![]() Honestly, I’m happy if I can get people thinking and talking. If parts of it strike you as terrible, complain away. This system is closely tied into my own feelings and experiences of gender, which are possibly different from many people’s. I’ll start with a caveat, as I so often do: this is not the right or only way to come up with a new gender system. I created a new gender-organizing system for the city-state of Porphyry, and since readers have begun asking me about it, I thought this might be the place to explain what went into its creation. I recently ran some thought experiments about gender myself in my latest novel, Shadow Scale. I would almost argue that that’s what SF/F is for. ![]() SF/F is uniquely suited to such thought experiments one can set up the parameters of a world, extrapolate them to their logical conclusions, and then run characters through the maze. ![]() Of course, women writers have a long history of using the powers of SF/F for good (or possibly evil) gender explorations, from Ursula Le Guin’s classic The Left Hand of Darkness to Ann Leckie’s recent Ancillary Justice series. What is it good for? How can we stretch it? Is it ok if I break it? ![]() Not just the feminine gender, specifically, but gender in general. ![]() Happy Women in SF&F Month, darlings! I am so pleased to have been included in this year’s line-up of guest posters, not least because it’s a wonderful excuse to talk about one of my favourite topics: gender. The Gods Roll the Dice: Inventing a Gender System ![]()
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