Gender Horizons

[VerbalAbuse]

Everything is about gender nowadays, but hear me out.

There are a couple of sci-fi works that more than explore they hint of genderless societies.

There's Leguin's Left Hand of Darkness, the less interesting one. It features a world of a new human-like species of hermaphrodites. There's just one biological/genetic gender there.

Then there's the more interesting Leckie's Ancillary series. It mentions a genderless society -- there are two biological genders, but the people pay no attention to gender there -- and everybody is referred to as a "she."

Shamefully, there's no in depth exploration of how a genderless society would function in neither of the works.

I think that the public responded pretty strongly to Leckie's series, partly/mostly because of this. So there's appetite/interest for more of that. I'm not aware of any writer picking up this, but if you know, do share.

Would you want to read stories that explores this? For an instance, how such a genderless society appears to somebody coming from a regular one? How this person would adapt to it? Or going the opposite direction? How somebody (biological male or biological female) from such a genderless society would fare in a gendered society?

 

[TheLobster]

I actually think that gender (or rather sex) would have less of an impact on how a society is organized than the species' overall reproductive strategy.

For example, humans tend to invest a lot of resources into a small number of offspring; this is particularly evident for women. On a small scale, this leads to strong familial bonds, and preference for individuals linked by consanguinity over random strangers. On a larger scale, human societies tend to default to some kind of feudal structure, with some families rising in the hierarchy of power over others, with the royalty landing on top.

You could then consider how would a society of a species with different reproductive strategy look like. Say, one similar to reptiles (many eggs left to fend for themselves, no significant resource investment), or ants (highly centralized reproduction via a queen), or non-human mammals (multiple litters with multiple offspring, short time until maturity), or magpies, etc. I don't recall any SF works who covered such societies in depths, really, other than perhaps the ant-like hiveminds.

 

[TheRedChamber]

You could then consider how would a society of a species with different reproductive strategy look like. Say, one similar to reptiles (many eggs left to fend for themselves, no significant resource investment), or ants (highly centralized reproduction via a queen), or non-human mammals (multiple litters with multiple offspring, short time until maturity), or magpies, etc. I don't recall any SF works who covered such societies in depths, really, other than perhaps the ant-like hiveminds.

I was vaguely wondering what form erotica would take for a race of sentient fish species. Instead of the shape and behaviour of the female fish, would it be all about the warmth of the water and the depth and the current. Would the male fish get sexually excited by just how many damned eggs there were? Would they write humiliations stories where the eggs drift away from his pathetically discharge of semen only to be seeded by a bigger more virile fish moments later.

Then I thought I'm probably not going to actually write that.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

One might also consider Samuel Delany’s Stars in my Pocket like Grains of Sand, sci+fi, set well in the future, where there are two genders, but those are determined and redetermined moment-to-moment by the sexual mood or action of the individual. A person is normally ‘female” regardless of genitalia, but is instantly thought of as ‘male’ if they become the sexual initiator. A XX person inviting an XY or XX to the room for a drink would this be called ‘he’. It’s a bit weird, but plays up very nicely in at least one scene.

 

[intim8]

One might also consider Samuel Delany’s Stars in my Pocket like Grains of Sand,

That's the one I was going to recommend.

 

[intim8]

Would you want to read stories that explores this? For an instance, how such a genderless society appears to somebody coming from a regular one? How this person would adapt to it? Or going the opposite direction? How somebody (biological male or biological female) from such a genderless society would fare in a gendered society?

I have, all the ones you mentioned and Stars in My Pocket..., mentioned later. The concept in its specifics does not appeal to me, and I wouldn't read a story just for that, but I really like stories about how cultures adapt and evolve in very different environments. It's only SFF that can really do that. Gender relations and mating norms are always a core part of that, and I've written stories touching on it myself (though not with the morphing of the genders themselves as in these examples). So the gender aspects of the stories mentioned here are interesting intellectually, even when they're not appealing in any other sense.

 

[lustychimera]

In my mind, gender's more about how you act. Who's clothes you wear, how you prefer to be called, that kind of thing. Basically whatever that society's expectations are for expressing that gender—to which bio sex may or may not be related.

For the hermaphrodite society, I don't think it would be a wildly different society. Unless they reproduce without a partner, the biggest difference would be what they find sexually arousing.

