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Toby Johnson, Catholic monk turned activist, psychotherapist and spiritual writer, was born in 1945 in San Antonio TX. He entered religious life after high school, first as a Marianist and then as a Servite. After leaving seminary in 1970, he moved to San Francisco and lived in the Bay Area throughout the 1970s. While a student at the California Institute of Integral Studies from which he received a master's in Comparative Religion and a doctorate in Counseling Psychology, Johnson was on staff at the Mann Ranch Seminars, a Jungian-oriented summer retreat program. There he befriended religion scholar Joseph Campbell and came to regard himself "an apostle of Campbell's vision to the gay community."
Will Roscoe has been active in the the Gay movement since 1975, when he helped found Lambda, the first Gay/Lesbian organization in Montana. The following year, he served an intern at the National Gay Task Force, and in 1977, as coordinator of the Gay People's Alliance at the University of Oregon, he spearheaded the formation of the Oregon Gay Alliance, a statewide coalition of Gay/Lesbian groups. In 1978, he completed an internship at the Pacific Center for Human Growth in Berkeley, where he coordinated a successful campaign to win United Way funding, the first Lesbian/Gay social service agency in the country to do so. He also served as voter registration coordinator for the No on 6 campaign in San Francisco (the Briggs initiative), registering over 10,000 new voters.
Billy Bean played major league baseball from 1987 through 1995. He broke into the major leagues with the Detroit Tigers, and tied a major league record with 4 hits in his first major league game. He went on to play for the Los Angeles Dodgers, and the San Diego Padres. Born in Santa Ana, California in 1964. He was a multi-sport star at Santa Ana High School, where he was chosen "athlete of the year" as a senior. He was selected Valedictorian of his graduating class, and went on to become an "All-America" outfielder twice before graduating from Loyola Marymount University in 1986 with a degree in Business Administration.
For nine years, Esera Tuaolo excelled in the N.F.L. as a defensive lineman: he played for five different teams and went to Super Bowl XXXIII with the Atlanta Falcons. He played with some of football's greatest, including Brett Farve, John Randle and Jack Del Rio. He even sang the national anthem in uniform at a nationally televised Monday night game as a rookie and at the 1999 Pro-Bowl.
But as a gay man in the hyper-masculine culture of professional football, Tuaolo was forced to hide his sexuality. The secret crippled him, leading him to drink excessively and contemplate suicide. It also hindered his football achievements, as he felt that if he were too good a player, he would be exposed as a homosexual. He led a double life that deeply depressed him, but which he now looks back on with a new perspective. During this difficult time, he persevered by following his mother's example and maintaining his strong spiritual faith.
