The Odd Depiction of Androgyny in the Left Hand of Darkness

As society progresses and begins to widely accept new ideas and sexuality, it is very interesting to see what artists of the past have done to portray these ideas that seemed so alien and uncomfortable in days' past. In The Left Hand of Darkness, author Ursula K. LeGuin explores the idea of an androgynous people and the way their society revolves around this fact. Their adaptable anatomy that forms only once a month as they pair off for kemmer was a pivotal part of the novel, and acted as a foil to the main character's rather sexist point of view sometimes.

I find it very interesting that such a subject was discussed as early as 1969. Although the novel was published only months before the Stonewall riots, gender and sex was still much less publicly talked about than sexual orientation. Having so forward of an idea as androgyny (even through a very scientific lens) was not something I have seen in literature from this time period. However, I found it coming from much less of a space of representation and more of a space of exploring an unexplored idea. The context in which the Gethenian's androgyny is discussed is so purely scientific it's almost unsettling. Additionally, the fact that characters in the novel assumed that Gethenians were scientific experiments abandoned on their current planet dehumanizes them in ways that did not sit well with me.

This extremely logic-pure point of view on their sex contrasts quite a lot with today's views on the subject. I would think that my queer friends who are more connected to this subject than I am would be made rather uncomfortable by this depiction of androgyny. The fact that it is a natural way of wanting to look/feel rather than something sub-human created from science is the starkest contrast between the two. Overall, LeGuin's depiction of androgyny was interesting to read, but should not be compared to actual representation of androgynous people in today's media.

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