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We Both Laughed in Pleasure: The Selected Diaries of Lou Sullivan
Drawn from Lou Sullivan’s meticulously kept journals, this landmark book records the life of arguably the first publicly gay trans man to medically transition.
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. Sullivan kept comprehensive journals from age eleven until his AIDS-related death at thirty-nine. Sensual, lascivious, challenging, quotidian and poetic, the diaries complicate and disrupt normative trans narratives. Entries from twenty-four diaries reveal Sullivan’s self-articulation and the complexity of a fascinating and courageous figure.
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. Sullivan kept comprehensive journals from age eleven until his AIDS-related death at thirty-nine. Sensual, lascivious, challenging, quotidian and poetic, the diaries complicate and disrupt normative trans narratives. Entries from twenty-four diaries reveal Sullivan’s self-articulation and the complexity of a fascinating and courageous figure.
440 pages, Paperback
First published September 24, 2019
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About the author
Lou Sullivan
4 books76 followersQuoted from Wikipedia 11/25/2016:
Louis Graydon Sullivan (16 June 1951 – 2 March 1991), better known as Lou Sullivan, was an American author and activist known for his work on behalf of trans men. He founded FTM International, one of the first FTM organizations, along with SHAFT in the UK and Rupert Raj's Metamorphosis in Toronto, and is largely responsible for the modern acknowledgment that sexual orientation and gender identity are totally different concepts.
Sullivan was a pioneer of the grassroots female-to-male (FTM) movement and was instrumental in helping individuals obtain peer-support, counselling, endocrinological services and reconstructive surgery outside of gender dysphoria clinics. He founded FTM International, one of the first organizations specifically for trans male individuals, and his activism and community work was a significant contributor to the rapid growth of the FTM community during the late 1980s.
trans male persons, and also a biography of the San Francisco trans man, Jack Bee Garland. Sullivan was instrumental in demonstrating the existence of trans men who were themselves attracted to men. Lou Sullivan began peer counselling through the Janus Information Facility which was an organization that provided support for transgender issues. He is also credited for being the first to discuss the eroticism of men’s clothing.
Sullivan was a founding member and board member of the GLBT Historical Society (formerly the Gay and Lesbian Historical Society) in San Francisco. His personal and activist papers are preserved in the institution's archives as collection no. 1991-07; the papers are fully processed and available for use by researchers, and a finding aid is posted on the Online Archive of California.
Sullivan lobbied the American Psychiatric Association and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health for them to recognize his existence as a gay trans man. He was determined to change people's attitudes towards trans homosexuals but also to change the medical process of transition by removing sexual orientation from the criteria of gender identity disorder so that trans men who are gay could also access hormones and surgery, essentially making the process "orientation blind".
Sullivan was diagnosed as HIV positive in 1986 after his surgery, and was told he only had 10 months to live. It is likely that Sullivan was HIV- infected in 1980, just after his chest surgery. He wrote, "I took a certain pleasure in informing the gender clinic that even though their program told me I could not live as a Gay man, it looks like I'm going to die like one." Sullivan died of AIDS-related complications on March 2, 1991.
Louis Graydon Sullivan (16 June 1951 – 2 March 1991), better known as Lou Sullivan, was an American author and activist known for his work on behalf of trans men. He founded FTM International, one of the first FTM organizations, along with SHAFT in the UK and Rupert Raj's Metamorphosis in Toronto, and is largely responsible for the modern acknowledgment that sexual orientation and gender identity are totally different concepts.
Sullivan was a pioneer of the grassroots female-to-male (FTM) movement and was instrumental in helping individuals obtain peer-support, counselling, endocrinological services and reconstructive surgery outside of gender dysphoria clinics. He founded FTM International, one of the first organizations specifically for trans male individuals, and his activism and community work was a significant contributor to the rapid growth of the FTM community during the late 1980s.
trans male persons, and also a biography of the San Francisco trans man, Jack Bee Garland. Sullivan was instrumental in demonstrating the existence of trans men who were themselves attracted to men. Lou Sullivan began peer counselling through the Janus Information Facility which was an organization that provided support for transgender issues. He is also credited for being the first to discuss the eroticism of men’s clothing.
Sullivan was a founding member and board member of the GLBT Historical Society (formerly the Gay and Lesbian Historical Society) in San Francisco. His personal and activist papers are preserved in the institution's archives as collection no. 1991-07; the papers are fully processed and available for use by researchers, and a finding aid is posted on the Online Archive of California.
Sullivan lobbied the American Psychiatric Association and the World Professional Association for Transgender Health for them to recognize his existence as a gay trans man. He was determined to change people's attitudes towards trans homosexuals but also to change the medical process of transition by removing sexual orientation from the criteria of gender identity disorder so that trans men who are gay could also access hormones and surgery, essentially making the process "orientation blind".
Sullivan was diagnosed as HIV positive in 1986 after his surgery, and was told he only had 10 months to live. It is likely that Sullivan was HIV- infected in 1980, just after his chest surgery. He wrote, "I took a certain pleasure in informing the gender clinic that even though their program told me I could not live as a Gay man, it looks like I'm going to die like one." Sullivan died of AIDS-related complications on March 2, 1991.
