On Coming Out HIV-Positive A Follow-Up By Nicholas Snow
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I want to thank the countless people who have offered me their thanks, support, and encouragement about my decision to come out publicly as an HIV-positive person, and I want to set the record straight, so to speak, with some behind-the-scenes information.
There are those who think I told my story to help my commercial web sites. In fact, I worked very hard on my commercial web sites and my business so I could be in a solid position to tell my story, and finance this campaign myself.
Many of you are aware that I held a press conference at the Foreign Correspondents
Club of Thailand, and one person who signed up at ActionEqualsLife.com, identifying himself only as “K”, offered these remarks in his blog at ActionEqualsLife.
com (shortened for space considerations):
“I hate to be the downer at the party, but I have to be honest and speak out. I have a very difficult time with Nicholas Snow…Can you really be so self-absorbed and insensitive as to only see the world through your own eyes and experiences? Where was all of your philanthropy
and willingness to do good when the only ones affected by this disease were ‘others’ …Though Snow may only now be waking up to the horrors of HIV, the world has lived with the pandemic for more than 25 years. …So after all that, one more privileged white guy gets infected and suddenly
he’s a convert to the cause. Frankly, I can barely contain my disdain for this kind of sauna soaked conversion. It doesn’t ring true because it isn’t… What is painfully obvious is that this is more about Nicholas Snow than it is about fighting HIV/AIDS. If it weren’t, then Snow would have tried to figure out how to use his resources to support and grow one of the many good organizations already out there trying to fight this …”
On May 4th of this year, I began to write a book entitled Life Positive—A Journey
From The Center of My Heart, that tells the story of how, from the very first day, I sought to build alliances with people working in HIV/AIDS organizations (this book is being published daily at ActionEqualsLife.
com). At most every step of the way, I invited questions, comments, criticisms,
and participation, and ultimately included over 1,000 people in the process
on multiple occasions, meeting with representatives from numerous NGO’s, one of which graciously translated my plans from English to Thai, and circulated them among the Thai NGO community. I responded to Mr. K’s statements in detail at ActionEqualsLife.com—informing him also that I had come out of the closet as an openly gay man in the media talking about HIV/AIDS as early as 1985.
Love me or hate me, while I may not be the best or most qualified person for the job, I am now one of the most visible,
openly HIV-positive people in Asia, I have reached over 100,000 people
with my story so far, and I have positioned myself to instill HIV/AIDS
awareness in millions of people on an annual basis using my own
resources and existing media presence.
On my recent television appearance
on Morning Talk, that airs several times a week throughout Thailand and
to numerous other countries, I was able to talk about the importance of
HIV testing and early intervention, and I was able to specifically
address female partners of men who have sex with men about why they
might want to have an HIV test. Also, now that I’ve told everyone, I
don’t have to put any time or energy into worrying who knows or who may
find out. I have set the stage for me to just be myself moving on in
life—and I continue my one-on-one outreach with my online profiles.
As of October 19th, 2008, ActionEqualsLife.
com—that did not officially go live until October 1st—has been visited
767 times by people in 37 countries, and has 32 registered members.
Individual pages on the web site have been viewed over 3,500 times. The
audience will only grow so once again I invite any and all people with
knowledge about HIV/AIDS and LGBTQ issues to contribute this
information to the web site. If you have questions, feel free to post
them to the site in a forum or a blog and we’ll try to answer them for
you.
Realistically, If I had only reached one person with all this, that
would have been fine with me. Here is what Jonathan, a 24-year old,
wrote:
“Hi… I think it’s really brave of you to come out to the media as an
HIV positive individual. Was reading the article and i felt it tugging
at some of my heart strings because the topic is so close at home to
myself, being gay and being easily exposed to the risk of infection
from random encounters. Do press onwards with your cause. I believe it
will really
touch some people’s lives. Take care (-:”
Thank you, Jonathan, I will—whether people like it or not!