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Neil Broome Interview 15April 25, 2004SS:What was it like inside ACT-UP? Did you just tell everybody in ACT-UP that you were positive?NB:I think maybe some people, I acknowledge. I think, for me, that was alsoa process. Let me just go back to the loaded part. So, I think the word was so loaded,because people hadn’t dispelled any misconceptions. There were just misconceptionsupon misconceptions and articles to confuse people in the papers that people would read.I mean, accuracy and reality had very little to do, I think, in most people’s minds. Andthis affected how people were treated in hospital situations and a whole range ofsituations. It was frightening. And then, the homophobia that resulted from it. Youknow, you had this article that came out in the Times, because then you had an increaseof violence against people who were perceived to be gay, and the two became linked andterrible things happened. You had awful things – You had a dramatic increase inassaults. You had all these terrible things, and that all occurred in an environment inwhich the media was reprehensible. They did a reprehensible job of presentinginformation in an accurate, clear way. They created all types of – especially all thesethings like the Post and the Daily News – it was insane.In that kind of atmosphere, how could the result not be a negative impact onpeople who were perceived to be gay? What’s surprising is that more violence didn’toccur. But, I definitely find that there’s a direct linkage, as opposed to indirect, betweenthe garbage that was being put out about transmission or the lack of accurate information,and the subsequent, dramatic – there were a whole series of marches in New York, Iremember, that occurred – that the Anti-Violence Project organized.