Hello and welcome to a brand new series all about gender in science fiction and fantasy worldbuilding!
If you’re working on a novel that includes worldbuilding around gender, I hope this blog post series will give you new ideas and food for thought—on both creative and inclusive fronts.
Each of these posts uses a published book as a springboard for discussion. I’ll talk about things I’d bring up if I were providing sensitivity feedback or worldbuilding consultation on the novel.
Today’s post is all about the gender worldbuilding in A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers.
A Psalm for the Wild-Built is a solarpunk novella set on a moon called Panga. The protagonist, Sibling Dex (they/them), is a tea monk who travels around remote villages with their wagon, brewing special tea blends and lending a sympathetic ear to people and their everyday troubles.
The world in the book is presented as a utopia, at least from an ecological and anti-capitalist viewpoint. Humankind has moved away from its previously destructive behaviours and has learned to live in harmony with nature. Society is peaceful and centred around compassion and kindness. Everyone lives in comfort and safety.
You could therefore be forgiven for assuming that the gender system in the novel is also utopian. The book’s inclusion of non-binary characters (especially a non-binary protagonist) is fantastic to see. But the wider worldbuilding—or lack thereof—around gender is far from idyllic, and brings along a lot of harmful baggage. That’s what we’ll be unpacking in this post.
Three-gender systems
The inclusion of non-binary people in A Psalm for the Wild-Built’s society essentially takes the form of introducing a third gender into the worldbuilding: people are divided into men, women and ‘other’. (The ‘other’ category is not given a name in the book; I refer to it as non-binary in this post.) In other words, the society has a three-gender system.
Three-gender systems exist across human societies. Many of them have been—and continue to be—violently erased by colonialism. The gender binary that dominates much of the world today is a colonial construct: it’s one possible gender system of many, and its particular view of sex and gender was developed in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries. I think it’s reasonable to assume that A Psalm for the Wild-Built is using the current Western binary as the basis for its gender worldbuilding.
Creating a three-gender system is fine—but it doesn’t automatically make your society an inclusive gender utopia, as would seem to be the book’s intention.
Sure, it’s slightly nicer than our current society. They/them pronouns are normalised, and so are third-gender titles: monks are referred to as Sister, Sibling or Brother; other people are addressed as Ms, Mx or Mr.
But the vast array of non-binary identities have been squashed down and absorbed into the binary (now three-gender) system as just another rigid gender category. There are always going to be people who don’t fit in those boxes, no matter how many boxes you build.
Additionally, all the non-binary characters mentioned in the book have they/them pronouns. This suggests that the rigid gender categories also have fixed pronouns: you can be referred to only as she, they or he, and your pronouns are expected to match your gender ‘box’.
These surface issues are a symptom of a more fundamental problem with the gender worldbuilding. When we take a look at what the book implies about the inner workings of its three-gender system, it becomes clear that… well, honestly, it just looks like the third gender category has been tacked on to our existing gender binary. There’s no evidence that any thought has gone into the reality or implications of that.
If you’re looking to build a gender system that is inclusive of non-binary genders*, then it isn’t possible to simply add a third gender category onto our current binary system and call it a day. Some tearing down of the construct needs to happen first.
*Note that building an inclusive society for your novel is a different goal from writing a book that is itself inclusive. In the case of A Psalm for the Wild-Built, the book is inclusive of non-binary characters—and that’s great to see—but this post discusses whether the society within the book is as inclusive as it may seem on the surface.
Cisnormativity and assuming genders
The main problem with the three-gender system in A Psalm for the Wild-Built is the apparent continuation of cisnormativity. This is evident in the way that the protagonist assigns gender to strangers—and vice versa.
Cisnormativity is the assumption that being cisgender—i.e. your gender matching the sex you were assigned at birth—is the norm. It’s the reason that assigned sex (a whole other topic for another day) is so firmly linked to gender in our society.
Cisnormativity is also the reason that people look at a stranger and come to a conclusion about their gender based primarily on the observation of secondary sex characteristics. Secondary sex characteristics are physical attributes resulting from hormones such as breasts, hip width, body hair, facial hair and voice pitch.