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February 17, 2020
For most of this book, I thought I was going to leave a review something like this:
The thing that was most interesting about this, for me, is how boring it is. I know that word really only has negative connotations, but I don't mean it in a negative way. The stuff that feels boring only really feels boring because of how many times I've read very similar stories on livejournal or tumblr or a blog or in an autobiography. Sullivan experienced a LOT of things that a LOT of trans people experience. Off the top of my head, when he was younger, he obsessed over and drew power from androgynous musicians; it was an ongoing process of figuring out that trans people exist, and then, almost separately, that he could be a trans person; years and years of going back and forth with "am I a transsexual or *just a transvestite*, specifically because of way that sexuality seems to complicate those (dubious, btw, imho) categories; a long relationship in early transition with a cis person who doesn't treat him well but he just kinda takes it because the relationship sort of validates his identity and he can't imagine someone treating him better, which it'll take years for him to figure out was actually pretty toxic the whole time; self-consciously dipping a toe into gay/queer/trans communities, as we'd call them today, with roughly equal parts exhilaration and terror; actively working to make information and community available to the next generation of people struggling with the same things (which I think is a fundamental human drive); spinning things positively because it would hurt too much not to; and so on. There's a lot more. But what's really powerful is that he was going through this stuff back in the seventies and eighties. The fact that it's kind of boring feels revelatory and powerful because you - I - forget that trans people always been here. Right? And even this impulse to unearth trans history to say look, this isn't new, just let me fucking live, is shot through Sullivan's life. Sometimes I write about Kurt Cobain being trans; he published a biography of a gay trans man from the beginning of the 20th century named Jack Bee Garland. (Obviously these are not the same thing, but I think there's overlap in the impulse.) You could probably call it depressing, like we keep inventing the same wheel without making any progress, if it wasn't so obvious how much progress we've made since his death thirty years ago. So instead it felt comforting, to me at least, to read about a life that felt similar to my own in a lot of ways, had a few details been different. Even if it was kind of boring.
But then I got to the last forty pages, once he's contracted AIDS. And now I feel less like showing off on goodreads about how I can write an insightful paragraph about a historical opinion, and more... honestly? Embarrassed at how much shit I talked when I was first coming out as trans in the early/mid oughts. (Or earlier, depending on your yardstick for what counts as coming out.) Maybe I just feel sad because fuck AIDS and it was a pretty emotional experience reading the end of these diaries, when in my life I have talked SO MUCH CLUELESS SHIT about previous generations of trans people. (As well as trans people from my own generation.) In retrospect, that shit-talk came from a thing we love to do on the left, where we look around, things aren't working, and instead of blaming the actual root causes (patriarchy, capitalism, colonialism) you blame people who are also, in their way, trying to make things better, just not in exactly the same way you would. Or maybe more specifically and self-critically, in what feels like as enlightened a way as you would like to? I mean, it kind of blew my mind that sometime in the seventies, Sullivan was writing (in the vernacular of the time) that "man trapped in a woman's body" was a dumb phrase made up by cis people for cis people and that it's not an accurate description of what it feels like to be trans. I remember talking shit on trans people for using that phrase, five years before the word "cis" was popularized. I guess the flip of my embarrassment at myself for talking so much while understanding so little is sadness at the fact that thirty years after Sullivan (and others) did all this work, I (and a lot of people from my trans cohort) didn't know how to access it, so it felt like we were starting from scratch.
Which brings me to community building. Maybe it's just because a lot in my life paralleled a lot in Sullivan's life - I moved to the Bay area a couple years after I started transitioning and spent time in a lot of the same spaces that he did, like the Pacific Center - but the way he worked so hard to get actual information about gay trans men (as opposed to cisnormative goofiness) into the hands of actual gay trans men and the people who provide them health care - and the way he worked so hard to build community among his peers- resonated with me. (When I move places, it's hard for me not to start trans women's groups, if there isn't already one.) So when, toward the end of the book, his health is in serious decline but he's getting word that an interview a provider did with him is being played to medical providers who are deciding no longer to block access to transition-related healthcare to trans men if they're gay - and his biography of Jack Bee Garland is being published - and he's like, I feel like I'm accomplishing everything I wanted to accomplish in my life - I had feelings.
I mean, I'm not trying to say that I've made anywhere near the impact on trans communities that he did, especially given how little he had in terms of resources versus how much, actually, was available to me when I was coming out and starting groups and organizing with Camp Trans or whatever - I think I'm just saying, I understand and feel that impulse, and it resonates strongly with me. And again, I think that's actually a normal human drive, to create community, to work to make things easier for people who are struggling or who are going to struggle with the same things you do. It's just that contextualized in the context of trans communities, it feels pretty close to my heart. So in the end I'm not even sure exactly what to say about this book except that I had kind of a lot of feelings.
Thanks to the editors and to Night Boat for publishing a book that made me have kind of a lot of feelings.
