RIP: Jan Ensink
2022-Dec-01, Thursday 06:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mellowtiggerDecember 1st is World AIDS Day. It has been a day of remembrance since 1988, which is about the time that someone I knew died of it.
Jan Ensink was the first gay man I ever met, at least that I knew at the time was gay. It was about 1987 (I think?) and I wanted to join a Gay Student Services off-campus social meeting that was mentioned in the university newspaper. I called the number and left a message. Jan called back, wanting to meet first before going to someone's apartment who was hosting the meeting. They always met people first, because of harassment issues. I met Jan in a TCBY frozen yogurt store, which was a new thing back in those days. I showed that I wasn't a homophobe, and he took me to the meeting afterward.
Jan was a former president of that student group, which was still a new thing on campus after the legal battle that forced recognition by the university. He was a graduate student and I was undergrad, so we moved in different circles, but I learned over time that Jan was planning to marry a lesbian (a lawyer, I think?) because she needed a "beard" for her corporate career, and he needed USA citizenship to get into what he claimed were great drug trials then happening in Colorado.
Time passed. A while later (1989?), I was in a campus office for something unrelated when I picked up the former student publication on the table and began reading it. Inside was the obituary for Jan Ensink. It mentioned nothing about what killed him or the medical battle he fought for years. I think it said Jan died in Colorado, but it didn't say why he moved from Texas. I think it mentioned the wife, but nothing else about her. It was a very sanitized statement, which was typical of what happened back then. Something suitable for the coffee table where I learned his fate.
I think this picture (far left) is the right guy. It's from 1983, and he's not quite as beefy in the photo as when I met Jan a few years later. I knew a few self-aware guys who beefed up after they learned of their diagnosis. They were thinking ahead, knowing they'd need that muscle mass for the episodes when they lost weight precariously.
I've mentioned Carl before, but I figured this year I'd tell the tale of someone else I knew. There are others, but none I remember as readily as these two.
Jan Ensink was the first gay man I ever met, at least that I knew at the time was gay. It was about 1987 (I think?) and I wanted to join a Gay Student Services off-campus social meeting that was mentioned in the university newspaper. I called the number and left a message. Jan called back, wanting to meet first before going to someone's apartment who was hosting the meeting. They always met people first, because of harassment issues. I met Jan in a TCBY frozen yogurt store, which was a new thing back in those days. I showed that I wasn't a homophobe, and he took me to the meeting afterward.
Jan was a former president of that student group, which was still a new thing on campus after the legal battle that forced recognition by the university. He was a graduate student and I was undergrad, so we moved in different circles, but I learned over time that Jan was planning to marry a lesbian (a lawyer, I think?) because she needed a "beard" for her corporate career, and he needed USA citizenship to get into what he claimed were great drug trials then happening in Colorado.
Time passed. A while later (1989?), I was in a campus office for something unrelated when I picked up the former student publication on the table and began reading it. Inside was the obituary for Jan Ensink. It mentioned nothing about what killed him or the medical battle he fought for years. I think it said Jan died in Colorado, but it didn't say why he moved from Texas. I think it mentioned the wife, but nothing else about her. It was a very sanitized statement, which was typical of what happened back then. Something suitable for the coffee table where I learned his fate.
I think this picture (far left) is the right guy. It's from 1983, and he's not quite as beefy in the photo as when I met Jan a few years later. I knew a few self-aware guys who beefed up after they learned of their diagnosis. They were thinking ahead, knowing they'd need that muscle mass for the episodes when they lost weight precariously.
I've mentioned Carl before, but I figured this year I'd tell the tale of someone else I knew. There are others, but none I remember as readily as these two.
no subject
Date: 2022-Dec-02, Friday 03:40 pm (UTC)