Hello and welcome to this 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.
In the previous post, we looked at how the three-gender system in A Psalm for the Wild-Built didn’t stand up to scrutiny. It included non-binary people on the surface level, but the lack of deeper worldbuilding meant it brought along all the cisnormative baggage of our current Western binary gender system.
Today I’d like to follow on from that by looking at how Phoenix Extravagant by Yoon Ha Lee uses gender cues to create a non-cisnormative three-gender system.
Phoenix Extravagant takes place in a fantasy version of Japanese-occupied Korea. It follows Gyen Jebi (they/them), an artist who finds themself reluctantly tangled up in the politics of occupation and resistance.
Gender is not a focus of Phoenix Extravagant and the gender worldbuilding is a background detail. Yet it’s clear that the author put care and thought into building the book’s three-gender system, and the way he presents it to the reader is elegant and simple. Let’s unpack why it works so well.
A quick recap of some definitions we discussed in the last post:
- Cisnormativity is the assumption that everyone’s gender matches the sex they were assigned at birth.
- Cissexism is the belief that being cisgender is more natural or valid than being transgender or non-binary.
A non-cisnormative gender system
In the setting of the book, Hwaguk, there is a third gender category called geu-ae. It is introduced in the following way:
The Razanei [the colonisers] seemed baffled by geu-ae, people who chose to live not as men or women at all, or who sometimes dressed and spoke as one and sometimes as the other. But they left them alone, for which Jebi was grateful.
Even in this brief explanation of the term geu-ae, the book makes room for different identities and expressions under the geu-ae umbrella. This indicates that although geu-ae is a third gender option within Hwagugin culture, it’s not a prescriptive or restrictive gender ‘box’ or role. (Likewise, women and men don’t seem to have restrictive gender roles in this society.)
At first glance, readers may assume that the Hwagugin gender system is like our own, only with widespread cultural acceptance of non-binary people (as well as queer and trans people more generally). In other words, they might assume that it is a cisnormative society but not a cissexist one—people’s genders are assumed to match their assigned sex, but if someone indicates otherwise, then it’s no big deal.
This is a common approach in ‘queernorm’ worldbuilding. Queernorm (short for queernormative) refers to fiction in which LGBTQIA+ people face no stigma and where heterosexuality is no longer regarded as the default. However, even after getting rid of heteronormativity (the assumption that everyone is straight), heterosexism (the belief that being straight is more natural or valid than being queer) and cissexism, most queernorm fiction still perpetuates cisnormativity.*
That’s not the case in Phoenix Extravagant, though! Looking closer at the worldbuilding, it becomes clear that—as well as being queernorm—Hwagugin society is non-cisnormative. In my eyes, this is what makes it a three-gender system rather than an inclusive binary system.
*I haven’t come across a shorthand way of referring to the distinction between queernorm fiction that replicates cisnormativity and queernorm fiction that disrupts it. I’m tempted to refer to the latter as ‘genderqueernorm’ (genderqueer+queernorm).
Gender cues
In a cisnormative society, people assign gender to strangers based mainly on the observation of secondary sex characteristics (physical attributes resulting from hormones). In a non-cisnormative society, gender is detached from these secondary sex characteristics. We can see this in action in Phoenix Extravagant. For example, Jebi does not draw conclusions about a stranger’s gender from their voice pitch.
“I don’t believe we’ve met,” the stranger said in Razanei. Their voice was low and warm.
And:
“It’s just about ready,” an alto called back.
Since secondary sex characteristics don’t come into play, people in Hwagugin society assume and communicate gender entirely through gender cues.
Gender cues are signifiers of gender linked to gender roles and expectations. Visual gender cues include things like hairstyle, clothing, makeup, jewellery and body language. Non-visual gender cues can include your name and the way you talk (e.g. intonation and expression).
A range of gender cues exist in Phoenix Extravagant’s Hwagugin society, just as they do in ours. Gendered clothing is mentioned a few times, and both the style of the clothes and their particular motifs and colours come with gendered connotations. In the following passage, for example, we are introduced to a character who mixes masculine and feminine cues in their clothing:
Jebi glanced at Hak’s companion, a slender person dressed daringly in a sleek masculine beige coat, and a shockingly vivid purple scarf embroidered with nesting birds, a feminine motif. Aniline purple must be popular right now.
The inclusion of small details, like the nesting birds motif above, makes the gender worldbuilding feel real and ‘lived in’. I particularly love the brief mentions of past and current fashions, and the recognition of how gender cues shift with these trends over time.
Hair length as the primary indication of gender
In our society, hairstyle—particularly hair length—is used as a gender cue. This is also the case in Phoenix Extravagant’s Hwagugin culture: women have long hair, men have short hair, and geu-ae have asymmetrical haircuts (i.e. long on one side and short on the other).
The two of them exchanged nods of recognition: they both wore their hair in asymmetrical haircuts, like geu-ae currently did in the capital.
This is where things get interesting in the gender worldbuilding, though, because hair length isn’t just another gender cue in Hwaguk—it’s the primary indication of a person’s gender.
