African American lesbian science fiction author Octavia Butler (1947-2006) was widely respected for her complex and compelling explorations of ethnicity, sexuality and gender within her genre. In her Xenogenesis trilogy (republished as Lilith's Brood), humanity has been wiped out in a nuclear war but then resurrected by the Oankali, a beneficent alien species who cherish ecological and genetic diversity, and which has three sexes- male, female and ooloi. The Oankali possess extra tentacular arms, which also function as erogenous zones, and their body shape is fluid due to their incorporation of interstellar species genetic heritage. Oankali don't have a sex or gender until puberty (at thirty as they have three hundred year lifespans), and in the case of the ooloi, sexual desire and relationships can affect their bodily shape. As well as the above considerations of gender and sexuality, ethnic 'purity' is effectively offset by interdependence and the neccessity of diversity as the Oankali and humanity co-exist in their restored world. Melissa Scott wrote another instructive book about sexuality and gender identity in her Shadow Man (1998). In this case, it is humanity itself that has changed its social structures as consequence of a mutagenic virus, which caused a dramatic upsurge in the number of intersexed births (of children with 'anomalous' genitalia). At the time of the virus outbreak, Hama was a remote human colony cut off from the rest of human society. Five centuries later, the Human Concord has adjusted to life with five sexes- male, female, herm, mem and fem. Hama hasn't, and only recognises two genders, with a traditionalist movement preaching harsh discrimination against its intersexed population, who face employment and educational discrimination, and must wear specific clothing to identify themselves- except that there's a sex industry for 'gender transgressors' that caters to the 'unorthodox' desires of 'normals.' Fortunately though, there's a modernist 'herms rights' movement fighting that injustice. Concord society looks pluralist and cosmopolitan, given that it recognises five sexes and nine possible sexual orientations based on that, but it is also rigid in its own way and insists on people staying in their sexual orientation once they decide what it is. However, at least people born into the three 'newer' sexes are not exposed to the trauma of intersex genital mutilation surgery, as sometimes still occurs in our own contemporary world. It's good to see LGBT writers exploring what the implications of changed attitudes toward sexuality, 'biological' sex and gender identity might be in the future. All of which makes the recent death of Octavia Butler from either a stroke or head injury all the more keenly felt. Bibliography: Octavia Butler's Xenogenesis Trilogy: Dawn:New York: Warner: 1988. Adulthood Rites: New York: Warner: 1989. Imago: New York: Warner: 1990. Melissa Scott: Shadow Man: New York: Tor: 1998. Also Recommended: Anne Fausto-Sterling: "The Five Sexes" Why Men and Women aren't Enough" The Sciences: March/April 1993: 20-24. Anne Fausto-Sterling: "The Five Sexes Revisited" The Sciences: July/August 2000: 19-23. Suzanne Kessler: Lessons from the Intersexed: New York: Rutgers University Press: 1998. Patricia Metzer: Alien Constructions: Science Fiction and Feminist Thought: Austin: University of Texas Press: 2006. Craig Young - 18th October 2006