Decades after HIV came onto the scene in places in the 1980s, California lawmakers are looking to roll back laws that are now seen as discriminatory.

At the height of the AIDS epidemic, California’s state government was unified in its response.

The state legislature decided in 1988 that somebody who donated blood while knowingly HIV-positive could be punished with up to six years in prison. Ten years later, it became a felony to have unprotected sex with the intent of transmitting HIV to a partner.