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intersexbookclub · 6 months

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Discussion summary: Left Hand of Darkness

Published in 1969, The Left Hand of Darkness is a classic in science fiction that explores issues of sex/gender in an alien-yet-human society where the aliens are just like us except in how they reproduce. These aliens, the Gethenians, can reproduce as either male or female. They spend most of their lives sexually undifferentiated. Once a month, they go into heat (“kemmer”) and their sexual organs activate as either male or female (it’s essentially random).

Here's a summary of the discussions we had on 2023-08-25 and 2023-09-01 about the book:

HIGH LEVEL REACTONS

Michelle (@scifimagpie): even though it was written by a cis straight perisex woman there is a queerness to the writing that feels true and that she nailed. There is a queerness to the soul of this book that still holds up, that's true and good, and I cannot but love and respect that.

Elizabeth (@ipso-faculty): this book is such a commentary on 1960s misogyny. Genly is a raging misogynist. It takes a whole prison break and crossing the arctic for Genly to realize a woman or androgyne can be competent 👀

Dimitri: [Having read just the first half of the book] I wonder if it keeps happening, if Genly keeps going "woaaaah" [to the Gethenians’ androgyny] or if he ever acclimates. It's been half the novel my guy

vic: yeah a book where a guy is destroyed by seeing a breast makes me want queer theory

vic: [it also] makes me feel good to see how much has changed [since the 1960s]

THE INTERSEX STUFF

A thing we appreciated about the book was how being intersex is contextual. The main character of the book, Genly Ai, is a human from a planet like Earth, who visits Gethen to open trade and diplomatic relations.

On his home planet, and to Earth sensibilities, Genly is perisex - he is able to reproduce at any time of the month and is consistently male.

But on Gethen, Genly becomes intersex. On Gethen, the norm is that you only manifest (and can reproduce as) a given sex during the monthly kemmer (heat/oestrus) period.

The Gethenians understand Genly as living in “permanent kemmer”, which is described as a common (intersex) condition, and these people are hyper-sexualized and referred to as Perverts.

At this point it’s worth noting that depiction is not the same as endorsement. Michelle pointed out the book is very empathetic to those in permanent kemmer. LeGuin does not appear to be endorsing the social stigma faced by these people, merely depicting it, and putting a mirror to how our own society treats intersex people.

Throughout the book, Genly is treated as an oddity by the Gethenians. He is hyper sexualized. He undergoes a genital inspection to prove he is who he says he is.

When Genly is sent to a prison camp and forcibly given HRT, he does not respond “normally” to the hormones, the effects are way worse for him, and the prison camp staff don’t care, and keep administering them even if it’ll kill him.

Two of us have had the experience of having hyperandrogenism and being forced onto birth control as teenager, and relating to the sluggishness of the drugs that Genly experienced, as well as the sense that gender/sex conformity was more important to authority figures (parents, doctors) than actual health and well-being.

Another scene we discussed the one where Genly is in a prison van en route to the gulag, and a Gethenian enters kemmer and wants to mate with him and he declines. He is given multiple opportunities over the course of the book to try having sex with a Gethenian, and declines every time, and we wondered if he avoided it out of trauma of being hyper-sexualized & hyper-medicalized & having had his genitals inspected.

We discussed the way he described his genital inspection through a trauma lens, and how it interacts with toxic masculinity - in vic’s terms, Genly being "I am a manly man and I have don't trauma"

Those of us who read the short story, Coming of Age in Karhide, noted that once the world was narrated from a Gethenian POV, the people in permanent kemmer were treated far more neutrally, which gave us the impression that Genly as an unreliable narrator was injecting some intersexism along with his misogyny

WHY IT MATTERS TO READ THIS BOOK THROUGH AN INTERSEX LENS

Elizabeth: I’ve encountered critiques of this book from perisex trans folks because to them the book is committing biological essentialism, and dismissing the book as a result. I think they’re missing that this book is as much about (inter)sex as it is about gender. I think they’re too quick to dismiss the book as being outdated or having backwards ideas because they’re not appreciating the intersex themes.

Elizabeth: The intersex themes aren’t exactly subtle, so it kind of stings that I haven’t seen any intersex analyses of this book, but there are dozens (hundreds?) of perisex trans analyses that all miss the huge intersex elephants in the room.

