Banned from California

This is the previously untold story of a 1950s gay teenager who runs away from home, setting out on an adventure that redefines his life and puts him in the midst of the civil rights struggle of gay people across the United States of America spanning a half-century. Born in 1939, Jim Foshee lives his young life openly, honestly and defiantly in the underground world of homosexuals and early queer subculture decades before that lifestyle eventually progressed into a modern LGBTQ society.This biography is an intimate portrait of gay life in the 1950s and beyond into a new millennium. It takes readers on a unique and personal journey through a part of American history as seen through the eyes of this gay American-an exploration seldom revealed in American literature.ReviewsJim Foshee was an intrepid community-based researcher of LGBT history who, long before historic newspapers and books were digitized, read through them page by dusty page, and sent me amazing discoveries, enriching my own work to recover an unknown past. I'm delighted that Jim's own fascinating, poignant history is now honored in this wonderful biography.- Jonathan Ned Katz, author, Gay American History, Gay Lesbian Almanac and Love StoriesThis compelling story recounts the life of a gay man born in the late 1930s. He is defiant and resilient, flawed and complicated. This touching narrative left me feeling that I belong to a lineage of older, passed, LGBT individuals who lived in the complex, troubled, gay humanity of the 1940s, 1950s and beyond-embedded with burden yet conquered through perseverance. - Dr. Ramon Silvestre, GLBT Historical Society, San Francisco