The thing that was most interesting about this, for me, is how boring it is. I know that word really only has negative connotations, but I don't mean it in a negative way. The stuff that feels boring only really feels boring because of how many times I've read very similar stories on livejournal or tumblr or a blog or in an autobiography. Sullivan experienced a LOT of things that a LOT of trans people experience. Off the top of my head, when he was younger, he obsessed over and drew power from androgynous musicians; it was an ongoing process of figuring out that trans people exist, and then, almost separately, that he could be a trans person; years and years of going back and forth with "am I a transsexual or *just a transvestite*, specifically because of way that sexuality seems to complicate those (dubious, btw, imho) categories; a long relationship in early transition with a cis person who doesn't treat him well but he just kinda takes it because the relationship sort of validates his identity and he can't imagine someone treating him better, which it'll take years for him to figure out was actually pretty toxic the whole time; self-consciously dipping a toe into gay/queer/trans communities, as we'd call them today, with roughly equal parts exhilaration and terror; actively working to make information and community available to the next generation of people struggling with the same things (which I think is a fundamental human drive); spinning things positively because it would hurt too much not to; and so on. There's a lot more. But what's really powerful is that he was going through this stuff back in the seventies and eighties. The fact that it's kind of boring feels revelatory and powerful because you - I - forget that trans people always been here. Right? And even this impulse to unearth trans history to say look, this isn't new, just let me fucking live, is shot through Sullivan's life. Sometimes I write about Kurt Cobain being trans; he published a biography of a gay trans man from the beginning of the 20th century named Jack Bee Garland. (Obviously these are not the same thing, but I think there's overlap in the impulse.) You could probably call it depressing, like we keep inventing the same wheel without making any progress, if it wasn't so obvious how much progress we've made since his death thirty years ago. So instead it felt comforting, to me at least, to read about a life that felt similar to my own in a lot of ways, had a few details been different. Even if it was kind of boring.
But then I got to the last forty pages, once he's contracted AIDS. And now I feel less like showing off on goodreads about how I can write an insightful paragraph about a historical opinion, and more... honestly? Embarrassed at how much shit I talked when I was first coming out as trans in the early/mid oughts. (Or earlier, depending on your yardstick for what counts as coming out.) Maybe I just feel sad because fuck AIDS and it was a pretty emotional experience reading the end of these diaries, when in my life I have talked SO MUCH CLUELESS SHIT about previous generations of trans people. (As well as trans people from my own generation.) In retrospect, that shit-talk came from a thing we love to do on the left, where we look around, things aren't working, and instead of blaming the actual root causes (patriarchy, capitalism, colonialism) you blame people who are also, in their way, trying to make things better, just not in exactly the same way you would. Or maybe more specifically and self-critically, in what feels like as enlightened a way as you would like to? I mean, it kind of blew my mind that sometime in the seventies, Sullivan was writing (in the vernacular of the time) that "man trapped in a woman's body" was a dumb phrase made up by cis people for cis people and that it's not an accurate description of what it feels like to be trans. I remember talking shit on trans people for using that phrase, five years before the word "cis" was popularized. I guess the flip of my embarrassment at myself for talking so much while understanding so little is sadness at the fact that thirty years after Sullivan (and others) did all this work, I (and a lot of people from my trans cohort) didn't know how to access it, so it felt like we were starting from scratch.
Which brings me to community building. Maybe it's just because a lot in my life paralleled a lot in Sullivan's life - I moved to the Bay area a couple years after I started transitioning and spent time in a lot of the same spaces that he did, like the Pacific Center - but the way he worked so hard to get actual information about gay trans men (as opposed to cisnormative goofiness) into the hands of actual gay trans men and the people who provide them health care - and the way he worked so hard to build community among his peers- resonated with me. (When I move places, it's hard for me not to start trans women's groups, if there isn't already one.) So when, toward the end of the book, his health is in serious decline but he's getting word that an interview a provider did with him is being played to medical providers who are deciding no longer to block access to transition-related healthcare to trans men if they're gay - and his biography of Jack Bee Garland is being published - and he's like, I feel like I'm accomplishing everything I wanted to accomplish in my life - I had feelings.
I mean, I'm not trying to say that I've made anywhere near the impact on trans communities that he did, especially given how little he had in terms of resources versus how much, actually, was available to me when I was coming out and starting groups and organizing with Camp Trans or whatever - I think I'm just saying, I understand and feel that impulse, and it resonates strongly with me. And again, I think that's actually a normal human drive, to create community, to work to make things easier for people who are struggling or who are going to struggle with the same things you do. It's just that contextualized in the context of trans communities, it feels pretty close to my heart. So in the end I'm not even sure exactly what to say about this book except that I had kind of a lot of feelings.
Thanks to the editors and to Night Boat for publishing a book that made me have kind of a lot of feelings.
April 12, 2020
What a gift this book is to all of us, but most especially trans men readers who hunger for ancestors or to simply see something of themselves in literature. I've long known of Lou, of course, from his published works and from my own involvement with FTMI, but getting to spend this intimate time with the journey of Lou and his singularly reflective voice is not only moving; it also speaks to the need for those of us of trans experience to not only look to the present but to our past to be able to conceive of our future. The idea that we've been around for a long, long time is quietly revolutionary.
February 13, 2023
What a complicated, intriguing, slutty (affectionate), intelligent, and ambitious figure. I’m having all kinds of intense feelings right now, particularly given the somewhat contradictory projects of his life: the quest to achieve cisnormative standards of “wholeness” that plagued him until mere months from his death, and his openhearted willingness to give up his time, energy, story, and health to create the conditions for gay FTM existence.
I truly can’t put into words the breadth of feeling I experienced while reading this. I vacillated constantly between love and rage and admiration and arousal. Strung between it all is an awareness of the story’s ending, and the self-conscious storytelling by a man who explicitly planned to publish his diaries further displaces these journals in time. It is at once a memoir of terminal illness and one of activism cut short. It is a novel of massive sociocultural progress and lifesaving community and also of felt failure.