Also Elizabeth: I’ve seen this book show up in lists of intersex books/characters made by perisex people, and I’ve seen Estraven listed as intersex character, and it gets me upset because Estraven isn’t intersex! Estraven is perisex in the society in which he lives. Genly is the intersex character in this story and people who misunderstand intersex as being able to reproduce as male & female (or having quirky genitals smh) are completely missing that being intersex is socially constructed and based on what is considered typical for a given species.

WHAT THE BOOK DOESN’T HANDLE WELL

The body descriptions. As Dmitri put it: “ Like "his butt jiggled and it reminded me of women" ew. It was intentional but I had to put the book down. It reminded me of transvestigators and how they take pictures of people in public.” 🤮

Not pushing Genly to reflect on how weird he is about other people’s bodies. We all had issues with how Genly is constantly scrutinizing the bodies of other humans to assess their gender(s) and it’s pretty gross.

vic asked: “how much of this is her reproducing violence without her knowing it? A thing I didn't like was how he always judging and analyzing people's bodies and realizing others treat him that way. And I wish there was more of his discomfort about this, that it made him feel icky.”

Dimitri added: “I really wanted him to have a moment of this too, for him to realize how much it sucks to be treated this way. As a trans person it's so uncomfortable. What are you doing going around doing this to people?”

Using male pronouns as default/ungendered pronouns. Élaina asked why Genly thinks a male pronoun is more appropriate for a transcendent God and pointed out there’s a lot to unpack there.

OTHER POSITIVES ABOUT THE BOOK

Genly’s journey towards respecting women, that he still had a ways to go by the end of the book. vic pointed out how “LeGuin was straight, and she loves men, and is kinda giving them the side-eye [in this book]. Her writing about how Genly is childish makes me really happy. It’s kind of hilarious to watch him bang his head against the wall because he’s so rigid.”

To which Dmitri added: “I agree with the bit on forgiving men for stuff. I don't know how she [LeGuin] does it but she really lays it all out. She gives you a platter of how men are bad at things, how they make mistakes that are pretty specific to them. She has prepared a buffet of it.”

Autistic Estraven! As Michelle put it: “autistic queer feels about Estraven speaking literally and plainly and Genly not getting it”

The truck chapter. Hits like a pile of bricks. We talked about it as a metaphor for the current pandemic.

The Genly x Estraven slowburn queerplatonic relationship

The conlang! Less is more in how it gets used

MIXED REACTIONS

The Foretelling. For some it felt unnecessary and a bit fetishy. For others it was fun paranormal times.

Pacing. Some liked how the book really forces you to really contemplate as you go. Others struggled with a pace that feels very slow to 2023 readers.

WORKS WE COMPARED THE BOOK TO

Star Trek (the original series) - we wondered if LHOD and Genly Ai were progressive by 1960s standards, and TOS came up as a comparison point. We were all of the impression that TOS was progressive for its time but all of us find it pretty misogynist by our standards. The interest in extra-sensory perception (ESP) is something that was a staple of TOS that feels very strange to contemporary viewers and also cropped up in LHOD

Ancillary Justice - for being a book where characters’ genders are all ambiguous but the POV character is actually normal about how they describe other characters’ bodies.

The Deep - for being another book in a situation where being able to reproduce as male and female is the norm. The Deep was written by an actually intersex author, and doesn’t have the cisperisex gaze of scrutinizing every body for sex. But oddly LHOD actually winds up feeling more like a book about intersex people, because it features a character who is the odd one out in a gonosynic society. In contrast, nobody is intersex in the Deep - everybody matches the norms for their species, which makes the intersex themes in the work much more subtle.

Overall, as vic put it, “there's something to be said about an honest depiction that's not great, especially when there's no alternatives”. For a long time there weren’t many other games in town when it came to this sort of book, and even though some things now feel dated, it’s still a valuable read. We’d love to see more intersex reviews & analyses of the book!

#intersex book club #book summaries #book reviews #left hand of darkness #the left hand of darkness #ursula k. le guin #intersex books #intersex literature #queer books #queer literature #queer fiction #queer scifi #intersex

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wildfellweekly · 10 months

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New Book Club for Autumn 2023!

