Pedro Zamora

In June 2019, Zamora was one of the inaugural fifty American “pioneers, trailblazers, and heroes” inducted on the National LGBTQ Wall of Honor within the Stonewall National Monument (SNM) in New York City’s Stonewall Inn. The SNM is the first U.S. national monument dedicated to LGBTQ rights and history, while The Wall’s unveiling was timed to take place during the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots.

U.S. President Bill Clinton credited Zamora with personalizing and humanizing those living with HIV—especially to Latino communities—with his activism, including his testimony before Congress. Zamora's personal struggle with AIDS, and his conflict with housemate David "Puck" Rainey is credited with helping to make The Real World a hit show, for which Time ranked it #7 on its list of "32 Epic Moments in Reality-TV History".

Pedro's partner, Sean Sasser, continued his activism for LGBT issues, and his work as an HIV educator. In 1995, he spoke at the inaugural White House AIDS conference, and was appointed by President Clinton to the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS. He became a pastry chef in Atlanta, Portland, and finally Washington, DC., at RIS restaurant. In June 2013 Sasser married Michael Kaplan, whom he had dated off and on after Zamora's death, and with whom he had moved in six months prior. While in Washington, Sasser served as a board member of the AIDS Alliance for Children, Youth and Families. He was active in youth and mentoring organizations, and he and Kaplan served as foster parents to a 4-year-old girl. In July 2013, Sasser, who had also been HIV positive for 25 years, was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a rare cancer of the lungs. He died at his home on August 7, 2013, at the age of 44.

In 2009, the National AIDS Memorial Grove in San Francisco began the Youth Essay Scholarship Program, renamed the Pedro Zamora Young Leaders Scholarship in 2014. Every August, the scholarship program gives awards ranging from $2,500 to $5,000 to high school seniors and college students who are actively fighting HIV/AIDS through public service and leadership.

During filming of the show, Zamora and Sean Sasser began dating, and quickly became a couple. Sasser eventually proposed to Zamora, and the two exchanged vows in a commitment ceremony held in the Real World house. In so doing, they made history as the first same-sex commitment ceremony on TV. Their relationship was nominated for "Favorite Love Story" at the 2008 Real Worlds Awards Bash.

In 2008 Bunim-Murray Productions produced a film, Pedro, directed by Nick Oceano, dramatizing Zamora's life. The film was an Official Selection at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, and was Bunim-Murray's first scripted project. Zamora was portrayed by Alex Loynaz.

Mily Zamora became a public speaker about AIDS. Winick continued lecturing on behalf of Zamora for three years. His autobiographical graphic novel, Pedro and Me: Friendship, Loss, and What I Learned, was published in September 2000. It was nominated for the 2001 Eisner Award for Best Graphic Album: New, won a 2001 American Library Association Stonewall Book Award for Non-Fiction Honor Books, and the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Comic. It has been incorporated into school curricula across the country, such as UCLA, which made it its common book in 2013. Winick's experiences with Zamora would also help shape his work in mainstream superhero comics, which would receive considerable media attention for storylines in Green Lantern and Green Arrow, which explored gay or AIDS-related themes.

Queer theorist José Esteban Muñoz dedicated a chapter to Zamora in his 1999 book Disidentifications: Queers of Color and the Performance of Politics In the chapter titled, "Pedro Zamora's Real World of Counterpublicity: Performing Ethics of Self," Muñoz, describes the ways in which Zamora used the shows’ confessional booth to perform an ethics of self, and in doing so disidentified with the mainstream.

On February 28, 1995, the portion of the street in front of McMillan Middle School in Miami was renamed Pedro Zamora Way in a ceremony attended by Zamora's father and sister Mily.

Zamora's romantic relationship with Sean Sasser was also documented on the show; their relationship was later nominated by MTV viewers for "Favorite Love Story" award, and the broadcast of their commitment ceremony in 1994, in which they exchanged vows, was the first such same-sex ceremony in television history, and is considered a landmark in the history of the medium.

