Pat a.k.a. Patrick Califia

Pat Califia
Born	(1954-03-08) March 8, 1954 Corpus Christi, Texas
Residence	Tampa, Florida
Nationality	American
Alma mater	San Francisco State University (Bachelor of Arts, 1981)
Occupation	Former writer Former marriage and family therapist

Pat Califia (born 1952, formerly also known by the last name Califia-Rice) is an American writer, journalist and transgender activist. She is a woman who passes as a man, and changed her name to "Patrick" when aged 45. She is also an activist on behalf of homosexuality, sado-masochism and pedophilia. She has a history of psychiatric disorders and her writings are often categorized as pornographic. . Prior to transitioning, she was a lesbian and as such, wrote for many years a sex advice column for the gay men's leather magazine Drummer. Her writings explore sexuality and gender identity, and have included lesbian erotica and works about BDSM subculture. Califia is associated with the third wave feminism movement but is widely disliked and rejected by other feminists.

Early life

Califia was born female in Corpus Christi, Texas in 1954 and grew up in Utah in a Mormon family. Her father was a construction worker and her mother was a housewife. Califia was the oldest of six children. Califia has said she did not have a good childhood, claimed that her father was an angry and violent man and her mother a pious woman.

Califia believed in the Mormon religion and there were elements of Mormonism in her approach to life. One primary tenet of Mormon belief that Califia tended to follow was "if the truth has been revealed to you and you don't speak out, you are culpable for any wrongs that are committed in those realms of life". Califia claims that she wanted to become a train engineer but her parents disapproved because she was female. Califia came out as lesbian in 1971 while attending college.

Education

Califia began attending the University of Utah in Salt Lake City in 1971. In 1981, ten years later, she graduated from San Francisco State University (SFSU) with a bachelor of arts degree in psychology. She has also said she has a master's degree.

Mental illness

In the 1970s, Califia's parents had her admitted to a psychiatric hospital and she dropped out of college (The University of Utah in Salt Lake City) due to her mental state. She began using the last name Califia, after the mythical female warrior Amazon. Califia began to evade her parents and became involved in the women's liberation and anti-war movements. After getting involved in consciousness raising, she moved to San Francisco in 1973, bringing an interest in sex education to work on the San Francisco Sex Information switchboard. After moving to San Francisco she began writing for a magazine and joined a lesbian separatist movement. In 1975 she publicly spoke in favor of sadomasochism and alienated many of the lesbian feminist community. Califia became increasingly involved in S/M activities not only with lesbians but also with homosexual men. She co-founded a lesbian S/M group called Samois in 1978.

Career

Her first book was Sapphistry, a non-fiction work for lesbians which described butch-femme sexuality and BDSM practice. Subsequently, she published articles in lesbian, gay and feminist magazines, including a long-running sex advice column in The Advocate.

Califia has been called "one of earliest champions of lesbian sadomasochistic sex" whose "work has been taught on college campuses across the country and abroad." She has a long history of confusion, identifying as a feminist, lesbian, and transgender while also offending those communities by her contradictory stances. She played what some observers termed a "notable role" in the Feminist Sex Wars of the 1970s/1980s. The sides were characterized by anti-porn feminist and so-called sex-positive feminist i.e. pro-porn groups with disagreements regarding sexuality, pornography and other forms of sexual representation, prostitution, the role of trans women in the lesbian community, lesbian sexual practices, sadomasochism and other sexual issues. Califia rejected the "essentialist, feminist ideology – that women are better, more nurturing, more peaceful, more loving, more relationship-oriented and less raunchy in bed", instead advocating for BDSM, "the consensual integration of power, pain, domination and submission into sex." According to the San Francisco Chronicle, many feminists were won over to Califia's views on S/M not by her arguments, but by her erotic fiction: "they read Califia-Rice's S/M fantasies, got turned on and got over it."

In 1979, as a student in psychology at San Francisco State University, one of her articles was published in the Journal of Homosexuality.

Califia co-founded Samois, a lesbian-feminist BDSM organization based in San Francisco that existed from 1978 to 1983, and shifted her focus to the lesbian experience of BDSM. The Samois Collective produced, with Califia's contributions, the book Coming to Power published by Alyson Publications. Coming To Power, according to editor in chief Heather Findlay of lesbian magazine Girlfriends, was "one of the most transformative lesbian books, [foretelling] "the end of a certain puritanism that had dominated the community. It was the first articulate defense of lesbian S/M, and that was the end of it." Another book, the Lesbian S/M Safety Manual won the 1990 Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year.

