Gender in America

Gender in America is a collection of twelve fictitious short stories, in which individual Americans around the country defy the West's new rules about gender, two decades into the twenty-first century. Some of the individuals succeed. Some don't. Some learn to defy those rules.A Lahaska, Pennsylvania toyshop refuses to comply with a woman's demand it remove a painting portraying boys and girls playing with different toys. Accepting an offer from one out-of-town performer to read books to children divides the administrators of a Mystic, Connecticut library. A Langley, Washington scout leader is thinking of the scouts when he rejects an unmarried middle-aged man without any interest in being a father from being a scoutmaster. A West Virginian girl scout doesn't accede to being told that girls must pursue careers. When a doting father in Garyville, Louisiana plans to hold a debutante ball for his daughter, he learns who and what he must accommodate.A newly arrived family in Rhode Island struggles to adapt to being told that people can change their gender. A young female coach in Charlottesville, Virginia contends with the new member of a girls' handball team. A young man in Annapolis, Maryland discovers something unpalatable about his girlfriend.A tavern manageress in Sea Bright, New Jersey, interviews a job applicant with more demands about gender than a willingness to work. Not employing her leads, a fortnight later, to activists targeting her tavern.Confronting a trauma from her childhood leads to a new direction in her relationships for a woman in Long Beach, California. A women's club at George Washington University only excludes white men from its events, convinced that other men are no less the victims of a white male patriarchy than women are, until the evening they walk together to Georgetown.Trigger Warning: These stories include characters who some readers might find offensive. They describe events and explore ideas that some readers might find offensive.