Summary

School – The author describes how the environment on Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles seems welcoming for young people exploring sexuality and gender. She writes of how conversation between the kids there gave them opportunities to feel like teenagers with all the typical teenage interests (relationships, sex, appearance) but without the pressure of having to appear as “boys” or “girls” in the way such gender identities are usually perceived and reacted to. “In this crowd,” she writes, “there’s competition for men and money and good clothes and popularity just like at any high school in America, and on the Boulevard you can find out who’s winning” (5).

The author then sketches in her own history of identifying as a cis-gendered lesbian, saying that “growing up in San Francisco [with its history of welcoming anyone with “non-traditional” sexualities] sounds like a soft...