I seem to remember one character mentioning that they’re a mother of four ... and a father of six. Which is an intriguing illustration of the lasting results of kemmer.

I’m not sure the book itself is feminist, but it was part of a wave of feminist writers in the 60s and 70s who were using SF to explore gender. At the time, questioning gender norms in any way was feminist.

It was written nearly 50 years ago, so in some ways the depiction of gender may seem old-fashioned, despite how ground-breaking it was at the time.

It uses the science fiction premise to explore a completely different system of gender politics that has its own assumptions and biases. You can see some of the seams, see how the biology interacts with cultural institutions and vice versa. This all calls toind the particular assumptions and blindspots of our own real…

and it was perfect

“The King was pregnant.”

It sounds like casting would be a real challenge.

And 2001 isn’t even really an adaptation. But rather the book and the film ate two halves of the larger collaboration between Clarke and Kubrick.

Ursula K. LeGuin has addressed this directly, namely that producers don’t want to make movies about what her books are about, they want to borrow SOME of the ideas and concepts without actually taking on the subjects or dealing with the worlds.

Physical changes. First they go through “kemmer”, which is basically a periodic sexuality, which most involves going to the kemmer house and fucking like bunnies.... Second, they can switch reproductive sex roles during their lives. IIRC, each time they go through kemmer, it is basically as a random sex role.

Most of the time the Gethenians are gender-neutral, but for a short period of time about once a month they come into “kemmer,” in which their bodies spontaneously differentiate into either male or female. This is when procreation takes place.

I think the reason Ursula’s books have never received many adaptations is the same reason why the books of James Tiptree Jr., Octavia Butler, Joanna Russ and Samuel Delany, for examples, have never received many adaptations either, despite they all being great authors: their writings have always been too politically…

I remember some friends and I had to read this for a college SF Lit class. For weeks after, we’d sneak up to each others’ rooms late at night and quietly ask through the door, “Does he burn? Does he burn?”

They have very strict hetero normative gender identity but one at a time. Sometimes male sometimes female. Each coupling brings out one sex or the other in each individual. Sticking to one sex consistently is considered perverted. Its about a different but equally strict and arbitrary gender system.

Almost none of the SF greats have. And even the well-regarded adaptations (2001, Starship Troopers) succeed for entirely different reasons than the books.

As I recall (it’s been a good thirty years) they periodically change genders after negotiating with their partner of the moment who will be the “male” and who the “female” for that month...or something along those lines. I do remember the act of reading it, though, and remember having my world rocked.

They’re basically androgynous and asexual most of the time. They have a monthly cycle where they go into estrus for about a week (they call it “Kemmer”) and develop secondary sex characteristics where they develop a sex drive and the ability to copulate.

The Gethenians are biologically eunuchs/sexless. They lack male/female sex parts—until they get to their mating season (a long summer), in which case their bodies transform into male/female (develop sex parts).

Yep. Basically they go into heat once a month, and when they do, they ease into the opposite gender of the person they are around at the time. It’s not really a conscious choice.

Most of the time they (“Gethenians”) are entirely genderless, the exception being when they take on male or female characteristics for reproduction purposes.