LOU SULLIVAN

“[They] said I couldn’t live as a gay man, but it looks like I’m going to die like one.” Good Midwestern girls did not grow up to be gay men and die from AIDS. Unless they were transgender pioneer Lou Sullivan (1951-1991). In this heart-wrenchingly inspirational biography, Brice D. Smith reclaims one of the most tragically overlooked people in LGBT history. Sullivan marched for Civil Rights, embraced the 1960s counterculture, came of age in the gay liberation movement, transformed medical treatment of trans people, institutionalized trans history, forged an international female-to-male (FTM) transgender community and died from AIDS at the epicenter of the crisis. He overcame tremendous obstacles to be who he was and dedicated his life to helping others do the same. An activist to the end, Sullivan inspired a generation to rethink gender identity, sexual orientation and what it means to be human.