Do you know about the time in 1991, when LGBT activists went to Republican Senator Jesse Helms’ house in Arlington, Virginia, and wrapped it in a giant condom? Yes. His entire house. They unfurled a massive latex banner over the front of the home with a message that read, “A condom to stop unsafe politics.” It was absurd theater, but it was also deadly serious. Of course, Helms had it coming. For years, he was the most powerful anti-gay voice in Washington. He blocked AIDS funding. He fought safer sex education. He pushed to ban federal support for any HIV prevention materials that mentioned homosexuality. At the height of the epidemic, when tens of thousands of people were dying, Helms treated AIDS like a moral punishment instead of a public health crisis. In 1987, he backed a measure banning federally funded AIDS education campaigns from “promoting homosexuality.” Translation: no honest information about how gay men could protect themselves, just silence. People died in that silence. ACT UP understood something the political class didn’t. Respectability wasn’t saving lives, but anger could. So they turned Helms’ suburban home into a spectacle. Neighbors watched as cameras rolled. The message was simple and impossible to ignore. If Helms wouldn’t support protection, activists would wrap him in it. “We are here to stop Helms from killing us,” one protester said that day. That’s not hyperbole. By the early 1990s, more than 100,000 Americans had died of AIDS. Policies like Helms’ didn’t just slow progress; they actively worsened the crisis. The condom stunt worked the way ACT UP actions often did. It forced coverage. It embarrassed a powerful man. It made AIDS impossible to ignore for a news cycle or two. And it reminded queer people watching that someone was willing to fight like hell for them. They made it impossible to look away. You don’t have to love the tactic. But you should understand the math. When the government abandons you, you escalate. Another lesson we could relearn today.