STAGE REVIEW : Bornstein’s Gentle Transsexual Trip

There is something disarming about Kate Bornstein’s “The Opposite Sex . . . Is Neither,” the one-person show that Thursday launched Ecce Lesbo/Ecce Homo, the Fourth Annual National Festival of Lesbian and Gay Performance at Highways in Santa Monica. Despite this festival’s formidable title, Bornstein’s show is an inviting exercise in plain old human relations. With a twist.

She comes to us as Maggie, once a “she-male,” now “a goddess in training” who has to go through certain tasks in order to become a full-fledged goddess. Hmmmmm.

Bornstein’s crusade is transgendering. Or transsexuality. A stranger on our shores, Maggie’s lost in time. She asks questions: “You only have two genders? . . . . You’re in for a real treat in the next century . . . . Where I come from we call you the Dark Ages.” Wait till you hear what the textbook says about Southern California.

But this is not material designed to shock. It is a cheerful noise, engaging and benign. Her astonishments may be disingenuous, but she invites us warmly in on the joke.

Part of the goddess-in-training challenge is letting seven souls enter her body that are neither men nor women. And we’re off on a provocative object lesson. It’s a palatable ritual that borrows some of its mumbo-jumbo from the witches in “Macbeth.” “You don’t even have to believe it’s a real ritual,” confides Maggie. “You can pretend it’s performance art.”

Bornstein is better at being Maggie than she is at differentiating clearly among the souls that eventually slip in and out of her body. Their variety is more lodged in character traits than in performance subtlety. But there are nuggets of wisdom, and even poetry, to be had along the way.

Says a disorder-group junkie: “Each time I found out I didn’t belong to something, it became easier to belong to myself.” Says the man who was married for 16 years and never told his wife he was a woman: “I was a real gentleman; it takes a woman to be a real gentleman.” This is gentle moral prodding so intelligent that we gladly go along for the ride.

“The Opposite Sex . . . Is Neither,” Highways Performance Space, 1651 18th St., Santa Monica. Tonight through Sunday, 8:30 p.m. $10; (213) 660-TKTS. Running time: 1 hour, 5 minutes.