For all of the feelings I felt during this book, though, an abiding respect for Lou’s trailblazing work and legacy remain. As a queer trans person, Lou helped make me possible. I look forward to returning to this volume and other work of Lou’s in the future, to find more ways to spend time with this father/sibling who I have never met and yet deeply know.
I truly can’t put into words the breadth of feeling I experienced while reading this. I vacillated constantly between love and rage and admiration and arousal. Strung between it all is an awareness of the story’s ending, and the self-conscious storytelling by a man who explicitly planned to publish his diaries further displaces these journals in time. It is at once a memoir of terminal illness and one of activism cut short. It is a novel of massive sociocultural progress and lifesaving community and also of felt failure.
For all of the feelings I felt during this book, though, an abiding respect for Lou’s trailblazing work and legacy remain. As a queer trans person, Lou helped make me possible. I look forward to returning to this volume and other work of Lou’s in the future, to find more ways to spend time with this father/sibling who I have never met and yet deeply know.
June 19, 2022
Few books have ever been such a companion to me. I am losing a friend by turning the last page.
Read
March 22, 2020i began this book two weeks ago before going to the club, which i now know is the last time i'll be on a dance floor for a long while. for the week after i was frozen by the affective structures of emergency, under capitalism's "attention economy": not opening books, not journaling, just drinking boxed rose and scrolling twitter. how strange it is to read late art as global pandemic settles. but also how instructive. in his last five years of life, knowing he was hiv-positive, sullivan's experiences of and devotion towards joy -- at his life, at the person he'd become, at sexual pleasure and hot dreams and encounters -- remind me what it is we fight for. we don't seek to defeat viruses for the mere fact of being alive, the experiences of solitude in our rooms. sullivan reminds me that we live for community and intimacy and presence and curiosity and joy.
July 20, 2022
Incredibly special to read Lou’s diaries and come across moments where he names he wants them published one day. He hoped to publish the journals himself but in the end following his diagnosis with AIDS, never got the chance. Martin & Ozma have done this for Lou and for all of us.
I think this book could have been about 100 pages shorter. While it is affirming to see even our transcestors were boy crazy perverts too, it felt at times rote and tedious to get through how much of the book was focused on sex and boys. Loved reading Lou talking about his own life, just wanted more editing from the editors. I did appreciate the honesty from Martin @ Ozma in including Lou’s own misinformation about transness, and frankly essentialist thinking about masculinity and femininity, manhood and womanhood.
I am deeply moved by this archive even if just because there is so little about our trancestors, especially trans masc ancestors. Lou Sullivan’s transition and activism journey is interesting and to get a glimpse into the trans scene in San Francisco across decades is a treat as someone new to the area.
As Lou would sign off: “Yours in Liberation”
I think this book could have been about 100 pages shorter. While it is affirming to see even our transcestors were boy crazy perverts too, it felt at times rote and tedious to get through how much of the book was focused on sex and boys. Loved reading Lou talking about his own life, just wanted more editing from the editors. I did appreciate the honesty from Martin @ Ozma in including Lou’s own misinformation about transness, and frankly essentialist thinking about masculinity and femininity, manhood and womanhood.
I am deeply moved by this archive even if just because there is so little about our trancestors, especially trans masc ancestors. Lou Sullivan’s transition and activism journey is interesting and to get a glimpse into the trans scene in San Francisco across decades is a treat as someone new to the area.
As Lou would sign off: “Yours in Liberation”
February 8, 2023
This is just an exceptional book. It's funny and sexy and full of yearning and mess and hilarity and joy and a million thousands contradictions, because that's what life is made of. Sullivan's writing is so vibrant, both matter-of-fact and grand at times.
The last twenty pages were brutal to read. It's impossible, reading a book like this, not to think about how many queer elders we lost, how many queers did not get to live long enough to become elders. And it's heartbreaking to read this now, this book full of so much pain and heartbreak and also so much ALL CAPS TRANS JOY, when trans joy is being legislated against, when trans people and trans rights to bodily autonomy and basic health care are being attacked.
I don't know. The world is a shitshow. Sullivan has left us with this incredible gift of his words, this record of his life, and while I'd trade it all away for him to be living happily in gaudy gay retirement somewhere, for all the queer elders who did not survive the 1980s and 1990s to be here, I guess I'm just immensely grateful for the gift.
A bit more here: https://booksandbakes.substack.com/i/...
The last twenty pages were brutal to read. It's impossible, reading a book like this, not to think about how many queer elders we lost, how many queers did not get to live long enough to become elders. And it's heartbreaking to read this now, this book full of so much pain and heartbreak and also so much ALL CAPS TRANS JOY, when trans joy is being legislated against, when trans people and trans rights to bodily autonomy and basic health care are being attacked.
I don't know. The world is a shitshow. Sullivan has left us with this incredible gift of his words, this record of his life, and while I'd trade it all away for him to be living happily in gaudy gay retirement somewhere, for all the queer elders who did not survive the 1980s and 1990s to be here, I guess I'm just immensely grateful for the gift.
A bit more here: https://booksandbakes.substack.com/i/...
February 8, 2022
Good for you, Lou!
