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His name may not be common knowledge to all Canadians, or even all Calgarians.

But Everett George Klippert, a quiet bus driver from Calgary, changed Canadian law and was a pivotal figure in the history of gay rights in this country. He was the only Canadian ever declared a dangerous offender for being a gay man. He was sentenced to indefinite detention — what amounted to life in prison, which was upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada in 1967. While homophobia was still rampant at the time, the sentence outraged Canadians just the same. It led to changes in the criminal code, including the decriminalization of gay sex in 1969 and, eventually, Klippert’s release from prison two years after that.

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It’s not as if his story is completely unknown. Sage Theatre premiered a play this spring. There’s even a page about him on the Historica Canada webpage.

But Klippert’s saga, chronicled in Outliers: Calgary’s Queer History, is one of many instances when the local and national histories overlapped.