The ajummae in question was a middle-aged person whose asymmetrical haircut, however old-fashioned, indicated they were a geu-ae like Jebi, or didn’t mind being mistaken for one.
Our cisnormative society teaches us that the primary indication of a person’s gender comes from their secondary sex characteristics. Gender cues are expected to reinforce this, not contradict it. If someone’s gender cues all point one way but their secondary sex characteristics point another, it’s the latter that is taken as their ‘real’ gender. (And because of cissexism, the ‘clash’ is punished as a deviation from the norm.)
We’ve established that secondary sex characteristics don’t play any role in assigning gender to strangers in Hwaguk’s non-cisnormative society. Instead, where someone’s gender cues don’t ‘match’ their hairstyle, it’s the hair that is taken as an indication of their gender. For example:
The receptionist, a refined young man in a woman’s hanbok, raised an eyebrow at the evidence of Jebi’s taffy malfeasance. At least, he had his hair cropped short, instead of in a geu-ae’s style.
The asymmetrical haircut works well in this regard to carve out a discrete space for the third gender category. If the gender cues were ‘short hair’, ‘medium-length hair’ and ‘long hair’, there would be ambiguity about where each category starts and ends. That would work wonderfully in a non-cisnormative gender system without fixed gender categories, but it would cause confusion in this three-gender system.
Room for gender non-conformity
The close link between hairstyle and gender may seem restrictive—if you want to be gendered correctly, you have to have your hair a certain length. But the fact that hair length is the primary indication of gender is actually what allows people to be gender non-conforming with their other gender cues. Take the above example: the receptionist is able to wear traditionally feminine clothes while still being gendered correctly because of his short hair. (Or, at least, it’s made clear that this is a reasonable assumption to make in Hwagugin society.)
If gender were ascertained by looking at all possible gender cues equally, that would mean, for example, that women who didn’t want to be misgendered would have to wear only feminine clothes and adhere to all other gender cue conventions, too. Any mixture of gender cues would result in someone being read as a geu-ae. Alternatively, if gender cues were ‘added up’ and gender was chaotically assigned by whether someone could spot slightly more feminine or masculine gender cues, then geu-ae would never be correctly gendered. This would ultimately undermine the entire three-gender system.
Gender worldbuilding suggestions
Overall, I love what Yoon Ha Lee has done to create a non-cisnormative three-gender system in Phoenix Extravagant. If I were providing gender worldbuilding consultation on the novel, I’d bring up just a couple of minor suggestions.
Gender cues for geu-ae
All of the gender cues mentioned, other than the asymmetrical haircuts, signal femininity or masculinity. This indicates that gender expression is positioned on a feminine-masculine spectrum. This is fine, but I would love a brief mention of a gender cue specific to geu-ae—for example, a particular clothing colour or motif that exists outside of femininity or masculinity altogether. The existence of such gender cues could help solidify the geu-ae gender category as being on equal footing with the women and men categories, rather than being set up in opposition to them. Geu-ae gender cues would also open up further possibilities for people of other genders to express non-conformity.
Hair length solutions
Using hair length as the primary indication of gender works really well as far as non-cisnormativity goes, because hairstyle is, for the most part, within people’s control. That said, I can certainly see some ways in which this would be less than ideal for many people: for example, in the case of hair loss and balding. However, given that hair would have huge cultural importance because of its prominent role in the gender system, I imagine that there would be widely available solutions to any problems. This is something that I would love to see mentioned in the book somehow, even as a small background detail: a shop or market stall selling wigs or hair extensions, for example, or reference to a character who changes their gender with a quick trip to the hairdresser’s.
In summary
By removing cisnormativity and setting the primary indication of gender to be hair length, Yoon Ha Lee has created a relatively simple gender system in Phoenix Extravagant that can be communicated to the reader through occasional background details—a sentence here and there. Within those passing descriptions, the gender worldbuilding feels realistically detailed and ‘lived in’. I also applaud the book for including mention of gender non-conformity within its gender system. The result is a three-gender system that feels plausible, inclusive and elegantly created.
Gender worldbuilding prompts
If your own worldbuilding includes playing around with gender systems, I hope you have found this post interesting!
Here are some related prompts that you may find helpful:
- Do different cultures have different gender systems in your worldbuilding? If so, how do they interact with each other?
- Does your society have fixed, discrete gender categories?
- Do those gender categories come with strict roles and expectations?
- Is your worldbuilding queernorm?
- Is your gender system cisnormative? If not, how do people assign gender to strangers?
- What types of gender cue exist in your society?
- How have gender cues shifted over time?
- In a society where gender is identified only through gender cues, what happens if someone displays mixed gender cues, or no gender cues?
- Is there a gender cue (or equivalent) that is taken as the primary indication of someone’s gender?
- Is there room in your worldbuilding for gender non-conformity?
Want some feedback on your gender worldbuilding? Get in touch to ask me about my worldbuilding consultation services.
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