Questionable Genders

To a lot of people gender seems to be one of the most important things in society that is taught to children. In this story, "And Salome Danced" gender seems to be ambiguous for some of the characters that are involved. The author, Kelley Eskridge wants to enforce the fact that gender is not the most important thing and that character can be built up without it.
Throughout reading the story I was really not sure whether or not Mars was a female or a male. The different characters within the story seem to not give clues on the gender or to point to anything that would give insight to the fact. It is totally up to the reader to determine whether or not Mars is a man, woman, trans, lesbian, gay, etc. When Mars addresses Jo and her gender ambiguity they state, “I don’t really care how they pee or whether they shave under their chins. Gender’s not important.” Throughout the story Mars seems to reinforce that statement by never exactly reveling their gender.
The character of Jo literally changes genders throughout the story. You can never really be sure whether she is a woman that had dressed up as a man one day or vice-versa. When Lucky and Mars talk about her they are not sure how to address her. This makes Mars highly uncomfortable because of the attraction between the two of them. The scene of Jo making love to Mars shows how uncomfortable it is, “Jo making love to me until I gasp and then she begins to change, to change, until it is Joe with me, Joe on me.” Jos ambiguity bothers people that are involved with her because she does not fill a gender.
The author Kelley Eskridge makes it a habit to make her stories characters gender neutral. Her other story "Dangerous Space", has the character Mars as well. Mars in that story also does not have a specific gender. Eskridge seems to enjoy having her readers be able to choose what gender that her characters are. Or it could be the fact that gender is not supposed to be important and having a gender neutral character makes a statement to societies over analyzing of gender as a whole. It relates to the story "Love Might Be Too Strong a Word", because it challenges the way we view gender and makes us realize how uncomfortable we are when we are not able to use the pronouns we have been taught to use our whole life.
We as humans have made gender so important to us. Like Theresa had mentioned in her blog we don’t know how to address people that people that do not claim a gender. Through Eskridges stories she makes a statement that we have to learn how to bend the rules we have set for ourselves as a gender focused society.