treatment to a topic that became part of american pop culture i'm happy to welcome to the show jeffrey eugenides he joins us tonight from princeton university in the us where he teaches creative writing geoffrey lived here in berlin i think during the time when he was writing middlesex jeffrey it's good to have you on the show this evening i want to ask you what do you think based on your time here in berlin what do you think it is about germany that made today's ruling possible. what is it about germany i don't know i think there's a fair amount of free thinking over there when i wrote middlesex i was living in shown to berlin and write stairs was the. sexual bit in shopped. so there was a fair amount of. study and thought going into. what constitutes gender and different variations about it so i think this is something that you can trace back in germany to the one nine hundred twenty s. . you know investigations and now assists of gender and sexuality trying to figure out trying to understand how we can deal with it as a society so i would i would say that's probably why it's emerging in germa

brent: jeffrey eugenides joining us tonight from princeton. thank you very much. ppreciate your time tonight. jeffrey: thank you. brent: in the united states, democrats are celebrating victories in several closely watched state and local elections. a year into donald trump's presidency the polls are being seen as a test of voter opinion. trump's republican party was set back majorly in virginia where democrat ralph northam has been elected governor. he netted a decisive victory over republican ed gillespie who had attacked him on divisive issues like immigration, crime, and confederate statues. the democrats also won the race for governor in new jersey and scored well in local elections scattered across the country. among the democratic victors in those regional elections is said to become the country's first openly transgender state legislator. danica roem is a 32-year-old journalist in virginia, where she ousted a pro-trump incumbent. take a look. reporter: danica roem celebrating a historic victory in virginia. not only issue the first openly transgender person

treatment to a topic that became part of american pop culture i'm happy to welcome to the show jeffrey eugenides he joins us tonight from princeton university in the u.s. . he teaches creative writing geoffrey lived here in berlin i think during the time when he was writing middlesex jeffrey it's good to have you on the show this evening i want to ask you what do you think based look at based on your time here in berlin what do you think it is about germany that made today's ruling possible what is it about germany i don't know i think there's a fair amount of free thinking over there when i wrote middlesex i was living in shone a bit in berlin and right upstairs was the. sexual bit in shock. colin so there was a fair amount of. study and thought going into. what constitutes gender and different variations about it so i think this is something that you can trace back in germany to the one nine hundred twenty s. . you know investigations and now assess of gender and sexuality trying to figure out trying to understand how we can deal with it as a society so i would i would say that's probably why