Learn far more about ‘Wisconsin Pride’ matter Lou Sullivan – study a Q&A with biographer Brice Smith
June 29, 2023
The all-new documentary, Wisconsin Satisfaction is a groundbreaking collaboration between PBS Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Historic Modern society that reveals our state’s background in a much more inclusive scope. This powerful two-hour documentary is available to check out at pbswisconsin.org/satisfaction and on the absolutely free PBS App on all streaming devices.
One particular of the historical figures showcased in Wisconsin Pride is Lou Sullivan, a pioneering transgender man and sizeable trans activist from Milwaukee.
Brice Smith holds a doctorate in heritage from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and is the key source for our tale about Sullivan, whose biography he authored. Like Sullivan, Smith is trans-masculine and his investigate was individually revelatory and rewarding.
PBS Wisconsin spoke with Smith about his involvement with the documentary and what other thrilling initiatives he is concerned in.
PBS Wisconsin: Can you notify us a very little bit about Lou Sullivan?
Smith: He was born in Wauwatosa, and ultimately moved out to San Francisco, and it was throughout that time that he grew to become a world renowned trans activist. But anything that he realized as an activist and also as a self taught scholar, he learned though below in Milwaukee, and all through his involvement with The Homosexual Liberation Movement, especially with The Gay People’s Union or GPU.
Sullivan was a phenomenal determine who helped to join trans gentlemen all all over the environment. He assisted teach medical industry experts about trans folks and about the partnership, or lack thereof, among gender identity and expression and sexual orientation.
He faced fairly a little bit of discrimination for the reason that he was not only trans but a homosexual guy. Sullivan required to changeover in get to be the gay guy that he was, and it took awhile for the health care occupation to come around and be ready to enable him transition and support him embody his genuine id.
PBS Wisconsin: What drew you to his tale?
Smith: I was wrapping up my master’s plan and I experienced been questioning my very own gender identification, and I understood I required to investigate a thing on transgender background. And as I commenced exploring transgender background, I realized it was a field that did not exist. I imply, trans folks have usually been close to, but as a entire body of history, it wasn’t a industry of research.
While I was seeking for tales to assist share, I held coming throughout Sullivan’s title, and just how exceptional and substantial he was. But despite all the work he experienced performed as a historian himself to explain to the stories of other trans adult men, he had by no means gotten about to truly publishing his very own life tale. That is since tragically, Sullivan died just in advance of he turned 40 from problems associated to AIDS.
I turned disappointed that I could not obtain a lot more facts about him. And, I figured, “Well shoot, you know, if I want to examine this biography so badly, and I’m annoyed that it doesn’t exist then I could as nicely write it myself.”
PBS Wisconsin: Did you have substantially archival substance obtainable to use for Sullivan’s biography?
Smith: Apparently, Sullivan experienced tons of documentation. He experienced spent so lots of countless hrs making an attempt to discover any document of any individual like him. He would just sit there in the library, heading through website page right after webpage of previous newspapers, for example. Any time he came throughout a story, he kept it, and he retained records throughout his lifetime.
He also saved copies of all of his correspondences, not only the correspondence he gained, but also his response as effectively.
Most importantly, from the age of 10 up right up until his loss of life, he journaled consistently. And, it’s interesting to go through how his journals alter above time. At the commencing it’s quite much the stuff that a child writes about, “We went sledding, and my brother swallowed a penny.” And then there are periods of him actually making an attempt to recognize who he was and navigating relationships in the earth. Shifting into the final phase of Sullivan’s lifestyle, especially as soon as he gained his AIDS prognosis, there’s a self awareness of seeking to record his daily life and all the things that was happening in buy to have this documentation for other people in the long run.
Sullivan was worried that he was going to die and that clinical experts would go back again to denying that homosexual trans males could exist. He wished to make absolutely sure that that would by no means materialize.
So he essentially documented his entire life. He was a founding member of the GLBT Historic Society out in San Francisco, and upon his demise all these products were bequeathed to that historic society.
PBS Wisconsin: When you researched his story, what’s something that shocked you about him?
Smith: I was astonished that he discovered as he did, and consistently did, even though the whole planet explained to him that he shouldn’t be equipped to exist as who he was. I didn’t know I was transgender right up until my early twenties. I attempted quite difficult to be a lady, and all I knew is that I unsuccessful day by day. I failed miserably, and it was so peculiar to have anything that came so naturally to other folks be these kinds of a problem for me. I didn’t have the language or understanding of who I was. I retained attempting to do what I considered was right, and tried to be in the long run who I was not.
Not Sullivan. He knew so strongly who he was that when persons said, “No, you can’t be trans,” instead of him, stating, “Maybe you’re proper, I really should just carry on to transfer in the environment as a straight female,” he stated, “No, you are erroneous. I know that I’m a gay male and I pretty substantially need to have this.” I simply cannot envision being in his footwear.
PBS Wisconsin: If we had a lot more time in the documentary to dedicate to Sullivan, what would you want viewers to bear in mind about him?
