Historian of the Gay Working Class

Bérubé was born in Springfield, Massachusetts but actually grew up in Bayonne, New Jersey. He came out in Boston in 1969 while working against the Vietnam War with the American Friends Service Committee. After living for a time in a Boston gay liberation commune, he moved to San Francisco to join another queer collective household.

Inspired by Jonathan Katz’s epic 1976 book “Gay American History,” Bérubé began to do historical research. He made a name for himself traveling around the country presenting “Lesbian Masquerade: Women Who Passed as Men in Early San Francisco,” a slide show about women who dressed as men and married their female partners.

But it was his 1990 study of the lives of gay men and lesbians who served in the armed forces during World War II that won him international recognition. “Coming Out Under Fire” was adapted into a Peabody Award-winning documentary by filmmaker Arthur Dong. It was referenced several times in 1993 during the Senate hearings on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

After leaving San Francisco, Bérubé moved to the Catskills where, with his lover John Nelson, he ran a bed and breakfast and a collectibles store featuring mid-century items. He was elected a trustee in the small town in which they lived.

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