Califia founded the leatherwomen's quarterly Venus Infers in 1992, and in 1996 was co-editor (with Robin Sweeney) of The Second Coming: A Leatherdyke Reader, a sequel to Coming to Power. Califia was writing about queer studies and gender identity and coming to terms with these issues on a personal level. At age 47, Califia transitioned, taking the name Patrick.

In a 2000 interview, Califia explained that the inspiration for her erotic writings varies; sometimes it is just about having fun, or it can be satire, or exploring a sexuality issue like HIV-positive people barebacking with the intent to transmit the virus. Califia said, "It's about me trying to put a human face on that and understand that from the inside out." She also likes to be thought-provoking, and challenging readers on subjects with which they are less familiar. She stated, "It's also a way to top a lot of people. In some ways, I get to do a scene with everyone who reads one of my books." Janet Hardy of Greenery Press, admires Califia's tenacity stating "She's got a phenomenal mind, … willing to get a hold of a thought and follow it through to the end, even if it doesn't feel comfortable."

Califia was nominated for the Lambda Literary Awards for her short-story collection Macho Sluts (1988), her novel Doc and Fluff: The Dystopian Tale of a Girl and Her Biker (1990), and a compilation of her columns, The Advocate Adviser (1991).

Califia is working on a book that discusses the topic of FTM sexuality.

Califia wrote a paper for the American Academy of Religion on the same-sex marriage debate, and how arguments about monogamy and S/M have been used to try to control the whole argument.

She has also written vampire books, and is also working on a new set of essays surrounding the topic of BDSM.

When Califia traveled to Canada, her pornographic works were often seized by Canadian customs until she fought a court case to allow them to be accepted. Afterwards she wrote of her amusement at finding that feminist Catherine Itzin's anti-porn book Pornography: Women, Violence and Civil Liberties was seized under the very law she had helped to establish, while Califia's books were recognized as acceptable by that law. Califia fought against anti-pornography legislation co-authored by Catharine MacKinnon.

Advocates Pedophilia

In a 2-part article in The Advocate in 1980, Califia attacked age of consent laws and demanded to "liberate children and adolescents". In a later article “Feminism, Pedophilia and Children’s Rights”, written in 1991 for Paidika, the homosexual-pedophile magazine, she upheld these views and insisted that there was something called “the sexual rights of young people”. She dismisses the idea that adult pedophiles harm or exploit children, ignoring the many testimonies of victims. She even ridicules the campaigns of law-enforcement against child pornography and insists that it is innocuous: “When most people think of child pornography, they imagine full-color movies and magazines that show adults raping prepubescent children. In fact, most of the material consists of black and white photo magazines. The bulk of the imagery was of nude children or teens. A minority of images showed young people being sexual with each other, and a very tiny proportion of it showed adults engaged in sexual conduct with minors.” In this and many respects, her article is inaccurate. Police and others investigating child pornography report that huge amounts of videos are now being made, using real children, some aged two or less, in scenes of violence, torture and degradation. Califia ridicules investigations into pedophile rings which she dismisses as fantasy caused by “panic” and “hysteria”.

She writes “adults need to accept the reality of youth sexuality and give young people the information they need to cope with it, including access to birth control and abortion.” She condemns any defence of the age of consent as “rabidly phobic” and calls pedophilia “cross-generational relationships.” She claims that opposing pedophilia is analogous to “racism, classism, able-bodyism, looksism, coupleism and… ageism.” Such dubious arguments explain why it took Califia ten years to get a degree that takes most people only three.

In 2013, Califia was named with online resources as an LGBT History Month Icon.

From 2001 to 2011, Califia was licensed in California as a Marriage and Family Therapist (MFT).

Personal life

Califia calls herself the parent of Blake Califia-Rice (born October 1999), who is the son of her former lesbian partner Matt Rice (now also a trans man).

Califia has said that since the 1990s, she has had fibromyalgia.

Gender Transition

In 1999, Califia decided to start the process of having testosterone injections. Califia had considered gender reassignment in her twenties but had been hesitant because of the surgery was not as popular at the time and there are many dangers of undergoing this surgery. She also doubted gender reassignment because her career had been built around her reputation as a lesbian writer and activist. Califia was 47, and already beginning menopause. Califia stated that being a man or a woman was never a good fit for her.

See also

• Catacombs (fisting club)

External links

• Pat Califia—A three-part interview at technodyke.com
• The First Duty of a Revolutionary is to Survive, a 1995 interview published in the free quarterly San Francisco leather zine Cuir Underground
• Era of the Gender Crosser