LHoD: Wave One

We all know that Gethen is very different from the way our world works so as readers so we can only imagine what it must be like for someone like Genly Ai experiencing it all first hand.
His attitude towards the people of Gethen is very understandable seeing as how he's trying his best to comprehend the fact that these people are not only neither gender but can be either gender and it's just so different from what he knows that even though he tries he best to view them as they are, he can't help but give them a gender. It's hard to really lock into the brain. Even as I read now I can't help but subconsciously give the characters genders by the smallest details about them. It's something that takes practice I guess. Although.. I'm not sure practice will even work for this situation because Genly has been on that planet for two years now.  On top of that, not only is Genly having trouble with understanding the Gethenians and the way they are but he also has to deal with them not completely comprehending the way that he himself is. They not only think it's strange but also look down upon the way he is by the way they just refer to people like him as perverts. I can imagine this adds frustration to everything else that's already going on with him on that planet seeing as how he is making an effort to understand and respect the way that Gethenians are while they just label him negatively and go from there. Overall I feel like Genly is just doing the best he can to try and see the Gethenians the way they see themselves even if its still a process going on after two years. It kind of shows that he can more patient than the people of Gethen when it comes to this at least which is also ironic considering how slow everything else is on that planet.