Lou Sullivan painting


Lou Sullivan was an organizer, an advocate for civil rights for both the gay and trans communities – and an unabashed commentator when the two communities refused to have each other’s backs and emphasized points of divergence rather than their commonalities and united interests. He became an AIDS activist and educator and contracted the disease before there was much public information about it (and the medical establishment associated it exclusively with a particular identity (only gay, cis men) and not with sexual practices and contact. He fought to get FTM surgery, and is quoted as saying: “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.” Lou was the founder of FTM international. His legacy lives on through the Lou Sullivan Society