this post was submitted on 27 May 2026
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Reading "The Left Hand of Darkness" by Le Guin, did she forget about the singular "they" while writing this? (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
submitted 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by belluck@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/books@lemmy.world
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It just seems incredibly odd for there to be so many lines in a book about gender insisting that there is no way to refer to someone (in the English language, at least) without implying gender. She even mentions the possibility of using „it“ at one point!

I’m liking the book otherwise, but every time the narrators ponder about pronouns without even considering „they“ I have to ask myself if there is any point in ignoring it or if she genuinely just forgot. I don’t think it’s possible for her to have not known about it considering how well-read she was and how long it’s been in use.

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[–] belluck@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Singular they may not have been used as a personal pronoun until recently, but that doesn’t mean writers haven’t been using it to refer to persons. It was frequently used to conceal a character’s gender by Shakespeare, for example.

It seems odd to me for the thought of using it to refer to persons of a people without gender didn’t occur to Le Guin even while she was writing passages debating the biases of using the generic „he“ and its alternatives.

[–] Libb@piefed.social 5 points 1 day ago

It seems odd to me for the thought of using it to refer to persons of a people without gender didn’t occur to Le Guin even while she was writing passages debating the biases of using the generic „he“ and its alternatives.

I consider her a real acute author. So, based on nothing but my intuition (I want that to be perfectly clear) I would rather question my own expectations and my own reading of her text than doubt she did not put in some serious reflection in it.

I mean, I would really not be surprised to learn she decided it was just not fit for the purpose she had in mind. Also, I insist on that aspect of the question, and that would need to be verified, but I doubt there were that many examples of such usage at that time and since she did not write the book for 2026 readers but for her contemporaries...