Patrick Califia-Rice (formerly Pat Califia)
Pat Califia grew up in a Mormon household in Utah. She read The Feminine Mystique at age 13,
"the only literature to find its way from the women's movement to my tiny drugstore in Utah."
She came out as a lesbian in 1971 while attending college in Salt Lake City, suffered through two years
of political growth but personal misery, then finally moved to San Francisco. Her web site describes her
as "a feminist, a pornographer, a sadomasochist, a poet, a storyteller, an omnivore, a pagan,
a social critic, a sex educator, and an activist."
Over the past three decades, she has written and edited several books on lesbian
sexuality, sadomasochism and sexual freedom. Her passionate, articulate, fiercely opinionated but fundamentally compassionate voice has made her an influential public intellectual on issues of sex and
politics. Her books include Sapphistry, Macho Sluts, Sensuous Magic and Public Sex: The Culture
of Radical Sex.
Califia has recently undergone a major personal transformation from lesbian to transgendered person,
changing his name in the process to Patrick Califia-Rice. His romantic partner is fellow transgendered
person Matthew Rice, and the couple has an infant son Blake (of whom Matthew is the biological
mother). Probably the most high-profile female-to-male (FTM) transgendered person around, Califia-Rice
recently published Sex Changes: The Politics of Transgenderism.
PROFILES & INTERVIEWS
Rona Marech
interviews author and gender outlaw Patrick Califia-Rice, formerly known as Pat Califia, about his life, work, ideas and recent
transformation from lesbian to transgendered man. From the San Francisco Chronicle (October 2000).
Tristan Taormino
talks with Patrick Califia-Rice about
his female-to-male transgender transition, his relationship with transgendered activist Matthew Rice, their eight-month-old
son, and the response to his transition from friends, family, readers, publishers and fellow sex radicals. From
Taormino's personal web site, Puckerup.com.
Techno Dyke Headquarters presents a three-part
interview with Patrick Califia-Rice.
Jaz Turbine
profiled Pat Califia for
Cuir Underground in 1995. The article surveys Califia's views on the need for unity, education and mutual
respect among perverts and sex radicals of different stripes. Turbine also recounts recent changes in Califia's life:
being clean and sober for four years, and getting an MA in counseling with plans to set up a private practice.
WRITINGS
Patrick Califia-Rice writes about his relationship with fellow female-to-male transgendered man Matthew Rice and
their infant son Blake. The article is entitled "Family Values" and subtitled
"Two Dads With a Difference --
Neither of Us Was Born Male." In the Village Voice (June 2000).
Patrick Califia-Rice (the writer formerly known as Pat Califia) reviews the
controversy over a United
Nations treaty banning international trafficking of human beings for forced prostition. In the United States, many
liberal feminists have joined with conservatives to criticize the treaty for distinguishing between forced prostitution
and the situation of other sex industry workers. The treaty's framers include members of the US Interagency Council on
Women, whose honorary head is Hillary Clinton, so the controversy has provided new fodder for right-wing Hillary-haters.
Califia-Rice blasts those feminist leaders whose insistence on
eradicating prostitution altogether undermines efforts both to combat sexual slavery and to improve the working
conditions of poor women in the sex industry. As always, a passionate, articulate polemic from Califia-Rice.
Good Vibrations
In her book Public Sex (1994), Pat Califia lists
Forty-two Things that You Can Do to Make the Future Safe for Sex, reprinted on Chris Newman's web site.
Pat Califia took on the Reagan era anti-porn crusaders in her 1986 article
"The Obscene, Disgusting, and Vile
Meese Commission Report". Published in Public Sex (1994), reprinted on Cultronix.
Pat Califia ponders the question, "What would prostitution be like in a more egalitarian, sex-positive society?" in her essay
"Whoring in Utopia". Published in Public Sex (1994), reprinted on Cultronix.
Pat Califia looks back over the AIDS epidemic and
suggests new ways of thinking about safe sex,
not as a temporary, regrettable response to crisis but as an ongoing, "inescapable part of good-hearted sex" which celebrates
both responsibility and hedonism. From Poz (May 1999).
Pat Califia explores a rarely discussed fetish and its different meanings to men and women in
"Blood Mysteries: Are Cutting
and Bloodsportts a Women's Thing?" (excerpted from a longer essay, "Shiny Sharp Things"). From Cuir Underground.
All Mixed Up features a short excerpt from Pat Califia's recent book
Sex Changes: the Politics
of Transgenderism. The excerpt deals with Califia's own early "period of transphobia" in the 1970s, around
the time a San Francisco lesbian group called Daughters of Bilitis denounced and expelled a male-to-female transsexual.
Three chapters from Pat Califia's 1994 book
Public Sex: The Culture of
Radical Sex, dealing with "the Great Kiddy Porn Panic of '77" and "Feminism, Pedophilia, and Children's Rights."
COLUMNS
Patrick Califia-Rice's regular review of sex news,
Topping the News, at The Spectator.
Patrick Califia-Rice's regular column,
The Loyal Opposition, at Good Vibrations.
Regular column entitled
Girltalk with Pat Califia in Girlfriends magazine.
Three archived columns from Pat Califia's regular
On The Ropes column
in Bound and Gagged.
INFORMATION
Personal web site at
PatCalifia.com, spotty and "under construction" as of
November 2000 (no mention of the name change, for example).
San Francisco Sex Information's online bookstore has a
bibliography of Pat Califia's books
with affiliate links to order the books.
Sapphisticate has a select
bibliography of Pat Califia's books
with affiliate links to order the books.
