Simon Lennon

Gender in America Simon Lennon

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.