Overlooked No More: Lou Sullivan, Author and Transgender Activist
This article is part of Overlooked, a series of obituaries about remarkable people whose deaths, beginning in 1851, went unreported in The Times. “I walked down the middle of Market Street,” Lou Sullivan wrote in his journal in June 1981, about participating in San Francisco’s gay pride parade. “The first time I can say I actually felt I ‘marched in the parade.’ My opened shirt blew in the wind — the sun tanning my stomach — feeling lean and alive and beautiful — saying I am a man — saying I love men.” Sullivan had long sought a sense of belonging in gay spaces.
Having been assigned female at birth, he had also long sought gender-affirming care — and had been denied because of his sexual orientation.
This was his first time celebrating Pride after he had undergone top surgery, or chest reconstruction, and the experience was one of affirmation.
At the time, the medical model of transsexuality assumed that the goal of gender transition was to live a heterosexual life.
