Unforgettable: Karyn Teufel

Karyn opened up her East Side apartment to host early ACT UP meetings, and she was instrumental in ensuring the fledgling group quickly established a loud and visible role in conversations and agenda setting around AIDS in Milwaukee.

She shared her personal experiences with AIDS publicly at a time when fear-mongering around the disease was at its height and people living with HIV were often treated as pariahs. In a 1990 WTMJ-TV profile story, Karyn, who was a cab driver, allowed a camera to film her as she drove around Milwaukee. She discussed her strong interest in reaching women with a prevention message and told the reporter that when she handed out AIDS prevention pamphlets to women, she’d say "tell your girlfriends, tell your sisters, tell your daughters, we are all vulnerable."

Karyn repeatedly put her body and safety on the line engaging in street protests and civil disobedience, both in Milwaukee and across the country.

• In April 1990, she was arrested, along with fellow ACT UP Milwaukee member Jay Hanson, during three days of protests in Chicago against the American Medical Association and insurance companies, demanding equal access to healthcare for people with AIDS.

• In December that same year, she participated in a World AIDS Day demonstration outside the federal building in Milwaukee and was in Atlanta a few days later for a national ACT UP demonstration outside the CDC demanding the agency update its AIDS definition to include opportunistic infections unique to women with HIV. At the time, women with HIV were often dying from HIV without receiving the AIDS diagnosis that would have qualified them to receive critical federal benefits. (Karyn herself only received an AIDS diagnosis shortly before she died.)

Karyn was on the sidewalks with other ACT UP members in front of high school homecoming dances passing out condoms and AIDS prevention pamphlets to young couples as they entered the events. It might have been in this particularly fraught situation where some of Karyn’s strengths shone the brightest. 

If an angry parent stormed up to say they didn’t want anyone giving condoms to their child, Karen could (and would) ask "would you rather someone came up and gave your child AIDS?" - and because of her personal experience as a mother and a straight woman with HIV, the parents could often hear that message in a way they never would have coming from the mostly young gay men in the group.

Karyn Teufel died in May 1991. She was a funny, irreverent, personable, and truly caring human. Milwaukee owes her a debt of gratitude for her willingness to push aside her introverted tendencies to meet the moment in the fight against AIDS at a time when fear and ignorance were rampant and her advocacy was so critically needed.