Gender cues can also play a role when strangers are assessing gender. These are linked strongly to gender roles and expectations. Visual gender cues include things like hairstyle, clothing, makeup, jewellery and body language. In the case of prepubescent children (who do not have secondary sex characteristics), gender is assumed entirely on gender cues—or arbitrarily when gender cues are mixed or absent.
In our current binary system, cisnormativity goes hand in hand with cissexism: the belief that being cisgender is more natural or valid than being transgender or non-binary. As a result, where gender cues are deemed to ‘clash’ with the perceived secondary sex characteristics, it’s the latter that society takes as the ‘real’ indication of gender. And the ‘clash’, seen as a deviation from the norm, is punished: through negative social interactions and through violence. This is particularly the case for people deemed to have male secondary sex characteristics who are presenting typically feminine gender cues. (See further reading for more on transmisogyny.)
It’s important to realise that this assumption of gender based on a person’s appearance is learned behaviour. Children have to be taught to classify people in this way—if a kid has ever asked you if you’re a man or a woman, that’s because they were still learning how to match up what they could see with what they’ve been told about how gender works. Cisnormativity and binary beliefs about gender are so relentlessly reinforced by our society that they become deeply ingrained by the time you’re more than a handful of years old. People think it’s ‘natural’, but it’s simply a product of the way our society constructs its gender system.
In the case of A Psalm for the Wild-Built, the way that the protagonist Dex interacts with strangers—and how strangers interact with them—strongly implies that the cisnormative assumption of gender exists in Pangan society just as it does in ours.
When they meet someone new, Dex assigns that person a gender just by looking at them. For example:
Someone approached. […] The someone was a woman carrying a workbag and looking like she hadn’t slept.
And:
The herb farmer—a man around Dex’s age, with a crooked nose and a clean beard—looked up from the sock he was darning. “Sorry, Sibling, one of…”
In the absence of other explanation (such as gender cues specific to Panga’s culture), the implication is that gender in Panga is assumed primarily on secondary sex characteristics. This is reinforced by the mention of the herb farmer’s beard—a notable inclusion in a book otherwise light on character descriptions.
So, even though Pangan society theoretically has a three-gender system, it seems to bring all the cisnormative baggage of our binary system with it. And since the worldbuilding doesn’t make any move to deconstruct the sex binary, its cisnormativity is at odds with the attempt to build a system that includes non-binary genders.
Androgyny and the non-binary stereotype
A cisnormative gender system also brings with it harmful beliefs about what it means to ‘look non-binary’.
The second interaction above not only shows Dex gendering the herb farmer based on his appearance, it also shows the farmer gendering Dex. He knows to address Dex as ‘Sibling’, indicating that Dex is somehow identifiable as non-binary.
This wouldn’t be a problem if the worldbuilding showed that identification happened through gender cues, or that everyone defaulted to ‘third-gender’ language until told otherwise. However, as discussed above, it seems that cisnormativity (along with binary sex assignments) is still at the heart of the gender system. It essentially operates the same as our current Western binary system. And this is where the implications get problematic in relation to real life.
The idea that someone can look at Dex and identify them as non-binary reinforces the harmful idea that to be non-binary is to look a certain way.
That wouldn’t necessarily be a problem if you looked at the worldbuilding in strict isolation. But books exist—inescapably—in the context of real life and our current society and culture. They are born out of it, and they have an impact on it in turn. They can reinforce societal messages or subvert and challenge them.
Non-binary representation in mainstream media is scarce, but where it does appear, it often pushes the harmful myth that there is a ‘correct way’ to be non-binary. It tells us that to be non-binary is to look androgynous, and to look androgynous is be white, thin, young, assigned female at birth, and masculine presenting.
This boils down to the flattening of the multitude of non-binary identities and expressions into a form that’s most palatable to the existing gender binary. The only ‘acceptable’ non-binary people are those that can be most easily reabsorbed into—and turned into tools of—our white supremacist, colonial, patriarchal society. And this is done at the expense of those who don’t fit the mould, particularly non-binary people of colour and trans feminine non-binary people.
A Psalm for the Wild-Built doesn’t actively push this non-binary stereotype, but nor does it do any work to dispel it. The only physical descriptions of Dex in the novella relate to their “unruly hair”—everything else is left as a blank slate. By not challenging the dominant narrative about non-binary people, the novella lets the reader fall back on the narrow ‘default’ view.
