Genly Ai's Struggle to See Gethenians as He Sees Himself.

     His struggle to see these individuals as humans is quite hard due to their way of living.  Due to the different environment that these people live in, they have a different view in life.  As much as he'd like to understand them fully, it is futile to do so.  Since the Gethenians are gender neutral, it is hard to class them as male or female because in order to be one or the other, you need to have the gender's system.  So basically, this place is filled with beings that have some attributes of both men and women, some showing more than the other.  Genly, pronounced as Genry to them, describes a few people acting like a woman, but looking like a man.  When he met the king of Karhide for the first time, he stated that "He laughed shrilly like an angry women pretending to be amused." p-31  He can't really call the king a "he" due to the fact that these people don't have a gender at the very moment, but they are all basically refereed to as "he" because there isn't any other thing to call these people that look like a man, but have the gesture and grace of a women.  They only become fully male or female once a month while Genly is forever male.  The Gethenians find the fact that he's always male strange and perverted.  They do accept him as a person, but find him strange as he finds them strange.  If we were in his shoes, we'd feel the same way he is feeling in the story towards these people.  Even after all the time he has been on Winter, he has not fully understood their way of living.  It's hard to live a whole new lifestyle from which the one we are used to on Earth.  So if there comes a time that we can go to such a place, do pack a lot of supplies for the life ahead.  It sure is a cold and strange one to follow.