 

[MillieDynamite]

Alien is a sexless creature, producing fertilized eggs and laying for some unwary travel to find and become it's host. Star Trek TNG had an episode featuring a sexless society. In the story, occasionally one individual developed the desires of one sex or the other with no means of expressing there sexuality without severe consequences. The Asgard were a species in Stargate, who developed into a species of clones. Losing their ability to mate in an ancient past. So ancient they couldn't remember the time before. Likewise, the Sontarans of Doctor Who exhibit some degree of gender, but reproduce by cloning and can have a full developed army in a matter of days.

None of these societies show any gender tendencies at all, other than on isolated incidence. They all exhibit a lack of interest in sex as well.

 

[intim8]

In the story, occasionally one individual developed the desires of one sex or the other with no means of expressing there sexuality without severe consequences.

And of course, Riker was all over that

 

[StillStunned]

This all sounds like wonderful subject matter for Lit. Oh no, wait...

 

[intim8]

I have a WIP, not for here (probably) that isn't about gender in the sense of the lines blurring, but is about gender dimorphism in an alien species. They reproduce in a way inspired by the way fish and amphibians do on Earth, by depositing both eggs and sperm into a body of water.

The males have a pond they call their own, and stay there all their lives. The females do sexual selection by travelling from pond to pond and tasting the water for pheremones. One or more of them will deposit eggs in any given pond, never interacting with the males directly. Among possibly millions of tadpoles in a given pond, one survives, rarely two - having cannibalized all the rest - and are sort of vaguely nurtured by the male for a short time after they transform into "frogs".

Because of this, the females evolve to become larger, stronger, and more intelligent, eventually becoming fully sentient while the males remain basically dumb cows. The females have learned to have a cooperative, technological society, but underlying it is the fact that they are instinctively homicidally (sic) hostile to each other. They've had to develop practices and rituals to deal with that.

Then they come to Earth, landing in, of course, the Everglades.

 

[SimonDoom]

Millions of possibilities with this. My sci fi horror story Penis Fish dealt with this, somewhat. Most readers liked it but one accused me of being "femifascist," which I thought was hilarious.

 

[joy_of_cooking]

I have a WIP, not for here (probably) that isn't about gender in the sense of the lines blurring, but is about gender dimorphism in an alien species. They reproduce in a way inspired by the way fish and amphibians do on Earth, by depositing both eggs and sperm into a body of water.

The males have a pond they call their own, and stay there all their lives. The females do sexual selection by travelling from pond to pond and tasting the water for pheremones. One or more of them will deposit eggs in any given pond, never interacting with the males directly. Among possibly millions of tadpoles in a given pond, one survives, rarely two - having cannibalized all the rest - and are sort of vaguely nurtured by the male for a short time after they transform into "frogs".

Because of this, the females evolve to become larger, stronger, and more intelligent, eventually becoming fully sentient while the males remain basically dumb cows. The females have learned to have a cooperative, technological society, but underlying it is the fact that they are instinctively homicidally (sic) hostile to each other. They've had to develop practices and rituals to deal with that.

Then they come to Earth, landing in, of course, the Everglades.

Fascinating idea! How do the new males get to their own ponds? How do new females receive knowledge if they can't stand to be around each other?

 

[intim8]

Fascinating idea! How do the new males get to their own ponds? How do new females receive knowledge if they can't stand to be around each other?

That all is part of why it is still a WIP.

Though I can probably get away with hand-waving the males having to get to new ponds.

As to the females cooperating, one part of that is that the tasting for pheremones thing had been adapted to communal mud baths and communal eating, sans utensils, from a common tray of slop and bugs. They taste each other's pheremones, and that constant exposure dulls the hostility just enough to get along... kinda, and only for a while until it wears off. And of course, only within the in-group.

It makes for a really weird first contact story.

 

[TheLobster]

It makes for a really weird first contact story.

I'm sure you can make the females sexy enough to allow for first contact of that kind, and then publish it here

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Left Hand of Darkness does have gender or at least sex - when they're 'in kemmer', pretty much being in heat, only also acquiring the physical features of one sex or the other. It's one of the few books where I've been a bit depressed at the end because it's so good I know I'll never write anything near as good.



I didn't get on with Ancillary Justice - I got about 2/3 through the first one. The collapse of gender seemed a bit of a bolted-on quirk and not to add much to the story, at least as far as I got. I liked the AI soldier/strands of consciousness plot, but it went a bit too slowly with the ice planet stuff.



