BANNED FROM CALIFORNIA

A biography of a little-known figure in the 20th-century gay rights movement.

In this debut biography, Steele tells the story of his late friendJim Foshee, a gay historian and activist. Foshee was born in 1939 and had a difficult childhood in which he was frequently at odds with his mother, father, and stepfathers and experienced abuse. He ran away from home repeatedly as an adolescent; the book’s title is a reference to when he escaped from Idaho to Los Angeles in 1954 and an LA sheriff later threatened to have him barred from the state. He was also remanded to the Idaho State Mental Hospital more than once—a place to which he felt more attached than his family home. In adulthood, he continued his peripatetic lifestyle, making a living through low-wage jobs and occasional sex work; finally, a minor theft landed him in a Texas state prison for three years. Foshee eventually ended up in Colorado in 1969, where he fell in love and settled down with John Koop Bergmann, who worked for a laundry machine installation company. The two were fixtures in Denver’s gay community, and Foshee got jobs in print and radio journalism and discovered a passion for researching gay history. When Bergmann died of cancer in 1980, shortly after the two moved to California, Foshee was again on his own, and because their relationship had no recognized legal status at the time, he was relegated to the status of “friend” at his partner’s funeral. Foshee returned to Denver but soon began moving from place to place, mainly between California and Arizona. He continued his involvement in gay activism and historical research through his last decades before his death in 2006.

Foshee’s own words are the core of this book, with quotes from interviews making up much of the text. They’re linked by former journalist Steele’s own narration of the events of Foshee’s life, which adds a sense of structure and effectively places the events in historical and cultural context. However, Foshee proves to be a thoughtful observer of his own journey, giving the reader an intimate look at the choices he made and the paths he followed and the reasons why he did so. Steele’s excellent organization of his biography adds further insight, bringing the midcentury life of an American gay man into vivid relief and painting a detailed picture of an era when homosexuality was illegal in many parts of the country. The book’s geography is also crucial: “I experienced the actual beginnings of the modern gay rights movement then and there in Los Angeles,” Foshee explains at one point, “so I knew firsthand that the gay movement didn’t begin two decades later at the Stonewall Inn.” Photos and documents from a number of sources, including gay-history archives that Foshee helped to build, add illuminating detail along the way. Overall, Steele does an excellent job of presenting the story of an activist and making it clear why his story matters.

A compelling look at an eventful life.