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.
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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
I’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.
There’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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