Smith: I’d like people to know that first and foremost he was from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and just how significantly that formed him and his work in profound strategies. Sure, he moved out to San Francisco, and they may well declare him as their possess. But, even when you go to areas you simply cannot automatically shake your roots and who they help you to grow to be, and Sullivan often preserved ties again right here, far too.
I think there is some thing definitely distinctive both about Milwaukee and Wisconsin, and Midwesterners in common, in phrases of how we move by way of the environment and how we tactic activism. I experience like we do it from a place of civic-mindedness performing extra as neighbors. I like to joke that as Midwesterners we do not demand our legal rights, we imagine in operating difficult for them.
PBS Wisconsin: What does a project like Wisconsin Delight mean in your see to the LGBTQ+ neighborhood?
Smith: I imagine it is fantastic. I adore the breadth of the film in phrases of time, geography and identities protected. Although I was interviewed for the movie, I was genuinely impressed by how significantly superior exploration had been completed based mostly on the varieties of questions they questioned me. And I could explain to they showed the exact same treatment with every single person highlighted in the film. Yet another detail I enjoy about the movie is that the aim on particular person tales can help viewers seriously join with the background. And the contributors have so a great deal identity!
I experienced the prospect to enjoy the film throughout the screening at Milwaukee’s Oriental Theater, and it was incredible suffering from it as a local community of LGBTQ+ folks and allies. Later on, a mate of mine, who’s an LGBTQ+ ally, claimed the film made her really very pleased to be from Wisconsin. How extraordinary that the film creates that perception of pride both of those within and further than our LGBTQ+ local community, and connects us all as Wisconsinites. Our state’s LGBTQ+ history is uniquely special, and the movie brilliantly demonstrates that.
PBS Wisconsin: Can you talk a very little bit far more about what you have accomplished to protect neighborhood LGBTQ+ background and what it suggests for potential generations?
Smith: Last yr I recruited local LGBTQ+ talent to start lgbt milWALKee, a free historic walking tour application. I arrived up with the concept for this application since I was knowledgeable of a absence of historical markers around the town — and the point out — devoted to LGBTQ+ heritage. Even though LGBTQ+ individuals have been below and played an crucial role in nearby record, you simply cannot see the mark that we have left on the cityscape.
With the app, folks can see and working experience the background we have built through the metropolis. You can visually see web pages on a map of distinct sites of historical significance and then listen to stories about the folks and the corporations that are sizeable to us as a local community, and also more broadly as Milwaukeeans and as Wisconsinites.
We introduced with 25 internet sites and just included 4 more to the application. Each site options a 2-3 moment online video, or mini-documentary, that enables customers to experience the stories in a compelling way. In some situations the location serves as the implies to notify a story. In other occasions the place alone is the tale. If you are unable to go on one of our app’s strolling tours, you can however appreciate learning about our history by seeing the mini-documentaries.
PBS Wisconsin: Do you have any other tasks in the performs?
Smith: I’m also aiding to launch Residence of Heritage, a task devoted to Milwaukee’s Black LGBTQ+ history. In seeking to involve Black spaces and tales on the app, it turned evident to me how minimal investigate had essentially been accomplished in that location — how little had been performed to collect, share and rejoice the historic contributions of Black members of our group. And so I partnered with Janice Toy, who was a famous drag performer, and just a exceptional female and a amazing leader, specifically among Black women of trans encounter. Janice served me guide the charge with investigating and community outreach. It’s been actually thrilling to do this significant operate.
A different job that’s in the is effective is an LGBTQ+ park. Our hope is to assist rehabilitate and restructure an current park as a community, and to be equipped to make it a put in which we can give LGBTQ+ programming, public artwork and historical shows. It will also incorporate a beer backyard to make it self-sustaining and even produce revenue for the town. Parks have been these types of a interesting place in our historical past. They ended up 1 of the few public spaces exactly where we may link with each other, albeit in solution. But then we’ve also been seriously policed there.
So our would like to repurpose a park in this way that provides again to the town of Milwaukee is really interesting. To generate a house the place LGBTQ+ individuals know we will usually be welcome, and that our life can be out in the open up and celebrated, and not just for a single month of the year, and to be capable to just supply a great room and programming that will also attraction to people today outdoors of our community — that is genuinely unique. And to my knowledge, if this project moves forward, the park would be the very first of its sort.
PBS Wisconsin: Finally, if viewers want to study a lot more about Sullivan’s tale what sources do you recommend?
Smith: I recommend my biography, Lou Sullivan: Daring to be a Gentleman Among Men — which will be coming out as an audiobook afterwards this year. The narration was recorded by his successor, Jamison Green, and it is been edited by an brazenly trans female. I love the actuality that it is in an all-trans generation.
Also, the GLBT Historic Society and the Electronic Transgender Archive are each digitizing portions of Sullivan’s selection, creating it extra broadly accessible to men and women, which is great.
https://www.youtube.com/look at?v=OVSSVicjlCk
Showcased image of Lou Sullivan courtesy of Flame Sullivan
LGBT Delight Thirty day period Wisconsin Pleasure LGBTQ+ Archives