ON PRONOUNS.

Genly thus far in the book has defaulted to he/him pronouns in this "genderless" society. I'm interested in how much of that is Le Guin, how much is the 1969-ness of it all, and how much of it is Le Guin assigning that to Genly as part of his character arc. Genly uses he/him pronouns to refer to almost everyone, even when he is discussing his "landlady" who has traits and characteristics that Genly feels are more feminine. How much would this book be different if Le Guin wrote it today?

I'm also interested in the mechanics of these "hermaphroditic neuters" as Genly describes them. Kemmer seems to assign a sex to each person involved and it's not fully clear whether they are assigned the same sex each time they are in kemmer, or if they are assigned the same sex based on the person they're with - the landlady in question seems glum because he (again, the "landlady" doesn't have pronouns outside of what Genly has assigned to them, and Genly uses he/him for everyone) has "sired" 4 children but never given birth, leading me to believe that both are possible for this person.

It's just an interesting thing to wonder about, how much of this genderless society that Genly uses exclusively he/him pronouns for is because we hadn't decided that a singular they/them pronoun is useful yet, how much is Le Guin, how much is Genly, how much is just...1969 (thinking here also about other 1960s SFF written by male and even female authors where the misogyny is kind of baked in by the prevailing attitudes of the times). Also interesting to think about how much the use of he/him pronouns to describe people outside of a gender binary has propelled the way we use gender-neutral pronouns today - I think to a more modern reader, who has more familiarity with a singular they/them pronoun, the constant he/him and then speculations on what gender the gender-neutral person is can be very jarring.

The last thing that was interesting to read about was the way Le Guin describes "the pervert," people who, through whatever hormonal process, have more of a gender identity than the rest of the people on the planet. This is considered taboo on their planet and these people are considered to be overly sexual and kind of gross. Again, for a modern reader, at least for this modern reader, it's a little jarring that existing outside of a gender binary also means that the inhabitants of this planet frown upon sex as a pleasurable experience. Nonbinary people....have sex. Men and women alike are aro/ace. Gender identity doesn't necessitate a concomitant and associated position on how much fun it is to have sex in our culture and society and thus people across a gender spectrum also exist across a sexuality spectrum. BECAUSE GENDER AND SEXUALITY ARE NOT THE SAME THING. That's not something that our society necessarily had words for to the same degree that we have words for it today, and it is reflected in the way this particular society views gender and sexuality as more linked than most Boundlings would describe.

I think a lot of these thoughts are open to discussion and correction where I have probably made errors - I am not a prevailing authority nor do I even consider myself super well-versed in issues of gender and sexuality in SFF or in anyone else's lived experience or trans/NB scholarship regarding gender and sexuality - but I think that these are all pictures that Le Guin is painting, as she says in the forward to this edition, that illustrate what she is seeing in 1969. She is illustrating a counterpoint to the world where she lives, in which second-wave feminism is in its early days and the world is reacting to the creation of much stronger gender roles in the 40s and 50s. It's a different cultural context than the one we have now in relation to gender roles, and seeing it illustrated here is fascinating almost from a historical perspective.