Announcing Wildfell Weekly, a substack read-a-long for Anne Brontë's novel The Tenant of Wildfell Hall!

You must go back with me to the autumn of 1827.

A new tenant has taken up residence in old Wildfell Hall and Mr. Gilbert Markham finds himself very intrigued. But the widow Mrs. Helen Graham is more than what she seems, and as rumors about her start to fly, she reveals to a doubting Gilbert the truth about the disastrous marriage she left behind.

Anne Brontë differed from her sisters Charlotte (Jane Eyre) and Emily (Wuthering Heights) in favoring a Realist rather than Romantic approach to her writing. In Tenant she explored themes of domestic violence, alcoholism and addiction, gender relations, motherhood and marriage, and the ability of women to define their own lives with an unflinching desire to depict what she saw to be true. While now considered among the first feminist novels, critics of Anne's day were shocked by a book they found coarse, brutal, and overly graphic.

So starting October 26, 2023 and until June 10, 2024, let's read together a story one nineteenth century critic called "utterly unfit to be put in the hands of girls"!

Find More Information about the Project and Subscribe Here!

#anne brontë #the tenant of wildfell hall #british literature #tumblr book club #nineteenth century literature #classic literature #historical literature #book stubstacks #dracula daily #whale weekly #letters from watson #les mis letters #wildfell weekly #brontë sisters

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uwmspeccoll · 5 months

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Typography Tuesday

Last week, I showed you some initials I encountered at the Milwaukee Public Library's first Art Book Club gathering in October. Those initials were from an 1898 specimen book, Schriften Atlas, compiled by Ludwig Petzendorfer. This week I'm showing some alphabet sets from another collection I encountered there. These specimens are from Vignettes, lettres, chiffres, monogrammes et rehauts modernes, published in Paris by Les Éditions Guérinet, R. Panzani, successeur in 1931. The specimen book includes alphabets by several designers. The sets shown here are by A. Bardi and P. Picaud, whom I have not been able to identify. Still, the letter forms are quite enjoyable.

The next Art Book Club session at MPL will be on Saturday, December 16, 2023, 1:30-3 pm, with the theme of "Technology."

View other type specimen books.

View more Typography Tuesday posts.

– MAX, Head, Special Collections

#Typography Tuesday #typetuesday #type specimen books #type specimens #type display books #alphabets #Vignettes lettres chiffres monogrammes et rehauts modernes #Les Éditions Guérinet R. Panzani successeur #Art Book Club #Milwaukee Public Library #20th century type

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paloma-ascends-into-hellfire · 3 months

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i am insanely bored and i cannot sleep so here’s a list of hyperfixations i’ve had in chronological order

space

biology

atoms

rainbow magic

harry potter

dork diaries

beauty and the beast/little mermaid

psychology* (i was an interesting eight year old)

ancient egypt

sharks (thanks to that book about rodney fox)

gemstones

tarot

magic in general (thanks jkr 🖕🏽🫠)

the gold rush

the world wars

mother daughter book club

wings of fire

kotlc

land of stories

the sisters grimm

the titanic

space again*

biology again*

stranger things*

wednesday

the hunger games

percy jackson*

a very potter musical*

taylor swift

leopold and loeb*

lizzie borden

zheng yi sao/shi yang*

hatchetfield*

spies are forever*

starkid/tcb in general*

heathers*

six*

les mis*

epic the musical*

*still active

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dangerous-liaisons-daily · 2 years

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Dear readers,

The formatting of Dangerous Liaisons Daily has started. It is time that I write a post presenting the project.

*taps mic*

Do you like sexual affairs? Do you like treason? Do you love revenge? And deceit? Yes, what about deceit? By the way, are you an average sin enjoyer? More than that, maybe? An expert sin enjoyer who will kiss all the prudes on your way to hell? Finally, do you swoon at the thought of an evil woman and/or a bastard man?

Well then, you should definitely subscribe to Dangerous Liaisons Daily, and follow the manipulative adventures of the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont through their correspondence, in real time. You can find all the information you need on the about page of the project, where you can also subscribe if you want to.

It will start on August 3rd, 2022. Though i invite you to check your inbox a few days before. It will end on January 14th, 2023.

