When Magic Johnson came forward in November of 1991 and declared that he had HIV, the world took notice in a different way than they did when another prominent figure, Rock Hudson, announced that he had AIDS. Magic Johnson was healthy-looking, a superstar basketball player, not a drug user, and he was heterosexual. Up to this point in time, HIV had been considered the “gay disease,” and Magic Johnson was a new face representing the disease, proof that HIV could be contracted through heterosexual sex just as easily as it could through homosexual sex (Jefferson). While Magic Johnson helped the world see that you didn’t have to be gay to contract HIV, there were still many misunderstandings surrounding the disease, and plenty of fears that Johnson had to deal with throughout the rest of his career.