Beyond Normal: The Birth Of Gay Pride - Gale Chester Whittington

About the book:
Gale Chester Whittington's triumphant memoir chronicles the author's teenage suicide attempt and then moves on to the real beginning of the Gay Liberation movement, pre-Stonewall, in 1969 San Francisco, where Mr. Whittington was fired for being openly gay. It's creative non-fiction, written like a novel, with a conservative alter-ego's thoughts and a bounty of humor inserted to keep it lively. His group's groundbreaking openly gay philosophy of—coming out en masse as a way to enlighten and change the world—leads his comrades to crown him "Gale the Liberator."

The concept of coming out en masse was born in the hilly streets of the City by the Bay and championed by Gale Whittington and Leo Laurence, co-founders of the Committee for Homosexual Freedom (CHF). Indeed, this book shows how a handful of fiery West Coast gay guerillas fanned the sparks that helped inspire participants at Stonewall to stand and fight openly for their rights, thereby passing along a torch that would ignite the movement to liberate gays and enlighten heterosexuals around the world. Through the eyes of a true gay pioneer, the touching memoir shows how indeed "It Gets Better" with time.

Mr. Whittington wrote this book to set the record straight, because little about the 1969 militant gay movement in the San Francisco Bay Area has been detailed in print. While many brave activists have contributed to the cause before and since, a close look shows how the militant side of gay liberation actually began within the bowels of San Francisco a few months before the New York Stonewall uprising.

This revealing autobiography also contains over 45 vintage photos and excerpts from ground-breaking articles about the Gay Revolution of 1969.

About the Author
To spite his name, Gale Chester Whittington was born male on February 6, 1948, in Holyoke, Colorado. His father was a fundamentalist Nazarene preacher with a religious radio program, his mother, a gospel-recording artist. Mr. Whittington wrote for underground newspapers in the late sixties during his fight for gay rights. Before that, Gale was Feature Editor of his high school newspaper, The Ramrod, three years in a row. After owning a popular Denver pet store (Colorado Seed & Pet) for 28 years, Gale returned to writing full time in 2000. He has since received numerous awards for his novels, memoirs, poems, short stories, and essays, including six from the prestigious Oklahoma Writer’s Federation, Inc. (OWFI) and one from Writers Digest.

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