[3] Prior to transitioning, Califia identified as a lesbian and wrote for many years a sex advice column for the gay men's leather magazine Drummer.
Califia has said he did not have a good childhood, claiming that his father was an angry and violent man and his mother a pious woman.
[7] In the 1970s, Califia's parents had him admitted to a psychiatric hospital, and he dropped out of the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, due to his mental state.
[17] Subsequently, he published work in lesbian, gay and feminist magazines, including a long-running sex advice column in The Advocate.
[18] Califia is "one of [the] earliest champions of lesbian sadomasochistic sex" whose "work has been taught on college campuses across the country and abroad.
"[2] He has a long history of transgression, identifying as a feminist, lesbian, and transgender while also at times finding rejection from those communities "for various infractions.
Califia rejected the "essentialist, feminist ideology—that women are better, more nurturing, more peaceful, more loving, more relationship-oriented and less raunchy in bed," instead advocating for BDSM, "the consensual integration of power, pain, domination and submission into sex.
"[2] According to the San Francisco Chronicle, many feminists were won over to Califia's views on S/M not from his arguments, but from his erotic fiction: "they read Califia-Rice's S/M fantasies, got turned on and got over it.
[24] Also in 1992, Califia founded the leatherwomen's quarterly Venus Infers and published "Feminism, Paedophilia, and Children's Rights" in a special women's issue of the pro-pedophile scholarly journal Paidika.
[21] Califia was writing about queer studies and gender identity, and coming to terms with these issues on a personal level.
[24] In a 2000 interview, Califia explained that the inspiration for his erotic writings varies; sometimes it is just about having fun, or it can be satire, or exploring a sexuality issue like HIV-positive people barebacking with the intention of infecting the other person with the virus.
"[2] Califia was nominated for the Lambda Literary Awards for his short-story collection, Macho Sluts (1988), his novel, Doc and Fluff: The Dystopian Tale of a Girl and Her Biker (1990), and a compilation of his columns, The Advocate Adviser (1991).
When Califia would travel to Canada, his pornographic works were often seized by Canadian customs, until he fought a court case to allow them to be accepted.
[34] Califia has a son, Blake Califia-Rice (born October 1999), to whom his ex-partner, Matt Rice, a trans man, gave birth.
[7] One tenet of Mormonism he said he believes in is "if the truth has been revealed to you and you don't speak out, you are culpable for any wrongs that are committed in those realms of life.