July 21, 2020
I want this entire book tattooed on the inside of my eyelids. so beautiful
November 1, 2025
Youngman: Selected Diaries of Lou Sullivan is a collection of the diaries of Lou Sullivan, a trans man who grew up in Wisconsin before settling in San Francisco, covering his teens in the 1960s until his death from AIDS complications in 1991. I was really impressed with the editing of the diaries, which creates a vivid and involving narrative of queer life before and during the AIDS epidemic. A few of Lou's little sketches are also included, along with a couple pages from the diary notebooks, in which I observed two things. Firstly, that Lou had very neat handwriting and secondly, that the unabridged diary also included 'I need to do laundry' reminders. The diaries are frank and explicit about Lou's gender transition and sexuality. He found great joy in being a gay man, becoming involved in the queer community, and providing support to other trans people. His writing is witty and keenly observant:
The last sixty pages of the diaries cover the decline in Lou's health after being diagnosed with AIDS, which are moving and tragic to read. He continued to work on a biography of Jack Garland (also a trans man), started preparing his diaries for publication, and founded others to take over the newsletter he'd started. He survived several years with AIDS, longer than he initially expected. Lou's diaries are insightful and, as the cover quote states, 'a radical testament to trans happiness'.
Went to see Dr. George Fulmer, an endrocrinologist. [...] He asked some pretty dumb questions, like "What typically 'masculine' things do you like to do and what typically 'feminine' things?" I DON'T KNOW! How the hell am I supposed to answer that?? Oh, I put cream & sugar in my coffee, that's feminine; I like to watch boxing matches on TV, that's masculine; I put bath oil in the tub, that's feminine; and I use Brut deodorant, that's masculine. GOD. [...]
I left there rather discouraged. I first went to a bar (masculine!) and then home to cry (feminine!), but when I reflect I think he'll co-operate with me. [...]
My one boss asked "How did it go at the doctor's?" just to check up. Told him I had some "female trouble" (yeah, my body) & that it would all turn out in the end. [...]
Sudden thought: If that psychiatric profession has decided that being homosexual is no longer a sign of mental disorder, then how come wanting to be homosexual is so mental??
The last sixty pages of the diaries cover the decline in Lou's health after being diagnosed with AIDS, which are moving and tragic to read. He continued to work on a biography of Jack Garland (also a trans man), started preparing his diaries for publication, and founded others to take over the newsletter he'd started. He survived several years with AIDS, longer than he initially expected. Lou's diaries are insightful and, as the cover quote states, 'a radical testament to trans happiness'.
July 20, 2022
It was incredibly interesting reading through Lou's understanding of himself, how it changed and evolved over the years (I smiled bittersweetly when I read something like 'I must remember I am transvestite, not a transsexual' and his feeling of not belonging in gay male spaces while in reality, most of the entries recounting his encounters with gay men had been very positive). As the editors stated, yes, a lot of entries are his boy-craziness, but also deep longing to find someone like himself, him working through his personal problems. I like that the editors kept the incorrect 'information' about transition and some of Lou's prejudices intact (his doubts, purposeful denial of his own identity and his insecurities etc). It helps to see how one's mind works but I suppose you must restrain yourself from psychoanalysing too much.
The blatant change of Lou's attitude towards himself was incredibly heart-warming as well - the confidence he gained in himself as well as others.
Although I understand the editors' goal of shedding a more personal and intimate light on Lou's life and keeping his musings about his intimate partners throughout life, I admit I still felt incredibly voyeuristic and uncomfortable reading it. Although Lou's intent on publishing his diaries softened the blow a bit. But not by much.
All in all, although I cannot rate someone's diaries and their private thoughts, these are an invaluable historical document of a place and time and of one important figure in trans and wider LGBT history. I cannot rate someone's being and I will not attempt to do so.
However, I think I can rate how the editing made it more or less enjoyable. The idea of completely removing the dates, months or at least years in his diary entries really didn't work for me. It left me disoriented instead of providing a more streamlined 'novelistic' (novel-like? is that even a word?) quality. And I think that was the biggest detriment to my enjoyment - I didn't like some stuff the editors kept and how they went about it and the things they presumably left out.
Still, if you want to 'get to know' one of the most important figures in trans (especially trans male and gay) history, which can often feel sparse, barren, like a blank slate for a lot of us, and his search for identity, happiness and belonging while providing the wider cultural, social context - you should read this. While Lou said he didn't think he was a good writer, I have underlined many of his thoughts and the way he put them on paper, and his insights were interesting and sometimes, surprisingly often, poetic.
I really enjoyed and appreciated the preface Susan Stryker provided - I think a lot of queer people can share her sentiment about an important queer figure in their lives. And the importance that figure can hold for us that transcends and becomes almost symbolic and incredibly personal even though we had never met the person in question.
Lou's entries and the Further Reading section provided me with some literature I'm keen on seeking out so I reckon this book could be a good starting point if you are interested in trans theory but especially trans history, even more specifically trans male North American history and the figures that shaped it.
3.25/5
The blatant change of Lou's attitude towards himself was incredibly heart-warming as well - the confidence he gained in himself as well as others.
Although I understand the editors' goal of shedding a more personal and intimate light on Lou's life and keeping his musings about his intimate partners throughout life, I admit I still felt incredibly voyeuristic and uncomfortable reading it. Although Lou's intent on publishing his diaries softened the blow a bit. But not by much.
All in all, although I cannot rate someone's diaries and their private thoughts, these are an invaluable historical document of a place and time and of one important figure in trans and wider LGBT history. I cannot rate someone's being and I will not attempt to do so.
However, I think I can rate how the editing made it more or less enjoyable. The idea of completely removing the dates, months or at least years in his diary entries really didn't work for me. It left me disoriented instead of providing a more streamlined 'novelistic' (novel-like? is that even a word?) quality. And I think that was the biggest detriment to my enjoyment - I didn't like some stuff the editors kept and how they went about it and the things they presumably left out.
