We Both Laughed in Pleasure by Lou Sullivan

I hardly moved, he never told me what to do except “just turn your head slightly this way” stuff. He stood me there, arranged the lighting + took about 36 pictures. His place was very close to empty but for his backdrops, camera, some other of his photos tacked on the wall. He was close to my age, very clean-cut, looked intellectual. I said ok + we took the bus to his place. Went downtown + some guy comes up to me + says he’s a photographer (gives me his card) compiling a book on people in SF + he thinks I’d make an interesting addition to his photos + would I sit for him? + he’d give me copies of the pictures he took. Silver pens in pocket, silver ID bracelet, silver sunglasses. I took a nice bath, washed my hair, dressed in all black + wore my binder for the 1st time in a long time-black pants, black T-shirt + black long sleeve cotton shirt, tucked in but open. I felt so deeply that they are my people-tho I know I can never be accepted as one of them. I didn’t march-maybe would have had I felt in a cheerier mood, but it didn’t take long for me to get all choked up by it + when the Gay Fathers Group contingent went by + a youngman holding a little kid like Jakey on his shoulders + the kid holding a sign saying “I’m Proud of My Gay Dad ” I just couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. The papers estimate 120,000 watching + participating. Yesterday was the Annual Gay Pride Parade + it was spectacular. Entries from twenty-four diaries reveal Sullivan’s self-articulation and the complexity of a fascinating and courageous figure.īelow is an excerpt from the diaries, which encompasses Sullivan’s life in San Francisco in 1976. Sensual, lascivious, challenging, quotidian and poetic, the diaries complicate and disrupt normative trans narratives. Sullivan kept comprehensive journals from age eleven until his AIDS-related death at thirty-nine. We Both Laughed In Pleasure: The Selected Diaries of Lou Sullivan narrates the inner life of a gay trans man moving through the shifting social, political, and medical mores of the second half of the 20th century. The book also provides a vivid and complex snapshot of LGBTQ culture in the latter half of the 20th century. Through his journals, Sullivan, one of the first openly gay trans men to medically transition, earnestly details his various desires, heartbreaks, and triumphs. Edited by Ellis Martin and Zach Ozma, this fascinating publication reveals the personal musings of Lou Sullivan, a trans mans who lived in both Milwaukee and San Francisco during his lifetime.

This month, Nightboat Books is releasing We Both Laughed In Pleasure: The Selected Diaries of Lou Sullivan. Desire and Discovery in 1970s San Francisco

We Both Laughed in Pleasure by Lou Sullivan