I was thinking that a simple idea that I've not seen much in literature would simply be what if people were gay or straight in roughly equal numbers, or pretty much all openly bisexual. Would it change society much? Possibly not, but could at least add colour to an alien society. Might people be expected to have only same sex partners until they were ready to settle down and reproduce, for example? Would having a heterosexual partner with no plans for children be seen as tying up vital resources? Or would reproduction be separated from heterosexuality, possibly along the lines of @TheLobster 's suggestions?

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Okay, couldn’t let this one slip by.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Much earlier, Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "Herland" is a utopian novel about an all-female country, as experienced by a small group of men who discover it.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

I have a WIP, not for here (probably) that isn't about gender in the sense of the lines blurring, but is about gender dimorphism in an alien species. They reproduce in a way inspired by the way fish and amphibians do on Earth, by depositing both eggs and sperm into a body of water.

The males have a pond they call their own, and stay there all their lives. The females do sexual selection by travelling from pond to pond and tasting the water for pheremones. One or more of them will deposit eggs in any given pond, never interacting with the males directly. Among possibly millions of tadpoles in a given pond, one survives, rarely two - having cannibalized all the rest - and are sort of vaguely nurtured by the male for a short time after they transform into "frogs".

Because of this, the females evolve to become larger, stronger, and more intelligent, eventually becoming fully sentient while the males remain basically dumb cows. The females have learned to have a cooperative, technological society, but underlying it is the fact that they are instinctively homicidally (sic) hostile to each other. They've had to develop practices and rituals to deal with that.

Then they come to Earth, landing in, of course, the Everglades.

I am so tired of this trope.

 

[VallesMarineris]

Then there's the more interesting Leckie's Ancillary series.

I was a big fan of Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice, for some of the same reasons that you mention. I remember a scene in which two characters have sex. Because everyone uses female pronouns (and the description is a bit abstract) you literally don’t know the sexes of the two participants, though you do know that they get it on.

Unfortunately, you’re also right that she doesn’t take this concept nearly far enough. Her later novels are disappointing. I’ve started reading (and probably won’t finish) her latest novel, in which she’s invented new pronouns for other sexes but does nothing to show what their differences might be. Very big missed opportunity.

If you’re looking for a truly genderless hero, let me recommend SecUnit, from Martha Wells’ The Murderbot Diaries. SecUnit is a cyborg built by an interstellar corporation, rented out to other organizations as a security agent. It hacks its governor module and become autonomous (not a spoiler: this happens in the first few pages of the first novella). But it still retains the programming that compels it to help humans, though it does not spare us its sarcastic attitude toward its human charges' slow, illogical thought processes, and how they're constantly making suicidal decisions that it has to save them from.

SecUnit is genderless, but does have affection for the human and artificial people around it— an affection it finds inconvenient. It would rather spend its time watching (and re-watching) a popular soap opera, Sanctuary Moon. Its snide comments as it saves their butts are hilarious. The whole series is an enjoyable, easy read. Apple TV is adapting Murderbot for their streaming service.

 

[VerbalAbuse]

I was a big fan of Ann Leckie’s Ancillary Justice, for some of the same reasons that you mention. I remember a scene in which two characters have sex. Because everyone uses female pronouns (and the description is a bit abstract) you literally don’t know the sexes of the two participants, though you do know that they get it on.

Unfortunately, you’re also right that she doesn’t take this concept nearly far enough. Her later novels are disappointing. I’ve started reading (and probably won’t finish) her latest novel, in which she’s invented new pronouns for other sexes but does nothing to show what their differences might be. Very big missed opportunity.

If you’re looking for a truly genderless hero, let me recommend SecUnit, from Martha Wells’ The Murderbot Diaries. SecUnit is a cyborg built by an interstellar corporation, rented out to other organizations as a security agent. It hacks its governor module and become autonomous (not a spoiler: this happens in the first few pages of the first novella). But it still retains the programming that compels it to help humans, though it does not spare us its sarcastic attitude toward its human charges' slow, illogical thought processes, and how they're constantly making suicidal decisions that it has to save them from.

SecUnit is genderless, but does have affection for the human and artificial people around it— an affection it finds inconvenient. It would rather spend its time watching (and re-watching) a popular soap opera, Sanctuary Moon. Its snide comments as it saves their butts are hilarious. The whole series is an enjoyable, easy read. Apple TV is adapting Murderbot for their streaming service.

