Happy New Year! I made a silly quiz.
lloke : What Science Fiction/Fantasy Gender Are You? Happy New Year! I made a silly quiz.
all the genders. all of them.
Cataloguing descriptions of non-binary-gendered societies in science fiction and fantasy. intro post
Latest posts
queer sex and more!
cuties-in-codices : maniculum : cuties-in-codices : queer sex and more! in an illustrated medieval travelogue (a german translation of “mandeville’s travels”), bavaria/swabia, ca. 1476 source: Vienna, ÖNB, Cod. 2838 , fol. 102v I would bet the reason there’s no mention of these things is that this isn’t just unrelated marginalia – it’s a direct…
In the first place, let me treat of the nature of man and what has happened to it; for the...
In the first place, let me treat of the nature of man and what has happened to it; for the original human nature was not like the present, but different. The sexes were not two as they are now, but originally three in number; there was man, woman, and the union of the two, having a name corresponding to this double nature, which had once a real existence, but is now lost, and the word…
“Assassin & Son” by Thomas M. DischVague but interesting description of a seven-sex...
“Assassin & Son” by Thomas M. Disch Vague but interesting description of a seven-sex system: The blobs were septsexual, a degree of sexual differentiation found only in free-form telepathic races. Joseph did not understand too precisely the entire Sephradian mating process. There were, he knew, two blobs that performed a masculine function and two others that could be called women; the…
“Love Might Be Too Strong a Word” by Charlie Jane Anders Lol I enjoyed this one. The...
“Love Might Be Too Strong a Word” by Charlie Jane Anders Lol I enjoyed this one. The characters are said to be “human”, but they’re divided into a number of “dars” (sexes/castes) – at least six of them – which perform different kinds of work on the generation ship they call home, and possess different sets of genitalia. Most dars are capable of…
Warren Peace by Bob ShawA comedy which includes a comedic description of a species, the squelchers,...
Warren Peace by Bob Shaw A comedy which includes a comedic description of a species, the squelchers, which have a sexual system which sounds a bit similar to that in Venus and the Seven Sexes , though not described in as much detail. Six sexes, “all of whom have to fertilize each other in turn”, and which are wildly different in form. The only ones described are the fourth sex, which…
“Transit” by Stephen DedmanShort story set in a future where the majority of human...
“Transit” by Stephen Dedman Short story set in a future where the majority of human beings are hermaphrodites (“mafs”) rather than women and men (“monosexes”). The first mafs were created through genetic engineering shortly after humanity was contacted by aliens and learned that at least some intelligent species (such as the Chuh'hom) are hermaphroditic. What little we hear of the…
Star Trek Titan: Over a Torrent Sea by Christopher L. BennettI enjoyed this one more than Tower of...
Star Trek Titan: Over a Torrent Sea by Christopher L. Bennett I enjoyed this one more than Tower of Babel , as it has that first contact element I like so much. The “squales” (squid-whales) are an aquatic species the squales had four sexes, two that were roughly male (in that they only donated gametes) and two that were hermaphroditic, exchanging gametes with each other and both bearing and…
“All Good Bems” by Fredric BrownA comedic short story involving five-sexed aliens from Andromeda II....
“All Good Bems” by Fredric Brown A comedic short story involving five-sexed aliens from Andromeda II. They claim their greater number of sexual divisions indicates their superior development compared to humans, who are “still in the bisexual stage” – just as humans are superior to the monosexual amoebas. It takes all five to reproduce. They decide to let the humans call all of…
Alien in a Small Town by Jim CleavelandThis book really turned out to be… not my kind of...
Alien in a Small Town by Jim Cleaveland This book really turned out to be… not my kind of thing. I’m not into narratives about aliens becoming more human and learning how to loooooooove (which of course must be heterosexual love, even though interspecies sexual union is impossible and the aliens have a completely different concept of gender than humans do). The omniscient third-person…
Star Trek Enterprise: Tower of Babel by Christopher L. BennettThe plot of this one involves a lot of...
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…
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pineapplequeen13 : catvampire : cishetlessfashion : Thats a fucking lie
“The Third Sex” by Alan BrennertThis story, obviously, introduces a third sex:...
“The Third Sex” by Alan Brennert This story, obviously, introduces a third sex: “androgynes” born without any reproductive organs who have suddenly started appearing in the human population – rarely at first, but with increasing frequency over time. (It’s suggested that this extra sex was common in some prehistorical era, but died out for some reason and is now…
“Aye, and Gomorrah…” by Samuel R. DelanyMore Delany: a short story this time,...
“Aye, and Gomorrah…” by Samuel R. Delany More Delany: a short story this time, written in 1967. It turns out that outside the protection of the atmosphere solar radiation does bad things to people’s gonads, so a new class of sexless human beings is created to work in outer space. Although only the removal of the gonads is explicitly mentioned, it’s implied that the…
The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. DelanyPost-apocalyptic novel with a heavy dose of symbolic...
The Einstein Intersection by Samuel R. Delany Post-apocalyptic novel with a heavy dose of symbolic weirdness. Radiation has caused the birth of many weird mutants; some of these are “hermaphrodites” or “androgynes” – true hermaphrodites capable of reproducing with a female partner, with a male partner, or entirely on their own, parthenogenetically. As they only carry…
Fish Tails by Sheri S. TepperI heard of this book through this review quite entertainingly...
Fish Tails by Sheri S. Tepper I heard of this book through this review quite entertainingly eviscerating it. But the reviewer does mention it contains a “long description of [a] complex five-gender system” so I knew I would have to read it eventually, terrible or not. The book is, indeed, terrible. And long. God, so long. It’s also a crossover sequel to I think several (?) of the…
Mars Evacuees by Sophia McDougallThis is a pretty fun middle-grade book about some kids being...
Mars Evacuees by Sophia McDougall This is a pretty fun middle-grade book about some kids being evacuated to Mars due to alien invasion and the adventures they end up having there, including meeting and befriending an alien kid of the invaders’ species. The aliens, the Morrors, have five sexes: suth- laaa , quth- laaa , ruul , thuul and ma- lashnath . The kid, a quth- laaa , refuses to be…
“Grownups” by Ian R. MacLeodA story set in an alternate world where humans have three...
“Grownups” by Ian R. MacLeod A story set in an alternate world where humans have three sexes. All children are born as girls or boys, and go through normal female or male puberty; but around age 15 most of them will suddenly “grow up” through a process in which “the male’s testicles and scrotal sac contracted back inside the body, hauled up on some fleshy block…
Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel R. DelanyI loved all the worldbuilding in this...
Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand by Samuel R. Delany I loved all the worldbuilding in this book, and especially the way the author plunges the reader into this deeply alien setting while initially explaining very little of it. We do eventually get explanations, however! Including of the sexually trimorphic nature of the reptilian evelmi (along with the nonsapient “dragons” and…
A Voyage to Arcturus by David LindsayI actually picked up this book because Tolkien was a big fan of...
A Voyage to Arcturus by David Lindsay I actually picked up this book because Tolkien was a big fan of it; but to be honest I can’t say I really “got” it. The world of Arcturus is a world of mythology and symbolism, one that you probably have to know more about philosophy & religion than I do to understand. But! One thing it does have is a “third sex” of human beings, called phaens , who are not…