Still, if you want to 'get to know' one of the most important figures in trans (especially trans male and gay) history, which can often feel sparse, barren, like a blank slate for a lot of us, and his search for identity, happiness and belonging while providing the wider cultural, social context - you should read this. While Lou said he didn't think he was a good writer, I have underlined many of his thoughts and the way he put them on paper, and his insights were interesting and sometimes, surprisingly often, poetic.
I really enjoyed and appreciated the preface Susan Stryker provided - I think a lot of queer people can share her sentiment about an important queer figure in their lives. And the importance that figure can hold for us that transcends and becomes almost symbolic and incredibly personal even though we had never met the person in question.
Lou's entries and the Further Reading section provided me with some literature I'm keen on seeking out so I reckon this book could be a good starting point if you are interested in trans theory but especially trans history, even more specifically trans male North American history and the figures that shaped it.
3.25/5
May 11, 2021
deeply grateful for the opportunity to experience Lou this way & to gain so much insight on our WI trans ancestors, but i am personally exhausted by queer lit of any kind being defined by aggressive, constant sexuality. please read this either way.
July 11, 2020
Joyous, smutty, beautiful. My favourite book of 2020 so far.
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October 26, 2024what an interesting book this was! i read We Both Laughed in Pleasure because it was assigned as the first book for a queer book club i just joined (first meet up on Monday, wish me luck!), and i am really really pleased, bcs i don't think i would have just come across this in my daily life.
spanning almost 30 years, the diaries of Lou Sullivan cover his life from being an extremely eager Beatles fan in 1960s Milwaukee (i laughed so much at those early bits, Sullivan was giving the Directioners of my childhood a run for their money) to his gradual gender transition, move to San Francisco, and ultimately his death of AIDS-related illness in 1991. i don't think i need to stress the historical importance of such a diary in the context of queer history, but at times it was honestly still kind of shocking reading it cos like...this guy was figuring himself out at a time where there was SO little information available (especially about the existence of *gay* trans people) and somehow he made it through! there is so much doubt (even a period of detransition) and dysphoria in those diaries, but in the end he got to live and die as who he knew he was, loved and accepted and held by his family and loved ones. it's just really moving and important. queer history is so important.
that being said... boy was my man lou thinking about sex all the fucking time. and here we reach the question of the editorial work - because naturally, we as readers have not been granted access to the raw materials (Sullivan bequeathed some 8 cubic feet of his writing!), so it's really hard for me to gauge whether the editors decided to deliberately focus on Sullivan's (often intertwined) thoughts about sexuality and gender, or if he was just *like that* and all of his writing is a constant hornfest. then there is also the fact that these are diaries, not a memoir - although Sullivan fully intended to edit and publish his own diaries, it is still such a deeply personal form of writing, and we can never know which bits Sullivan would have chosen to include and which to omit. it's kind of an unsolvable conundrum. and it's not that i think the editors were wrong to have left in so much of Sullivan's sexual fantasies and escapades (clearly being a sexual being was an important part of his identity so it would have done the project a great disservice to omit it). but it did get a bit much at some point? like this book is fully 400+ pages long, my dudes, you could have left some of it out lol but then again maybe that would have been untrue to the horny essence of Lou Sullivan??? a conundrum indeed. i hope we discuss this at the book club meetup!
anyway, i'm really glad i read this. i would recommend this to transmasculine people looking to get an intimate look at the mind of a fellow trans dude, as well as anyone with an interest in queer and especially trans history. no rating bcs i would feel weird rating someone's innermost thoughts lol!
spanning almost 30 years, the diaries of Lou Sullivan cover his life from being an extremely eager Beatles fan in 1960s Milwaukee (i laughed so much at those early bits, Sullivan was giving the Directioners of my childhood a run for their money) to his gradual gender transition, move to San Francisco, and ultimately his death of AIDS-related illness in 1991. i don't think i need to stress the historical importance of such a diary in the context of queer history, but at times it was honestly still kind of shocking reading it cos like...this guy was figuring himself out at a time where there was SO little information available (especially about the existence of *gay* trans people) and somehow he made it through! there is so much doubt (even a period of detransition) and dysphoria in those diaries, but in the end he got to live and die as who he knew he was, loved and accepted and held by his family and loved ones. it's just really moving and important. queer history is so important.
that being said... boy was my man lou thinking about sex all the fucking time. and here we reach the question of the editorial work - because naturally, we as readers have not been granted access to the raw materials (Sullivan bequeathed some 8 cubic feet of his writing!), so it's really hard for me to gauge whether the editors decided to deliberately focus on Sullivan's (often intertwined) thoughts about sexuality and gender, or if he was just *like that* and all of his writing is a constant hornfest. then there is also the fact that these are diaries, not a memoir - although Sullivan fully intended to edit and publish his own diaries, it is still such a deeply personal form of writing, and we can never know which bits Sullivan would have chosen to include and which to omit. it's kind of an unsolvable conundrum. and it's not that i think the editors were wrong to have left in so much of Sullivan's sexual fantasies and escapades (clearly being a sexual being was an important part of his identity so it would have done the project a great disservice to omit it). but it did get a bit much at some point? like this book is fully 400+ pages long, my dudes, you could have left some of it out lol but then again maybe that would have been untrue to the horny essence of Lou Sullivan??? a conundrum indeed. i hope we discuss this at the book club meetup!
anyway, i'm really glad i read this. i would recommend this to transmasculine people looking to get an intimate look at the mind of a fellow trans dude, as well as anyone with an interest in queer and especially trans history. no rating bcs i would feel weird rating someone's innermost thoughts lol!
