Cadwodd Lou ddyddiaduron candid o 10 oed. Trwy’r pigion hyn, clywn am fywyd Lou yn ei eiriau ei hun: o ‘playing boys’ yn ei blentyndod yn Wisconsin, i crywdro bariau hoyw San Francisco ar gyfer ‘youngmen’ golygus; o clywed am gymunedau ‘gender non-confirming’ am y tro cyntaf, i ddod yn rhan hanfodol ohonynt fel actifydd, awdur ac archifydd.

Llywiodd Lou ei hunaniaeth heb lawer o fodelau rôl ac efallai roedd y dyn trawsryweddol hoyw cyhoeddus cyntaf. Gan ymgyrchu’n llwyddiannus i gael gwared ar heterorywioldeb o’r gofynion meddygol ar gyfer llawdriniaeth cadarnhau rhywedd, roedd Lou yn ganolog yn ein dealltwriaeth fodern o rywedd a rhywioldeb fel hunaniaethau ar wahan. Ar ôl iddo gael diagnosis o HIV yn 1986, dywedodd fod clinigau wedi dweud wrtho ‘it was impossible for me to live as a gay man, but it looks like I’m gonna die like one’.

Mae’r detholiad hwn yn dangos cariad llawen Lou at fywyd, dynion a rhyw.

Lou kept candid diaries from the age of 10. Through these extracts, we hear Lou’s life in his own words: from ‘playing boys’ in his childhood in Wisconsin, to cruising San Francisco’s gay bars for handsome ‘youngmen’; from first hearing about gender non-conforming communities, to becoming a vital part of them as an activist, author, and archivist.

Lou navigated his identity with few role models and was perhaps the first publicly gay transgender man. Successfully campaigning to remove heterosexuality from the medical requirements for gender affirming surgery, Lou was pivotal in our modern understanding of gender and sexuality as distinct identities. After he was diagnosed with HIV in 1986, he remarked that he had been told by clinics that ‘it was impossible for me to live as a gay man, but it looks like I’m gonna die like one.’

This selection shows Lou’s joyous love of life, men, and sex.