Zamora and his castmates (Mohammed Bilal, Rachel Campos, Pam Ling, Cory Murphy, David "Puck" Rainey, and Judd Winick) moved into the house at 953 Lombard Street on Russian Hill on February 12, 1994. The producers had informed the other six castmates that one person was HIV-positive, but did not specify whom. Once all of the castmates were in the house, Zamora informed them that it was he who was HIV-positive, showing them a scrapbook of his career as an AIDS educator. At the time, Ling was the only castmate with background on how HIV was transmitted, being a medical school student.

The cast vacated the Real World house on June 19, 1994, and the first episodes of The Real World: San Francisco began airing a week later. Zamora visited his family in Miami before returning to San Francisco to live with Sasser.

Before his hospitalization, Zamora told his family to not keep him alive by artificial means-- his mother had a prolonged death, and he wanted to spare his family that pain. Zamora developed a high fever. Once he became unresponsive, his family honored his wishes and withdrew life support. Surrounded by his family, longtime friend Alex Escarano, Sasser, Winick, and Ling, Zamora died at 4:40 a.m. EST on November 11, 1994, hours after the final episode of The Real World: San Francisco aired. He was buried on November 13.

In five years, he spoke nationwide hundreds of times, attended an international AIDS conference, and even served on the board of a charitable trust endowed by insurance companies-- despite being denied insurance for himself. The constant travel exhausted Zamora, sometimes forcing him to cancel speaking engagements. In 1991, his work came to national attention when Eric Morganthaler wrote a front page article about him for the Wall Street Journal. The publicity resulted in invitations to talk show interviews by Geraldo Rivera, Phil Donahue and Oprah Winfrey. On July 12, 1993, he testified before the United States Congress, arguing for more explicit HIV/AIDS educational programs, saying, "If you want to reach me as a young man, especially a young gay man of color, then you need to give me information in a language and vocabulary I can understand and relate to."

Zamora attended the 1993 Lesbian and Gay March on Washington, where he met Sean Sasser, also an AIDS educator, who would eventually become his partner. Sasser was moved by Zamora's presence and conviction, recalling, "I was kind of like, 'Wow.' I had never run across someone who was as good at it as he was." Sasser lived in San Francisco, and shortly after he'd met Zamora, he'd learned that producers of the MTV reality TV show The Real World were looking for an HIV positive person to cast in the 1994 season in San Francisco.

His family was devastated but remained supportive. Zamora's goal was to graduate from high school before he died, and he did so in 1990. Five months later, he suffered a severe case of shingles. Upon recovery, Zamora joined a Miami-based HIV/AIDS resource center called Body Positive. There he met others with HIV and AIDS, learned more about the disease and how he could still have a fulfilling life. Soon thereafter, he began to talk about his condition to others, wanting to raise awareness in his community.

In late 1989, in his junior year of high school, 17-year-old Zamora donated blood during a Red Cross blood drive. A month later, he received a letter from the Red Cross informing him that his blood tested "reactive", though it did not specify for what. Zamora decided to be tested for HIV, and on November 9, 1989 the results confirmed he was HIV-Positive.

In 1980, when Zamora was eight, his family left Cuba for the United States during the Mariel Boat Lift. After five days of processing in Cuba, the entire family was to board when, hours before boarding, Cuban officials ruled that his four older brothers were too close to draft age and had to remain. His oldest sister, a communist official, chose to stay. The older siblings insisted, over their parents' objections, to leave without them to give their younger siblings a better life. Zamora and his parents, his sister Mily, and his brother Jesús left in a boat filled with 250 people that had been built for half that number. The Zamoras settled in Hialeah, Florida, a suburb of Miami.

Pedro Pablo Zamora (born Pedro Pablo Zamora y Díaz, February 29, 1972 – November 11, 1994) was a Cuban-American AIDS educator and television personality. As one of the first openly gay men with AIDS to be portrayed in popular media, Zamora brought international attention to HIV/AIDS and LGBTQ issues and prejudices through his appearance on MTV's reality television series, The Real World: San Francisco.