I wanted to set up a french version of it, but it would be too much work on such a short notice for it to be ready in august. That being said, it will happen next year. The english version of the project will be reconducted next year if you enjoy it, or if you can’t make it this year for any reason (for example, if you are reading any other ongoing newsletter).

If you have any question, you can shoot me an ask or dm me.

PS : A huge thank you to the 99 people who already subscribed at the moment i type this post! This is incredible, I am humbled and honored to receive such support!

See you soon to share gossip like the heretics we are ;)

#dangerous liaisons #dangerous liaisons daily #les liaisons dangereuses #tumblr book club

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thethirdromana · 1 year

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Suggestions for Tumblr's next book club

With Dracula Daily on the horizon again, I've been pondering what other out-of-copyright novels we might like to consider reading very slowly. Here are my ideas! And if any of them already exist, lmk.

North and South

Author: Elizabeth Gaskell Year of publication: 1854-55 Length: 185,000 words, 52 chapters. So we could have a chapter weekly for a full year. Summary: Margaret Hale is forced to leave the rural south of England and settle in the rough, industrial north. There she clashes with mill-owner John Thornton over his treatment of his workers... Why Tumblr would like it: Enemies to Lovers! Class struggle! Fascinating historical context! Honestly, it's a great read.

Evelina

Author: Fanny Burney Year of publication: 1778 Length: 157,000 words in 84 letters. That's right, it's epistolary, and the letters are almost all sent March to October of the same year, so we could read this one in true Dracula Daily fashion. Summary: Evelina is the sheltered daughter of an aristocrat trying to make her way in the world of late 18th-century society. Why Tumblr would like it: Evelina is a likeable, relatable character. I think it'd be fun to get emails from her.

The Well of Loneliness

Author: Radclyffe Hall Year of publication: 1928 Length: 158,000 words in 56 chapters. Summary: The story of Stephen Gordon, a girl who realises at an early age that she's a lesbian, and her attempts to find love in the early 20th century. Why Tumblr would like it: It's one of the most iconic lesbian novels of the 20th century!

The War of the Worlds

Author: HG Wells Year of publication: 1897 Length: 63,000 words in 27 chapters. Summary: Alien invaders land from Mars and fuck up the south of England. Why Tumblr would like it: Alien invaders land from Mars and fuck up the south of England, come on, what's not to like?

The Moonstone

Author: Wilkie Collins Year of publication: 1868 Length: 200,000 words (so a bit of a marathon) in 51 chapters. Summary: A young English woman inherits a large Indian diamond of dubious provenance on her 18th birthday. Then it gets stolen! Why Tumblr would like it: One of the first detective novels, and supposed to be one of the best, it's a page turner with lots of suspense, twists and cliffhanger endings.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Author: Agatha Christie Year of publication: 1920 Length: 60,000 words in 13 chapters. Summary: The first murder mystery starring Hercule Poirot. Why Tumblr would like it: Look, you liked Glass Onion, right? And if you like this, Agatha Christie's novels are emerging from copyright at the rate of about two per year.

Les Misérables

Author: Victor Hugo Year of publication: 1862 Length: 570,000 words in the English translation (ouch) in 365 chapters. Summary: A vast, sweeping story of poverty, justice and revolution in early 19th century France. Why Tumblr would like it: Well, if you thought Moby Dick didn't have enough digressions...

The Canterbury Tales

Author: Geoffrey Chaucer Year of publication: 1387-1400 Length: 24 stories averaging 700 lines each. Summary: Some pilgrims are heading to Canterbury. They tell one another stories to pass the time. These are their stories. Why Tumblr would like it: I mean, there's a reason we still read these 600 years later. They're a fascinating insight into medieval life, but they're also - for the most part - just good fun.

If you love any of these suggestions and would really like to see it take off, reblog to help make it happen.

#tumblr book club #north and south #evelina #the well of loneliness #the war of the worlds #the moonstone #poirot #les miserables #the canterbury tales

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opheliabf · 26 days

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#in love with her prose #one of the best descriptions of the love interest i've ever read #nature tag #the dispossessed #ursula k le guin #w #book club #sam.txt

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edrake · 17 days

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X-Men ‘97 Episode 5 *spoilers ahead*

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intersexbookclub · 10 months

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August book pick: The Left Hand of Darkness

Our book pick for August is science fiction classic The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K LeGuin. This book is famous for its exploration of a fictional society where everybody can reproduce as either female or male.

