Lou Sullivan (1951–1991), transman and activist, writing as a teenager:
I wanna look like what I am but don’t know what someone like me looks like. I mean, when people look at me I want them to think — there’s one of those people that reasons, that is a philosopher, that has their own interpretation of happiness. That’s what I am.“Their own intepretation of happiness”: a way to think about making a life, trans- or cis-. These words are quoted, incompletely, imperfectly, in No Ordinary Man (dir. Aisling Chin-Yee and Chase Joynt, 2020), a documentary about the jazz musician and transman Billy Tipton. You can find the words quoted accurately in this New Yorker article.
Unsure what to think of "happiness" as various people think of it. From Wiki: "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." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lou_Sullivan
ReplyDeleteI’m aware of that comment — I read the same Wikipedia article, which I linked to in the post. To me it sounds like caustic wit, grim humor.
ReplyDeleteThere’s also this passage in the New Yorker article: “it’s been worth all these years just to be in this bar, here, now, with AIDS, + to be a man among men.” I won’t say that I understand what’s involved, but I certainly understand the idea of being who you are, even at great cost.
Yes, happiness is not the same as safety.
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