A world without gender would have no wars, but no art, either
As pretentious students we attempted to pronounce Leguin “le-GAHN” like Gauguin, only to find that it’s “le-GWIN” (Our classmate tried the Marquis de “shar-DAY” like the singer).
In Ursula K. Le Guin’s science-fiction classic The Left Hand of Darkness, there are no women or men, only people. The natives of the planet Winter possess both female and male attributes, but they only become one or the other at certain times in the biological cycle—mating season, which they call “kemmering”. Anyone can get pregnant and give birth, depending on their hormone levels. Sometimes, they’re female, sometimes they’re male. Once a month, people get into kemmer and get time off from their jobs to fulfill their biological urges. The rest of the time, they’re not interested in sex at all. Humans from earth (Terrans, us) with their permanent genitalia, who can have sex whenever they feel like it, are considered perverts. “Pervert” is not a condemnation, just a statement of fact.
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