A young peace activist escapes his repressive life in Phoenix and heads to San Francisco, hoping to find refuge and community, but finds that the struggle for survival is just as difficult as it was back home. Elsewhere, NOW purges lesbians from its ranks.

Ken, Cleve, and Roma fight an initiative that would ban gays from working in California public schools, while Cleve works on the campaign to elect Harvey Milk as San Francisco City Supervisor. But soon a disease starts killing gay men all over the country.

AIDS continues to ravage the gay community. Cleve creates the AIDS quilt in order to get the President's attention, while Diane's daughter Annie struggles with her identity as the child of a lesbian couple and a gay man.

An energized Cleve inspires a group of young activists to organize a march on Washington to demand full LGBTQ civil rights, while Roma uses her skills to reform healthcare in San Francisco. Elsewhere, a group forms to try overturning California's discriminatory proposition banning gay marriage.