#sequential hermaphrodites

[escuerzoresucitado]

[nb-in-sf]

Star Trek Enterprise: Tower of Babel by Christopher L. Bennett

The plot of this one involves a lot of complicated political scheming among a million different factions that I probably would have been more familiar with had I read the previous books in the series. Easily the most entertaining part of the book is the "Acknowledgements" section in which the author explains how he attempted to reconcile worldbuilding details from dozens of canonical and pseudocanonical sources in his own portrayal of the Trek universe. This also accounts for some of the decisions made re: the depiction of certain alternatively-gendered alien species, in particular why they all seem to present themselves socially to some degree as female and male regardless of whether they actually have two genders or not. The Chelons, for example, were apparently designated in some background movie notes to be genderless, but a later novel series depicted them as bi-gendered. In this book the Chelons are said to be hermaphroditic but to present themselves as female or male, except for some "traditionalists" who "do not adopt a permanent gender role" (the wiki suggests that Chelons are sequential hermaphrodites, hence the "permanent" qualification). The implication that there is social pressure in the Rigellian system to have two genders is notable, and perhaps odd given that the Chelons are not the only ones in the system who aren't sexually dimorphic. The Jelna were stated to be four-gendered in one Enterprise episode and then depicted as two-gendered in another; in this book their females and males are simply subdivided into "exo-" and "endo-" subtypes.

The director [...] was of the Jelna's endomale sex, differentiated from an "exo" like Jahlet by paler skin, softer facial features, and red eyes. According to Phlox's merry lectures about Rigellian sexuality, the exomale and exofemale sexes -- distinguished by an extra Z chromosome and outnumbering the "endosexes," the more typical males and females, by better than two to one -- were the more robust and aggressive ones from an evolutionary-behavioral standpoint, adapted to handle the hunting and gathering while the endosexes stayed in camp to nurture and defend the young.

Since the endosexes are said to be the minority sexes, I can only assume that "more typical" means that they play the traditional female and male reproductive roles and that the exosexes are involved in quite a different fashion (or maybe they’re just sterile versions of the regular sexes, or something like that). Andorians also appear in this book, but I’ll have to write a separate post about them.

[nb-in-sf]

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin

This one is so well-known it seems almost silly to offer a summary. On the planet Gethen, the people are androgynes who spend most of their lives in an asexual state and (beginning in adolescence) periodically enter a state called “kemmer” during which they temporarily become either female or male. Some Gethenians form monogamous unions (called “vowing kemmering”), while others live in large maternal family groups and spend their kemmer periods in “kemmerhouses” having sex with strangers. People who are permanently in kemmer (due to some disorder apparently) are called "halfdead" and typically live in the kemmerhouse.

The original novel uses masculine pronouns for all Gethenian characters; but Le Guin also used Gethenian characters in a few short stories and experimented with different ways of handling the pronoun issue. “Coming of Age in Karhide” avoids using pronouns at all, while the Gethenian character in “Solitude” is called “heshe” by the narrator.

[crossdreamers]

A woman speaking at a controversial feminist meeting has claimed that trans people are responsible for polluting the rivers and seas – causing fish to “forcibly” change gender, and damaging crocodiles and alligators.

A lot of fish species are actually transgender by nature. Nemo, a clown fish, lives in a flock with only one female, the leader of the group. If the female dies, the next in command, a male, will turn into a female.

Somehow Disney forgot to tell us about this. Or maybe they are part of the transgender conspiracy too.

[nb-in-sf]

I stopped following Doctor Who several years ago, after I realized the new show was never going to recapture what I loved about classic Who. However, I am pleased to know that the Doctor is now canonically bigender.