October 11, 2019
I'm in tears as I write this. Martin and Ozma did a wonderful job compiling Lou's journals in a way that emphasized his humanity. I appreciate them including shorter journal entries to let Lou "breathe" (as described in the introduction). These little emotional vents add so much depth and breadth to the collection in a way that let me hear Lou's voice. I'm not sure if the editors read Goodreads reviews, but thank you for putting Lou's diaries together.
April 25, 2024
"I still would like to believe that a few simple carnal pleasures can still be mine."
Gutted. And yet, so in awe of such an intense, raw record of life and death.
Whe I got to the page before the final page, I was suddenly overcome with emotion and started to cry. You are reading someone's last words, and I am someone who has thought a lot about last words. Here, Lou Sullivan's last words after a diary going back 30 years, from discussing the most private, intimate, and passionate parts of his life, from in-the-closet Beatles super fan, to sexually-charged power bottom trans man in San Francisco, to a queer canonization before he even dies, which, like his death, he begrudgingly, but ultimately, accepts -- here, his last words are seemingly a mid-sentence stopping point. He ends it as if he will he back later, and you want him to. I want him too. And he isn't, and he won't. And it guts me.
How powerful this book is. How many young queer and trans people, especially trans men, owe it to themselves to read this ,-- to read the dying words of the man who fought for his community until the day he died [his last entry is him, now unable to even walk and barely able to eat, discussing how he plans to give a keynote speech later that week -- he died before he could]. I think about taking this books and beating GOP idiots over the head with it as they ban books left and right in schools. Books like this, the diary of a gay transgender man before, during, and after Stonewall. Before and during the AIDS crisis, of which he was a casualty.
This is such such such a critical read. An emotional read. I can't recommend it enough.
Gutted. And yet, so in awe of such an intense, raw record of life and death.
Whe I got to the page before the final page, I was suddenly overcome with emotion and started to cry. You are reading someone's last words, and I am someone who has thought a lot about last words. Here, Lou Sullivan's last words after a diary going back 30 years, from discussing the most private, intimate, and passionate parts of his life, from in-the-closet Beatles super fan, to sexually-charged power bottom trans man in San Francisco, to a queer canonization before he even dies, which, like his death, he begrudgingly, but ultimately, accepts -- here, his last words are seemingly a mid-sentence stopping point. He ends it as if he will he back later, and you want him to. I want him too. And he isn't, and he won't. And it guts me.
How powerful this book is. How many young queer and trans people, especially trans men, owe it to themselves to read this ,-- to read the dying words of the man who fought for his community until the day he died [his last entry is him, now unable to even walk and barely able to eat, discussing how he plans to give a keynote speech later that week -- he died before he could]. I think about taking this books and beating GOP idiots over the head with it as they ban books left and right in schools. Books like this, the diary of a gay transgender man before, during, and after Stonewall. Before and during the AIDS crisis, of which he was a casualty.
This is such such such a critical read. An emotional read. I can't recommend it enough.
October 7, 2019
This is an amazing chronicle of the life of Lou Sullivan, a trans man who documented his life from his teens all the way till a few weeks before his death. DECADES of information in one easy to read tome. It feels like a privilege to be able to see so clearly into his life, but that was his intention, to leave behind a legacy and document his journey so that others that came after him, other F to M gay men would know that they weren't weird or alone. His way of parsing through his feelings on the page just makes you realize how emotionally in tune he was with himself, it made me think about journaling differently. He had an incredibly narrative writing style in these diaries and the editors Zach and Ellis did such a good job of compiling a 400 page book from 8.5 cubic feet of diaries left by Lou. I love diaries and letters, and this is one of my favorite editions in the genre. I enjoyed reading this, and I also feel like I learned so much about an experience that is so far from my own.
February 13, 2024
"It really hasn't hit me that I am about to die. I see the grief around me, but inside I feel serene and a certain kind of peace.
My whole life I've wanted to be a gay man and it's kind of an honor to die from the gay men's disease."
It's been an honor reading this book. I'm honestly not sure what to say besides that it shook me to my core.
My whole life I've wanted to be a gay man and it's kind of an honor to die from the gay men's disease."
It's been an honor reading this book. I'm honestly not sure what to say besides that it shook me to my core.
October 2, 2022
"When people ask me at work 'What do you want for yourself in the future?', how can I tell them that I just want to be a man?"
as a transman myself this was really really a good book for me it helped me i understood things i couldn't before it's an eye-opener
as a transman myself this was really really a good book for me it helped me i understood things i couldn't before it's an eye-opener
January 26, 2021
extremely beautiful but difficult read, wish our trans-masc mentors were alive to be our elders. thankful this exists
June 5, 2022
Crying a little
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February 18, 2020 An uplifting document by a very forward thinking person who enjoyed the discoveries in his life. He had a supportive family and group of friends, was able to sustain relationships, and even had positive medical experiences. Thanks to Nightboat Press.
October 22, 2022
This is exactly what I needed during my coming out as a trans masculine queer man. He literally described a lot of my experiences before I was even born.
