Califia Today

Califia has also continued publishing and now has over twenty books to his credit, including a recent vampire novel, Mortal Companion (2004). More are in prospect.

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In recent years Califia has suffered from fibromyalgia, an auto-immune disease that causes nerve damage. Despite pain and fatigue due to the condition, he continues to write and to be as active as possible in conferences and community events.

Califia has always been candid in his views and also forthright in acknowledging past stances that he now believes to be in error. In a 2000 interview he stated that he no longer supports the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) or the abolition of age-of-consent laws. In both cases his reasoning has to do with the welfare of young people.

His initial support for NAMBLA stemmed from his conviction that people should not be harassed for expressing their views, no matter how unpopular those are. He now takes issue with NAMBLA, however, on the question of sex between men and young boys, which he calls "developmentally inappropriate." Similarly, he has dropped his opposition to age-of-consent laws because he feels that parents frequently fail to provide their children with adequate sex education to permit them to make informed decisions.

Califia's continuing sexual journey has been an extraordinary one, and her, now his, views have often been outside the mainstream. Even those who disagree with his political opinions or his advocacy for S/M, however, may applaud his consistent call for all people to be treated with dignity and respect.

Since Stonewall various political agendas have dominated American lesbian literature.

In the first century of its existence, lesbian autobiography has moved from being coded to being outspoken, and it is both wide ranging and contradictory in the stories that it tells.

Erotic and pornographic works have been written in many cultures since ancient times and recently have flourished with the relaxation of censorship.

The dominant ideology among politicized lesbians during the 1970s and 1980s, Lesbian Feminism was based on the premise that lesbianism and feminism were inextricably linked.

The lesbian "sex wars" of the 1980s, centered on issues of pornography and s/m, constituted one of the most significant debates among second-wave feminists in North America and Europe.

Patriarchy, literally "the rule of the fathers," is a social system in which men hold positions of power and women are oppressed and glbtq people are treated negatively.

Sadomasochistic literature, one of the most controversial forms of lesbian and gay writing, confronts such issues as domination, submission, uniformity, and humiliation and poses a constant challenge to them.

Separatism refers not only to attempts to create alternatives to straight society, but also to exclusionary practices within the glbtq community itself.

Sex work has long been the last resort of desperate women and girls, but more recently some women--including some lesbians--have been drawn to the profession by a renegade ideology of sexual liberation.

With a constant influx of immigrants and a vigorous and adaptable economy, Vancouver is a progressive city with a large and active glbtq community.

The first national lesbian political and social organization in the United States, the Daughters of Bilitis was a significant part of the pre-Stonewall lesbian and gay rights movement.

Michael Dillon, the first person known to have transitioned both hormonally and surgically from female to male, was a man of singular determination who articulated his life as an evolving struggle toward corporeal, intellectual, and spiritual integrity.

Controversial radical feminist and anti-pornography crusader Andrea Dworkin wrote and spoke extensively on the cultural subjugation of women.

The network of independent gay and lesbian bookstores that arose in the 1970s served as incubators for the literary and cultural development of the modern gay rights movement in the United States and abroad.

The aim of NAMBLA's small but determined membership has been to attack social and legal proscriptions against sexual relations between adults and pubescent or teenage boys.

Through her writing, teaching, editing, and activism, Joan Nestle has devoted her life to promoting awareness of glbtq culture and advancing glbtq equality.

One of the most prolific gay writers of recent decades, John Preston helped elevate pornographic fiction into a genre viewed as having literary merit.

The Saints and Sinners Literary Festival, an annual glbtq-themed literary festival held each May in New Orleans, has become one of the world's most influential alternative literary festivals.