One way you can see this in action is by looking at the Goodreads reviews for A Psalm for the Wild-Built (link opens in a new tab). Note how many reviews misgender Dex by defaulting to he/him pronouns. Why? Because the stereotypical view of non-binary people is one that matches society’s standards of androgyny. And androgyny equals masculinity because, under patriarchy, masculinity is ‘neutral’.
If non-binary representation doesn’t disrupt the myths around androgyny and who is allowed to occupy that space, then it perpetuates an entirely fictional idea of who non-binary people are. It means that the majority of non-binary people in real life—who do not, according to our current society, ‘look non-binary’—will continue to face erasure, exclusion and violence no matter how much stereotypical representation there is.
In summary
It’s perfectly possible that the sex and gender system in Panga works entirely differently to our current system. There are a thousand different ways that it could—the only limit is imagination. But the point is: there is nothing on the page to suggest that the core of the Pangan gender worldbuilding is any different from our current system, and so the vast majority of readers will assume that it’s not.
In effect, the gender worldbuilding in A Psalm for the Wild-Built is still firmly tied to our current Western binary system, including its inherent cisnormativity. Within that context, by not disrupting the dominant narrative about non-binary people and androgyny, the novella lets the reader fall back on the narrow and exclusive default view that centres whiteness, thinness, masculinity, and so on.
The result is a book that upholds the harmful status quo of the current Western gender binary even while it presents an otherwise utopian society.
Worldbuilding suggestions
All of that might seem like a huge and complex problem, but there’s a whole range of possible—and simple—solutions. It would only take some minor tweaks and a few extra sentences to show that the author has considered the gender worldbuilding (and its real-world implications) beyond the surface level.
Removing cisnormativity (and with it the gender and sex binary) from the worldbuilding could be as simple as:
- not having Dex assume strangers’ genders from their appearance;
- or having Dex identify people’s genders through particular gender cues (rather than secondary sex characteristics).
Disrupting the dominant narrative around non-binary people could be as simple as:
- providing more physical descriptions of Dex;
- and ensuring that those physical descriptions challenge the stereotype in some way (i.e. not making Dex white and thin and young and masculine presenting).
Further steps, if the author wanted to make the gender worldbuilding even more subversive and inclusive, could include:
- describing characters whose gender (and gender cues) would be deemed as “clashing” with their secondary sex characteristics in our current society—but not in the book’s society;
- mentioning characters who have changed gender, or whose gender identity is fluid;
- giving the third gender category a name, and mentioning or exploring any associated social roles and expectations;
- including characters whose pronouns are not she/her, they/them or he/him—e.g. characters with neopronouns, mixed pronouns or no pronouns.
Worldbuilding prompts
If your own worldbuilding includes a society that is intended to be systemically inclusive of non-binary genders, I hope you have found this post interesting!
Here are some further prompts that you may find helpful:
- If your worldbuilding still links assigned sex with gender, how does your society make room for trans, non-binary and intersex people?
- Have you taken steps to disrupt the stereotypical view of non-binary people?
- If you’re building a three-gender system, what are people in the third gender category called?
- If you’re trying to build a utopian gender system, what steps are you taking to ensure that people of all genders (and no gender) are equally valued in your society?
- How rigid or fluid are your world’s gender categories?
- Do your gender categories come with fixed pronouns? How firmly linked are the concepts of pronouns and gender?
- How do people identify/assume other people’s genders?
- What types of gender cues are there in your society?
- In a society where gender is identified only through gender cues, what happens if someone displays mixed gender cues, or no gender cues?
- What is the default pronoun or way of addressing someone if their gender is unknown?
Want some feedback on your gender worldbuilding? Get in touch to ask me about my worldbuilding consultation services.
Want feedback on a particular character? I also offer sensitivity reading services.
Further reading
- Feminism 101: What is the Gender Binary? (link opens in a new tab) by Elena Torres-Pepito
- How I Respond When Strangers Gender My Child (link opens in a new tab) by Meaghan Ray
- What is Transmisogyny? (link opens in a new tab) by Julia Serano
- 4 Harmful Lies the Media is Telling You About Androgyny (link opens in a new tab) by Kris Nelson
- There Is No Perfect Word: A Transgender Glossary of Sorts (link opens in a new tab) by Julia Serano
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