I never understood how a sex change could make you able to conceive and carry a fetus, where the fook does the other X chromosome come from?
So I had problems with the original short story.
The main character started as female.
Now if they could only do an adaptation of Starship Troopers…
The short story’s biology doesn’t make sense. A sex change is a change in the gross anatomy of a body, not in the genetic structure. Someone can’t be both mother and father. (And there’s no claim in the story that a sex change was anything different from what was known at the time of the writing of the story.) The biological claims of the story are actually less plausible than the time travel aspects, as far as I’m concerned. The time travel in the story is no more or less plausible than in most time travel stories, although you could argue whether time travel makes sense in pretty much any such story.
Female, or hermaphroditic?
Word. And with powered armor, dammit!
Arguing about the story’s biology is like complaining about the refueling issues in Star Trek or analyzing the physics in a Terry Gilliam movie.
The whole point of the story - beginning, genesis and purpose, despite another recent discussion here - is an exploration of solipsism. Only the one person exists; s/he/it can make up any rules that fit h’or’sh’it’s needs and whims.
Actually, others do exist in the story - other patrons in the bar, fellow members of the Time Corps (or whatever it’s called), the doctor, etc.
See: story title, and source sentence near story’s end. Also any good definition of “solipsism.”
Female in outward appearance - hermaphroditic in terms of internal organs. Were Heinlein writing the story today, he’d probably toss in the term “chimera” Chimera (genetics) - Wikipedia.
I think you can argue about whether the biology in the story makes sense. I think that you can also argue about whether it’s a good story. I think that those two arguments are quite separate. I think that “- All You Zombies -” is one of the greatest science fiction stories ever written. I also think that the biology in the story is nonsense in terms of what Heinlein knew about sex changes when he wrote it in 1958. A sex change was simply a restructuring of the anatomy of a person, not a change in their genetic structure.
Andy L suggests that perhaps the character being a chimera (which you can read about in the link he gives) could explain what happened to them. I’m not convinced of that. In any case, that’s not what Heinlein intended. As I said, I more bothered by the biology than the time travel. We know nothing about how time travel could work, or even if it makes sense, so it’s difficult to complain about Heinlein’s treatment of the subject.
It’s been argued (perhaps most prominently by Alexei Panshin in Heinlein in Dimension) that a lot of Heinlein’s works are about solipsism. Look at “They” and “By His Bootstraps” particularly for this. Consider the quotation “Thou art God” from Stranger in a Strange Land.
Here’s a direct link to the trailer
Of course I'm going to see it. I'm just not expecting much from it.As I recall, it’s pretty clear that what Jane/The Unmarried Mother goes through isn’t a conventional sex change even in the story universe - Jane has inactive but apparently completely functional testicles internally that the surgeon just relocates (and activates somehow (yes, nonsense biology)). The story also apparently takes place in a world where “medical ethics” have never been invented, since the surgeon does the complete procedure without consulting with Jane at all.
It’s a way to explain how Jane has XX and XY chromosomes, but I agree it’s not what Heinlein intended.
By the way, Heinlein is often characterized as writing about characters who take decisive action and control their own fates, but in fact, he has several characters like Jane, who are buffeted by forces outside their control.
Andy L beat me to it, but yes, Heinlein did not simply claim the surgeons turned a functional XY male into a functioning XX female - Jane had “both organs” and was surgically rearranged. Still a little weak and fringey, especially from 50 years later, but again - the world we are seeing is entirely the viewpoint character’s to mold and bend as s/he sees fit.
Panshin is about as relevant to modern Heinlein studies as John Bunyan is to modern theological discussion. His few simplified insights have long since been eclipsed by more subtle and convincing analysis. There are far more than “three Heinlein characters,” unless that’s what you go looking for.
The biology in the story doesn’t match with human biology. But why should it? There’s really no justification to the claim that the main character is human.
From the story:
Agreed that it doesn’t fit today’s medical ethics, or even 1958’s medical ethics. Or human biology. Except, Joan’s biology doesn’t have to match human biology, since her parents aren’t necessarily what you’d expect from a normal human. Normal humans don’t have both sets of reproductive organs that can be used sequentially, but both Joan’s parents did.
I love Heinlein, so I will not be seeing this movie. I prefer books to movies; the things I like about the books I love best do not generally translate well on screen; and books do not translate into movies, and watching the butchered version of a book I love only leads to me annoying everyone. This is the dark and terrible lesson I was taught by Peter Jackson.
Amateur Barbarian writes:
> Panshin is about as relevant to modern Heinlein studies as John Bunyan is to
> modern theological discussion. His few simplified insights have long since been
> eclipsed by more subtle and convincing analysis. There are far more than “three
> Heinlein characters,” unless that’s what you go looking for.
I didn’t say that Panshin’s book was particularly good. I just said that he was someone who had argued that some of Heinlein’s works seem to be about solipsism. Since you seem to know a lot about modern criticism of Heinlein, why don’t you suggest some good modern criticism of him?
Exactly. She is both of her own parents and the person who manipulated her life to be the way it is (kidnapping her as a baby and introducing herself to himself as an adult). It’s a closed loop.
Call her an Ouroboros. Apparently that’s just how Ouroboros biology works.
Actually, the real question is why e’s so superficially human-- Human enough to pass for one, and even human enough that a human surgeon, poking around in es innards, would know what to do with the various parts (even if they are a mess).
Maybe humans look like Joan because that’s what she imagines we should look like.