1988. The New Jersey Women and AIDS Network is founded. Revised NIH guidelines suggest "by gender" analysis of data being collected in clinical trials but does not establish clear standards for women's inclusion. A Cosmopolitan magazine article written by a psychiatrist tells women that they can have unprotected vaginal intercourse with an HIV-positive man if they have healthy vaginas. The article also reports that "most heterosexuals are not at risk" and further states that it is impossible to transmit HIV using the "missionary position." Women named fastest growing population with HIV. San Francisco AIDS Foundation develops a women's services program.

A 22-year-old New Yorker, Alison Gertz, is diagnosed with AIDS. Alison's mother Carol comments, "Alison had gotten sick that summer, and they tested her for everything: lymphoma, Hodgkin's, you name it. But they never tested her for AIDS because nobody thought a heterosexual woman who's not a drug user would get it. We subsequently learned that she'd gotten it from a good friend, who she'd only slept with once." Dawn Averitt is diagnosed with HIV. She later becomes a national AIDS treatment advocate and the founder of WISE (now Project WISE at Project Inform). Elizabeth Glaser, Susan DeLaurentis and Susan Zeeger co-found the Pediatric AIDS Foundation after learning that Elizabeth, her daughter Ariel and son Jake are living with HIV.