a question

[casualbird]

Please--if any of you know of any canonically non-binary characters in popular media, would you let me know? I'm thinking of writing a meta post about the sorry state of non-binary representation, and I'd like to see if I can't find some more evidence than I have right now.

Thank you!

Comments

[0dense]

I don't know how popular it is these days, but The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K LeGuin is a classic sci-fi novel where a world is populated by a culture with distinctly nonbinary sexes, to the confusion of a terran visitor. It set a lot of the stage for fantasy since the 70s so it might be kinda dated now, but it's also cool to see the genre develop?
I've been hearing some rad things about Anciliary Justice these days too; I think it's that the main setting is culturally agender? I haven't read it myself, but fingers crossed it's fun like it sounds!

[graveexcitement]

ahh, i was just going to mention Left Hand Of Darkness here!

& yes, the main culture/language in Ancillary Justice, the Radch/Radchaai, is pretty much culturally agender; Radchaai (the language) doesn't really have gendered pronouns and the Radchaai culture doesn't really acknowledge gender as A Thing that matters. (Though the book itself does this by using she/her pronouns for everyone, but in-universe the Radchaai language isn't gendered, iirc). There's a bit in the first book where the main character is having difficulty speaking in a non-Radchaai language because the other language does have gendered pronouns/verbs, and the MC has some difficulty identifying which pronouns to use for which people.

[casualbird]

i know! i really love the imperial radch series, and the way that gender is handled in it.

i've been trying to read the left hand of darkness, but i got distracted what with school and things and accidentally picked up another book. that's life i guess.

i almost feel a bit strange trying to write the post now, since there's so much nb representation (good and bad) out there that i didn't know about! i feel like i'd have to take a full semester of the stuff.

maybe i'll just write something about fma / envy, since i recently rewatched the series and envy makes me Angry.

[0dense]

hey yeah that sounds fun! I gotta read more lol, I'm glad it sounds like people are finding good ways of factoring gender in