Genderweird Worldbuilding in SFF
This is NOT for books featuring trans or nonbinary protagonists in worlds with gender systems that mimic modern real-world ones. This is for books like Left Hand of Darkness or the Imperial Radch series, where the setting has an invented system of gender and/or sex, or of assigning gender/sex. I'm including interesting-to-me matriarchies (so, not ones that are just our patriarchy but gender-swapped) and gender systems that include male and female but have other genders/sexes too.
Suggestions are extremely welcome!
created by Siavahda
last updated July, 2026
Comments
I would recommend the murderbot diaries series for this list, there's robots with neutral/no gender and humans basically self-identify as anything with specific planets/stations/etc having their own "neo-genders". The books don't really explain it but it's still really interesting.
SiavahdaOP
Good suggestion, thanks!
Small correction: some robots do have a gender. Murderbot met one and was like: "why would you want a gender???"
Which robot was that? I only remember meeting Art, Tlacy's comfort unit, Three, Micky, and the Secunit from Platform Decay and none of them have genders.
Honestly can't remember the name. He only appears in like 2 scenes in book 2 I think.
Are you sure? I'm fairly certain the only robots mentioned in Artificial Condition are Secunit, ART, Tlacy's Comfortunit, and the Ganaka pit Comfortunits. Do you mean one of the short stories maybe? I don't remember much of them.
Maybe not book 2 but I am not sure Murderbot even knew his name.
Reccing Becky Chambers Wayfarers series, especially first and second books. Contains a hive mind, multiple genderfluid/sexfluid aliens, and AI discovering their own form of gender, as well as several others I canât fully remember currently đĽ°
SiavahdaOP
I'm not sure those count in the way I meant for this list - I've read and adored the series, but it's a lot of individual characters with unconventional genders, we don't see the worldbuilding around gender, imo? Possibly I'm forgetting something...?
Thereâs more of focus on one of the alien species expression of gender/sex in the second book from what I remember, thereâs a festival linked to the shifts in gender and itâs shown more there in the world building than in the first? But entirely fair if itâs not quite what youâre looking for đ
SiavahdaOP
I should reread them and see :D Thank you for the suggestion either way, I appreciate it!
There's a book called Shadow Man by Melissa Scott. Had explanations for the sexes/genders and their pronouns and pronunciations (A don't remember which or how many of each existed, which is the only reason I am equating these here). A bit to political plot focused for me, but I believe this may align with what you're looking for. But it's been a while.
SiavahdaOP
Excellent suggestion! I read that recently but completely forgot I could add it to this list, so thank you!
Not a book, but a similar rec for a podcast if anyone is interested: Friends at the Table (ttrpg actual play podcast), in their sci-fi seasons, has a society where gender is based on the values/ideals of a set of specific mythical or historical figures. And thus, gender is explicitly mutable throughout one's life.
This was the first piece of media I saw that dealt with gender in such a radically different way, and it's one my favorite pieces of media full stop, so I may be partial....
Season 2 (counterweight) is a good place to start for this!
Also, I just loooove this concept and this list is super helpful because that's such a tricky concept to find books featuring it (without just bringing up books with trans/non-binary characters, which is great but not this specifically). Thanks!!
SiavahdaOP
I'm scribbling down the name of that podcast, thank you! I'm terrible about getting around to actually LISTENING to them, but it's going on my tbr! (Tbl?)
And I'm so glad you liked the list! Thank you & you're welcome! :D
