Genderless or Hermaphroditic Worlds
Some other fictional worlds feature societies in which everyone has more than one gender, or none, or can change gender. For example:
Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) depicts a world in which individuals are neither "male" nor "female" but can have both male and female sexual organs and reproductive abilities, making them in some senses intersexual. Similar patterns exist in Greg Egan's novel Schild's Ladder and his novella "Oceanic" or in Storm Constantine's book series Wraeththu about an oogamous magical race arose from mutant human beings. John Varley, who also came to prominence in the 1970s, also often writes on gender-related themes. In his "Eight Worlds" suite of stories (many collected in The John Varley Reader) and novels, for example, humanity has achieved the ability to change sex at a whim. Homophobia is shown to initially inhibit uptake of this technology, as it engenders drastic changes in relationships, with homosexual sex becoming an acceptable option for all.
In Iain M. Banks's Culture series of novels and stories, humans can and do relatively easily (and reversibly) change sex.
Read more about this topic: Single-gender World
Famous quotes containing the word worlds:
“Perchance the time will come when we shall not be content to go back and forth upon a raft to some huge Homeric or Shakespearean Indiaman that lies upon the reef, but build a bark out of that wreck and others that are buried in the sands of this desolate island, and such new timber as may be required, in which to sail away to whole new worlds of light and life, where our friends are.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)