[2] The award-winning 2008 documentary Sex Positive directed by Daryl Wein is about his life and activities.
Berkowitz was born to Jewish parents and raised in New Jersey, where he attended Rutgers University in the mid-1970s.
While in college, he helped to organize what he believes was the first gay rights protest in the state, demonstrating against an anti-gay effigy hung by the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity.
[3] Even before AIDS was recognized as a syndrome, Berkowitz became concerned about protecting his clients, many of whom were married, from sexually transmitted diseases.
These claims were considered controversial by early leaders of Gay Men's Health Crisis and many activists took issue with the language of their message and its implications.