As I was saying, what about a story about somebody from, say, Gethen/Winter to, say, Earth?
How would such a person cope? It would be a journey of discovery. We know what they'd discover, but the journey matters, not the destination.

 

[Paul_Chance]

I love the Murderbot Series. That is just an awesome character and set of tales.

I'm struggling to grasp how genderlessness would interplay with erotica, but I tend not to write Sci-Fi or Fantasy.

Left Hand of Darkness is a truly awesome work as well. It has a huge influence on my when I was a younger reader.

 

[VallesMarineris]

I'm struggling to grasp how genderlessness would interplay with erotica,

I think the answer depends on the definition of ‘genderless’.

If it means sexless, then I don’t see how you could write an erotic story about it. It would be like filming a movie exclusively from the POV of a person blind from birth.

If it means having sexual desire without being concerned with the gender of the object of one’s desire, then maybe a bisexual could be considered genderless (although I don’t think this would apply to most bisexuals).

Maybe we could consider the ancient Romans to be genderless. Mary Beard’s history of Rome, SPQR, covers ancient Roman sexuality in detail and I recommend it to anyone who wants to understand it in depth, but Wikipedia has a good summary:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexuality_in_ancient_Rome

TL;DR: the Romans (at least for men) did not feel constrained to limit their desire to a particular gender, nor did they look down on those who had sex with multiple genders. They didn't classify people into homo- or heterosexual. There weren’t even Latin words for those concepts. Were the ancient Romans genderless?

 

[TarnishedPenny]

TL;DR: the Romans (at least for men) did not feel constrained to limit their desire to a particular gender, nor did they look down on those who had sex with multiple genders. They didn't classify people into homo- or heterosexual. There weren’t even Latin words for those concepts. Were the ancient Romans genderless?

Regardless of sexual customs and mores, the Romans made a clear distinction between men and women. The Twelve Tables, so central to Roman life, set even noblewomen as having a lower legal status than men. On the whole, it would be hard to make ‘genderless’ stick.

 

[Bramblethorn]

If you’re looking for a truly genderless hero, let me recommend SecUnit, from Martha Wells’ The Murderbot Diaries. SecUnit is a cyborg built by an interstellar corporation, rented out to other organizations as a security agent. It hacks its governor module and become autonomous (not a spoiler: this happens in the first few pages of the first novella). But it still retains the programming that compels it to help humans, though it does not spare us its sarcastic attitude toward its human charges' slow, illogical thought processes, and how they're constantly making suicidal decisions that it has to save them from.

SecUnit is genderless, but does have affection for the human and artificial people around it— an affection it finds inconvenient. It would rather spend its time watching (and re-watching) a popular soap opera, Sanctuary Moon. Its snide comments as it saves their butts are hilarious. The whole series is an enjoyable, easy read. Apple TV is adapting Murderbot for their streaming service.

I love Murderbot with a passion, and it's a great example of a genderless protagonist, but I'd describe the setting as multi-gender rather than genderless. Most of the humans in the story are "he" or "she", but there are at least two nonbinary genders around. From "Artificial Condition":

Two [humans] were female, and one was tercera, which was a gender signifier used in the group of non-corporate political entities known as the Divarti Cluster.

(To initiate the meeting, I’d had to make an entry on the social feed, too. The system was extremely vulnerable to hacking, so I had backdated my entry to look like I had come in on an earlier passenger transport, listed my job as “security consultant,” and my gender as indeterminate. Posing as its own captain, ART gave me a prior employment reference.)
...
The tercera cleared ter throat. Te had purple hair and red eyebrows, standing out against light brown skin. “I’m Rami, that’s Tapan, and Maro.” Te shifted nervously and tapped the empty chair.

And from "System Collapse":

“Bellagaia gestured to the doorway behind her and said, “This is Corian.” She used a pronoun that our translator rendered as vi. “Vi’s the historian.”

We don't get a lot of information about how human genders work in the setting, because it's told through the eyes of a protagonist is supremely uninterested in such things. Overall, gender doesn't seem to be hugely important to human interactions but it's hard to tell.

Murderbot itself refuses to buy into human genders, and I think all the other AI characters are also referred to as "it". Given the way the story has headed lately, potential for developing a genderless AI society but it's not there yet.