April 1, 2024
"It's so hard to separate happiness + sorrow - sometimes they're almost the same thing."
It took me incredibly long to finish this book. I read the first 200 pages in one go in November, and I knew from page one that this would be a book I'd remember forever.
That proves to be true.
"I don't feel this surgery would make me a better man or woman, but I know it would make me a better person. I don't believe I can successfully live as a man or as a woman."
In January I got top surgery. Reading about Lou's experience was... emotional for me. As has most everything in this book been for me: emotional. Some of Lou's thoughts and concepts around trans identity and gender are outdated, and may feel weird to read from a very modern perspective. But that is what these diaries are about: Lou's perspective of the world, and it made me feel less lonely reading it, although it crushed me more than once.
"I guess I just feel that my body has been one big burden throughout my life and getting this fatal disease... one that can be transmitted to anyone who loves my body... is just the last straw. Just knowing that this is the way I will be until I die is so hard to accept."
Would recommend this book to every trans* masculine leaning person. Though my experience is far less binary than Lou's, I still loved reading about shared experiences you don't get to connect with that often usually. Some of the very explicit sexual parts were increasingly harder to read for me, especially some encounters with the second long term boyfriend T, but also in general I sometimes wanted to reach through the pages and rub Lou's shoulder and tell him he's going to be okay.
I'm so goddamned tired of being a freak. Life is passing me by and everybody else finds their slot, but I'm always on the outside looking in."
Don't know if this review makes the least bit of sense, it's way too late and I am emotional and sad from having finished his diaries. I knew what was coming all along, but that didn't make it less heartbreaking. I leave, feeling encouraged and heavy sadness all at once.
It took me incredibly long to finish this book. I read the first 200 pages in one go in November, and I knew from page one that this would be a book I'd remember forever.
That proves to be true.
"I don't feel this surgery would make me a better man or woman, but I know it would make me a better person. I don't believe I can successfully live as a man or as a woman."
In January I got top surgery. Reading about Lou's experience was... emotional for me. As has most everything in this book been for me: emotional. Some of Lou's thoughts and concepts around trans identity and gender are outdated, and may feel weird to read from a very modern perspective. But that is what these diaries are about: Lou's perspective of the world, and it made me feel less lonely reading it, although it crushed me more than once.
"I guess I just feel that my body has been one big burden throughout my life and getting this fatal disease... one that can be transmitted to anyone who loves my body... is just the last straw. Just knowing that this is the way I will be until I die is so hard to accept."
Would recommend this book to every trans* masculine leaning person. Though my experience is far less binary than Lou's, I still loved reading about shared experiences you don't get to connect with that often usually. Some of the very explicit sexual parts were increasingly harder to read for me, especially some encounters with the second long term boyfriend T, but also in general I sometimes wanted to reach through the pages and rub Lou's shoulder and tell him he's going to be okay.
I'm so goddamned tired of being a freak. Life is passing me by and everybody else finds their slot, but I'm always on the outside looking in."
Don't know if this review makes the least bit of sense, it's way too late and I am emotional and sad from having finished his diaries. I knew what was coming all along, but that didn't make it less heartbreaking. I leave, feeling encouraged and heavy sadness all at once.
March 15, 2025
Outing myself as a slow reader of painful and (pleasurable) books. I started reading this two years ago and I didn't feel in a strong enough place. Certain entries felt too familiar, or desires of his resonated - I couldn't look directly at them. It still felt hard to finish in the last weeks.
I would like to be as strong and honest as him.
Sending you, Lou, a kiss, from one gay ftm to another <3
I would like to be as strong and honest as him.
Sending you, Lou, a kiss, from one gay ftm to another <3
April 30, 2025
cried my eyes out. there is so much history here. and a lot of the things he writes ab, might feel like they r still being discovered/said/felt/experienced for the first time in 2025. not true.../lou was not alone in this. mmy heart aches and is also so so so full of love.
June 17, 2024
June gemini excellence
October 22, 2025
thank you for the recommendation hedda!! 💋
October 23, 2024
4.5/5
Through only diary entries, Lou Sullivan painted a colourful picture of their experience growing up in the Queer scenes in Milwaukee and San Francisco. Even though our backgrounds and gender identities are different, I found myself resonating with how Sullivan navigated sex and relationships as a young gay person with other (and at times toxic) gay men. The entries and lines where Sullivan writes about feeling comfortable and in love with his body were my favourite parts of the book.
Through only diary entries, Lou Sullivan painted a colourful picture of their experience growing up in the Queer scenes in Milwaukee and San Francisco. Even though our backgrounds and gender identities are different, I found myself resonating with how Sullivan navigated sex and relationships as a young gay person with other (and at times toxic) gay men. The entries and lines where Sullivan writes about feeling comfortable and in love with his body were my favourite parts of the book.
December 16, 2025
I feel like I lost a good friend when I finished this book. Its a very touching account of living as a self-made man, and Lou is upbeat and grateful for his life even when bad things happen to him. Its humbling, really, and makes me appreciate how much more straightforward medical transition is today. I appreciated all the boring parts, back and forth, and normalness of a lot of his life. It made me feel like I was a lot less alone in the universe reading about this guy who worried about rent and his pet birds and falling in love with other boys, who also happened to be trans and yearning for a body that suited him better. The amount of things Lou was able to do, especially pre-transition, astounds me. Thank you for documenting your life for us, Lou.
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