JustArts: Do you have any goals for your talks here at Brandeis, anything that you're really looking to educate the college population about in terms of the transgender world?Kate Bornstein: Not in terms of the transgender world so much as what I would like to do is enable people to see that there are more possibilities of expressing themselves in terms of the gender they are assigned. Anybody-not just transgenders, transvestites, whatever-but anybody gets to play with their own identity in terms of their own desire.

JA: On that note, how do you think we can go about changing or counteracting a lot of religious groups saying desire is bad, premarital sex is anathema, even from the government. How do you think we can go about changing this to a healthier lifestyle?

KB: Well, begin by questioning. "Oh, really? Why? Where's the harm, who's being harmed and how?" People assume that premarital sex is going to be forced, it's going to be ugly, it's going to be harmful, but if it's safe, sane, consensual and respectful, so what?

JA: What are some myths or misconceptions that you'd like to see cleared up right now for people who are reading this? What is the biggest travesty, in your mind, about sexuality in our society?

KB: Well, that it is evil. Genesis says that women were punished with childbirth, so from the very first book of the Bible, you have sex-related stuff being used as punishment, whereas many enlightened people and peoples have viewed sex as a reward, as a healing, as a prayer, as a blessing. The problem with sex is that people aren't taught simply to be nice to each other. If parents just took their kids aside and said, "Don't be mean. Do whatever you want, just don't be mean," then you wouldn't have problems with sex. Sex, like everything else, would be not mean, and it would be great, because sex is great.

JA: Would you say that you think a good way for people to reach out to each other is just to be nice, just to let go of what they've been taught before?

KB: Nice is a bad word, and I chose the words "Don't be mean" very carefully, because there's a difference between being nice and not being mean. I'm sure that President Bush believes he's being nice to Americans when he enacts a law that keeps us from going to hell by doing perverted things. He's co-opted the word "nice," he's co-opted the word "kind." So if we can't come together around "nice," we can't come together around "kind," we can come together over sex. We can come together over simply not being mean.

JA: In that view, how do you think that university students should begin social change? Should we begin here, should we go directly to the government or should we just start talking to each other and not being mean to each other?

KB: That one. Exactly that one. Listen, if you had a "not-mean" campus, you'd be on the cover of Time magazine! If there were no mean things going on at Brandeis, people from all over the world would be wondering what you were doing here!

JA: Shakespeare wrote, "All the world's a stage / and all the men and women [as it were] merely players." Do you see yourself, people in general, as performers? Is all the world a stage?

KB: Not just for transgender folk, for everyone, yes, of course we're all performing! You're acting differently with me right now than if I were [Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator] Joss Whedon. We do that all the time. We do it more or less consciously, and it's not just trannies. With trannies it's more obvious, but we all do it.

JA: So on that note, do you have any advice for young people "performing?" You've come through a lot to reach this stage of life. Do you have any advice for us, how to become comfortable with who we are as soon as possible?

KB: Make a lot of mistakes. Put yourself in as many situations as possible to get yourself uncomfortable, safe situations. There's this wonderful, horrible Hallmark greeting card, but it has a sentiment on it that I think is so important: "Ships are safe in harbor," it says, "but that's not what ships are built for." And I would say travel as far as you can, stretch yourself as far as you can go, because you won't know what your comfort level is capable of, you won't know what you are capable of, until you stretch yourself.