Have you considered the zipper tabs?

My biggest gripe with “Friday” is that it’s not really a novel – it’s a number of incidents that could, mostly be reshuffled into a different order without making it materially better or worse…

That execrable rape scene, though. Feh.

I loved Heinlein’s writing when I was growing up, but I have a hard time with him now. There’s no doubt that he’s in the vanguard of the genetic essentialists among SF authors, which strikes me as odd considering some of his other opinions, such as the words he put in Lazarus Long’s mouth, if I recall correctly: “Sin lies only in hurting others unnecessarily. All other “sins” are invented nonsense.”

But here are some other words he put in Lazarus’ mouth, from _Time Enough for Love_:

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[Minerva is suggesting novel life experiences for Lazarus.] “Lazarus, you could become female.”
…
[Lazarus replies.] “Minerva, I’m not sure what you mean. Surgeons have been turning inadequate males into fake females for more than two thousand years-and females into fake males almost as long. I’m not attracted by such stunts. For good-or bad-I am male. I suppose that every human has wondered how it would feel to be the other sex. But all the plastic surgery and hormone treatments possible won’t do it-those monsters don’t reproduce.”
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So, for Heinlein, “real” femaleness (and presumably maleness) lay in the ability to reproduce. Anyone who has examined trans issues more than superficially knows that that road leads to problems very quickly.

Lest anyone accuse me of confusing Heinlein’s opinion with one of Heinlein’s character’s opinions, here’s how Minerva responds;

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“I am not speaking of monsters, Lazarus. A true change in sex.”
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In Heinlein’s writing, his characters quibble over small issues so routinely that it’s distracting. But Minerva, a super-intelligent super-computer, is quite willing to adopt the “monster” terminology without challenge or qualification, and then contrast surgical transition with “true change of sex”, which sets up the dichotomy that surgical transition is a false change of sex.

The similarity of Friday’s experience and a generalized trans experience are striking, but they certainly weren’t intentional. Heinlein clearly drew the line at chromosomes or reproduction, and thus left out in the cold every trans person living in a setting where chromosomal intervention is impossible — which includes every trans person living in Heinlein’s day, and every trans person living now.

Denying trans people their humanity ( “monsters”) because they live in an era where medical practice doesn’t meet Heinlein’s requirements would certainly qualify as “hurting others unnecessarily”. Heinlein often decried racism and some other forms of discrimination in his writing, but he never did work out his issues with gender.

Grace