Spence Green

More than a few friends have cautioned me about moving to California: you will be offered drugs, you will spend $10 on a sandwich, a man will try to marry you. California’s ostensibly high tolerance for “experimentation” and otherwise callow ethics has become an idee fixe for these wags, and the origin of endless comedy. But California culture merely follows Europe by widening the moat around personal preference: if you desire it, and it does not interfere with others, then do it. Very different are the puritanical politics of the east coast and the endless debates about whether Capote novels should be allowed in the school library or not. To me, these questions are a matter of perspective, and that is why I feel as if I am moving to another country.

No perspective, however, can convince me that preference can alter nature’s organization. What other gender possibilities exist?!