemic, hepatitis C and anal cancer. Beginning in the late 1990s, Mass extended his public health interests to the
bear subculture of the gay community. He has addressed in a regular column a range of health topics of interest to this subculture, initially consisting of middle-aged overweight men, first for
American Bear Magazine and later for ''A Bear's Life'' magazine. The papers of Mass and Kantrowitz are designated for deposit with the
New York Public Library. ==Publications==