Brad Truax, Physician and Spokesman for Gay Community, Dies of AIDS at 42

A. Brad Truax, the San Diego physician who helped bring respectability and political clout to the local gay and lesbian community, died at 8 p.m. Tuesday at Mercy Hospital of medical complications from AIDS. He was 42.

Articulate, polite and politically savvy, Truax emerged during the past decade as one of the preeminent spokesmen for San Diego’s homosexual community. His influence was part of an evolution that saw power within the community change hands from the “drag queens,” who were mostly concerned with social activities, to professionals interested in politics, human rights and AIDS issues.

“He was the first gay professional to become very visible and very active on behalf of various political agendas, generally involving human rights,” said Rick Moore, a San Diego gay activist and member of the gay San Diego Democratic Club. “As such, he was able to both draw out a large number of people who are quietly gay and lesbian and get them involved.

Related to Mainstream

“He was also able to relate to members of the mainstream, non-gay community in a way that gays and lesbians had not been able to previously.”

Truax was a Democratic Party activist, serving as a delegate to state conventions. He was a founder of the United San Diego Elections Committee, a gay political action committee, and served as president of the gay San Diego Democratic Club from 1981 to 1984.

As president of the club, Truax made a bold move in 1983 by switching party loyalties and backing Republican Roger Hedgecock for mayor. It was that decision, he later said, that helped put the homosexual community on the political map when Hedgecock won by a narrow margin.

“Because we were involved so openly and so visibly, it really put the gay community in San Diego on the map as being a credible, viable and a significant political entity,” he said in a recent interview with The Times. “We could raise money. We could turn out votes. And those are the two big things in politics.”

A year later, however, that victory was tempered by a personal tragedy. While helping a local firm conduct research on acquired immune deficiency syndrome, Truax submitted a sample of his blood and discovered he was infected with the deadly virus.

Kept It a Secret

But Truax kept it a secret, even while he was urging Hedgecock to form a mayoral task force to help the community brace for the oncoming epidemic. He was tapped to coordinate the task force, which was later consolidated into a county panel, and Truax dedicated himself to educating the public about AIDS while advocating local ordinances banning discrimination against its victims.

His leadership earned him an appointment to the county’s Human Relations Commission, and he was listed by San Diego magazine as one of the 86 San Diegans to watch in 1986. His political and social activism made him friends with San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos, state Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp and Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy, Moore said.

Eventually, Truax decided to disclose his condition, picking a dramatic moment for the revelation. On the eve of an AIDS rally in Washington, he told a local newspaper reporter why he would be marching with a group of AIDS sufferers at the nation’s Capitol.

Truax disdained shows of pity. But the disease caused him to stop seeing patients.

Yet he remained politically active to the end, according to Moore. Despite the fact that he was confined to a wheelchair and needed oxygen, Truax hosted a party for local gay Democratic activists on Election Night at his Mission Hills home, where he watched the returns.

Moore said Truax was especially delighted that San Diegans had finally approved district-only elections for City Council seats.

“The district election thing was a major success for him,” Moore said. “It was something he worked for for a long time.”

Discharged From Navy

Truax, a Pennsylvania native, came to San Diego in 1975 after joining the Navy. He served as a flight surgeon and diving medical officer at Miramar Naval Air Station, but was discharged two years later because of suspicions that he was gay.

Truax said he came to terms with his homosexuality while serving a medical internship in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1972 and 1973. But he added that he never admitted his sexual orientation to his Navy superiors.

Discharged in November, 1977, he opened a general family practice in Point Loma. But he eventually moved his office to Hillcrest and began tailoring his practice to the health concerns of gay men. The connections through his practice eventually led to his political and civic activities, he later said.

Truax is survived by two brothers, Douglas of Berwick, Pa., and Martin of Atlanta, said Bridget Wilson, a former employee of Truax’s medical office.

She said a memorial service is planned for 11 a.m. Dec. 10 at First Unitarian Church, 4190 Front St. Wilson said the family welcomes flowers “because he loved flowers” but that donations to causes Truax supported would also be appreciated. Prominent among those was the Fund for Human Dignity.