We will be meeting online to discuss The Deep on Friday August 25 at: - 11:30am Pacific (Vancouver, San Francisco, etc) - 2:30pm Eastern (Toronto, New York, etc) - 8:30pm Central European (Paris, Berlin, etc)

The meeting will be held on our discord, which you can join here: https://discord.gg/wmMQUQxEK4 (See our code of conduct)

We chose the Left Hand of Darkness because: - It's a classic. Whether you think of it as an intersex book or not this book has had reach, and is probably the first book that your average sci-fi fan will think of when it comes to exploring (inter)sex through sci-fi - It it isn't fetishy. So much work by (at least presumed) perisex authors can be very fetishy but at least in my (@ipsogender) opinion this one isn't! Indeed it's a book that I personally have warm feelings about. (You don't have to like it!) - Because it's a classic it should be easy for people to get access to the book via libraries and/or used book stores - @scifimagpie hasn't read it and we wanted an excuse to get her to read it and talk about it :)

How much of the book do you need to read? You don't need to finish the book to participate! Getting a quarter into the book is plenty to get a sense of the world and be able to participate in the discussion.

Discussion questions: 1. What did you like about it? 2. What did you struggle with? 3. What other works did it make you think of? Why? 4. What connections do you see between this book and our previous picks? 5. Is this an "intersex book"? 6. What relevance (if any) do you see this book as having today in getting people to contemplate sex and gender?

We hope to see you at the meeting! If you have thoughts on the book feel free to share them as reblogs/replies! Future book picks

If The Left Hand of Darkness isn’t in the cards for you, we meet on the last Friday of every month at the aforementioned time. (We're meeting next week to talk about The Deep by Rivers Solomon!) Our September pick is Chapters 1, 4 and 5 of Horlacher, S. (2016). Transgender and intersex: Theoretical, practical, and artistic perspectives. Palgrave Macmillan US. (see Discord for a copy!)

#intersex book club #queer scifi #queer books #queer literature #the left hand of darkness #ursula k. le guin #book picks #intersex

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mistikfir · 1 year

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The Jane Austen Book Club (2007)

#hugh dancy #hughdancyedit #Maria Bello #robin swicord #ursula le guin #grigg harris #jocelyn #The Jane Austen Book Club #bookmake #mistikfiredit

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uwmspeccoll · 1 year

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Wood Engraving Wednesday

ROBERT GIBBINGS

In 1933, Irish wood engraver and fine-press printer Robert Gibbings sold the Golden Cockerel Press, which he had owned and operated since 1924, to Christopher Sandford, Owen Rutter, and Francis J. Newbery. The new owners took the press in a decidedly more commercial direction, more as a publisher than a fine press, with production work overseen by Newbery at the Chiswick Press. Gibbings continued to work at the press for the new owners, although, as Roderick Cave and Sarah Manson write in their A History of the Golden Cockerel Press 1920-1960, he chafed “at having to work to other people’s specifications.”

One of those specifications was to produce a multitude of wood engravings for the 1933 Limited Editions Club production of Le Morte d’Arthur, designed at the Golden Cockerel Press and printed at the Chiswick Press in an edition of 1500 copies signed by the artist. Shown here are some of the chapter heads engraved by Gibbings, who also produced numerous marginal illustrations and tailpieces. Cave and Manson write:

He was under great pressure to cut all the blocks needed for the Morte d’Arthur, an edition of [Thomas] Malory commissioned by George Macy, being printed by the Cockerel partners . . . for the Limited Editions Club in New York. It was a valuable commission for Cockerel and Gibbings, though designed to be more economical in production than either would have wished. But even in the modest format, the Limited Editions Club edition was a successful exercise in ‘economical’ fine printing.

View more wood engravings by Robert Gibbings.

View more post on works from the Golden Cockerel Press.

View more Limited Editions Club posts.

View more posts with wood engravings!

#Wood Engraving Wednesday #wood engravings #wood engravers #Robert Gibbings #Golden Cockerel Press #Chiswick Press #Limited Editions Club #Le Morte d’Arthur #Thomas Malory #fine press books #Roderick Cave #Sarah Manson #The History of the Golden Cockerel Press

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