Louis Sullivan (1951–1991) was a founding member of the GLBT Historical Society and a transgender gay man whose pioneering activism on behalf of trans men in the 1970s and 1980s helped shape the modern understanding of sexual orientation and gender identity. The society’s archives hold Sullivan’s extensive diaries, written between the 1960s and the 1990s, which chronicle his coming of age, coming-out as a gay trans man and work as a historian. Researcher Ellis Martin and poet and artist Zach Ozma have compiled selections from the diaries into a new book, We Both Laughed In Pleasure: The Selected Diaries of Lou Sullivan (Nightboat Books, 2019).
In editing the volume, they confronted a number of challenging questions: How can queer historians draw strength and lessons from LGBTQ history, and how do they do so using a historical record that has often erased or misidentified queer people? In this discussion, Martin, Ozma and the GLBT Historical Society’s reference archivist, Isaac Fellman, will read excerpts from Sullivan’s diaries and will discuss the complex issues involved in queer historical storytelling. Copies of We Both Laughed in Pleasure will be available for purchase and signing.
SPEAKERS
Ms. Bob Davis is the founder and director of the Louise Lawrence Transgender Archive in Vallejo, CA. She served two terms on the GLBT Historical Society Board of Directors. She presented a talk, “Glamour, Drag and Death: How Two Community Archives Preserve Art from the Era of HIV/AIDS,” at the Archives, Museums and Special Collections (AMLS) Queering Memory conference in Berlin in June 2019. An article based on the talk will be included in the “Trans and HIV/AIDS” issue of Transgender Studies Quarterly (Duke University Press), due out later this year. Ms. Bob teaches music at Napa Valley College and City College of San Francisco.
Isaac Fellman has worked in archives at the California Historical Society, the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Oregon Health and Science University. He earned his M.L.I.S. from Emporia State University and his M.A. in literature from the University of Oregon. Isaac is also a Lambda Literary Award-winning fantasy writer.
Frances Hocutt is a scientist by training and computer wrangler by trade, with interests that have covered fiber arts, dance, martial arts, trauma, embodiment, makerspaces, free software and open knowledge, and other kinds of knowledge-sharing and mutual support. Frances spends possibly too much time reading about queer/trans anything in a long-shot attempt to make gender and sexuality add up to something remotely coherent.
Ellis Martin works with digital derivatives in the interstice of art and archives. He holds a B.A. in visual and critical studies from Mills College. He edited We Both Laughed in Pleasure: The Selected Diaries of Lou Sullivan (Nightboat Books, 2019) with Zach Ozma and has generated large-scale digitization projects at Mills College Art Museum, the Oakland Museum of California, the John J. Wilcox, Jr. Archives and the GLBT Historical Society.
Zach Ozma is a poet, potter and social practice artist who uses embodiment theory, archival research and neo-classically gay imagery to inform his practice. Employing mimesis, pedagogy, humor, surprise and reward, he works in a variety of materials and media, including ceramics, found objects, performance, writing and works on paper. He is the author of Black Dog Drinking From an Outdoor Pool (Sibling Rivalry Press, 2019) and coedited We Both Laughed in Pleasure: The Selected Diaries of Lou Sullivan (Nightboat Books, 2019) with Ellis Martin. He holds a B.F.A. in community arts from California College of the Arts in Oakland.
LOCATION
GLBT Historical Society Museum, 4127 18th St., San Francisco, CA 94114
ADMISSION
Space is limited; advance tickets recommended. Walk-ins will be accommodated as space allows. Tickets available here.
ASL INTERPRETATION
ASL interpretation provided upon request. Please write at least three days in advance of event to leigh@glbthistory.org.
ABOUT THE BOOK
For more information about We Both Laughed in Pleasure, visit the publisher’s website.
JOIN THE GLBT HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Become a member of the GLBT Historical Society for free museum and program admission, discounts in the museum shop and other perks.
Image credit: Lou Sullivan in a snapshot included in his correspondence; collection of the GLBT Historical Society.