I’ve been rereading the Dune series lately, and I want to ramble about how it handles gender. This is not a rage, nor a hyped up rant. I recognize it was written in the 60s, there are both positive and negative elements\~ I also haven’t finished the whole series, ever, so I can only speak for the first 3-4 books.
I have a theory that Frank Herbert may have been genderqueer in some way, because while his worldbuilding comes from a very cishet basis, major elements of the plot do explore gender as a more complicated thing. In the first book, the two major psychic factions are the all-male Mentats, and the all-female Bene Gesserit. Early on in the book, Paul is revealed to be receiving training in both disciplines, though he is only expected to become a Mentat. This does not go according to plan, as he ends up as something not entirely understood by the two factions.
Among the Bene Gesserit he is the Kwisatz Haderach, a title I still don’t entirely comprehend after 3 readings, and watching both the older adaptations. It frankly seems like he doesn’t have any actual ability beyond regular Bene Gesserit powers, but because he’s raised Masculine, he can understand some shady part of the human psyche women can’t. Supposedly, that gives him a better understanding of people, which feeds into his prescience, but none of the Bene Gesserit actually show significant difficulty understanding people, despite missing this aspect…
Among the Mentats he is understood slightly better, since they have a prescient sub-faction, the Navigators of the Spacing Guild. The abnormality comes from that Bene Gesserit understanding of People, where Mentats are based on more logical understanding. Navigators work their prescience on the pure math of the galaxy to chart safe courses between systems. Paul is able to use his prescience on the workings of people, predicting the rise and fall of the very galactic empire.
Paul’s very power in the world of Dune comes from his mixture of masculine and feminine traits, and this is not lost on him! When he starts recognizing the change, he mourns it, calls himself a freak, which in a very gender-binary world, is a pretty natural reaction! However, these traits are also what make him into the Dune Messiah!
Segue!\~
Dune Messiah introduced a new psychic faction, the Bene Tleilax, who are physically both Male AND Female. This is not a mixed group, but a homogenous group of intersex people. Mechanically, they are closely related to the Bene Gesserit, with training focused both on control of their bodies, and understanding of other people. However, they turn these tools around, using them in what the text may describe as a ‘masculine’ use, shapeshifting and deception. Where the Feminine uses psychic powers fore ultrafine control over muscle, nerves, and hormones, as well as the detection of other peoples’ intentions, the Genderfluid use it to improve their senses, rebuild dead bodies, and deceive others.
It is interesting to note that, despite the binary being expanded, Paul is still outside of the established groups. He does not show the chemical control of the Bene Gesserit, and when he tries it in the first book, he is comatose for a long period. He does not show the perfect deception of the Bene Tleilax, as even when believed dead in the third book, half the population suspects his alter ego is actually him. Among the Mentats he is also still unusual for his ability to properly function on Instinct and Emotion, which are generally the weaknesses of the male Mentat faction.
Children of Dune vaguely introduces the Pre-Born as a psychic faction, but not a gendered one. Only three of the Pre-Born are involved, the titular Children of Dune, Paul’s own twin children, and Paul’s sister. Children are an apt description of this group, as the Pre-born are marked by their precocious beginning, thrust into awareness before being born, effectively becoming reincarnations of all the memories shared with them.
This does not seem to affect gender very much, interestingly. Paul’s sister, Alia, trains herself for the female Bene Gesserit, and falls to the greatest weakness of the Pre-born, lack of identity, and is possessed, falling into the Abomination faction, a person who is completely overtaken by the genetic memory of another individual. Her possessor is the male villain from the first book, Baron Harkonnen, who in fact may have been Demi-male, since his new existence in a female body does not seem to trouble him overmuch. As a non-psychic, originally, his gender is not explored deeply, so there is room for interpretation.
This lack of identity is the hallmark of the Pre-Born, and so may be compared to Agender people. Ghanima, the sister of the twins, overcomes this by fabricating an identity for herself through autohypnosis. I am still midway through CoD, but my memory of how Leto handles it is by embracing his identity as a nebulous entity, and learns some tricks favored by the Bene Tleilax because of that.
I’m running out of steam, but I’m fascinated by the psychic factions and their interactions with gender, and I’m excited to read more of this series through this lens\~
by Pixel3r