It is important for those to ascribe to [Jean-Paul] Sartre a crude theory of "absolute freedom" to notice that he does acknowledge the existence of facticities which I did not originate and which I cannot change (e.g., the date of my birth). … [W]hile I can change some of my facticities (e.g., I can move to another city, I can get glasses, I can even, perhaps, get a sex-change operation), it is nonetheless true that these acts are all possible for me only insofar as I now, in fact, live in Chicago, have certain abilities and disabilities of eyesight, and am male. Freedom, then, always presupposes facticity, and a free act cannot occur, nor can the idea of a free act even be rendered intelligible, except against a background of facticity.