Genly Ai struggles to understand Gethenian culture because they are genderless. However, when experiencing kemmer, one Gethenian develops a female sexual characteristic and the other develops a male characteristic resulting in an offspring, and then they convert genderless again. Which is one of the things that Genly being from planet Terra, similar to Earth where they characterize themselves with genders, struggles with because he is used to seeing and talking to others using a pronoun he or she. After two year, Genly is still not able to get over the fact that Gethenians are unlike him and automatically wants categorize them. Which is still a struggle because he wants to assume their gender based on traits and descriptions that he would categorize female or male. On the other hand, Gethenians also can't over look Genly's differences thinking he's a pervert because he's a male at all times and to top it off, he stands out in a crowd (8). Genly Ai's attitudes reveal that the world he comes from is like Earth, full of diversity, specifically, a gender categorized society. As we read, we, humans, can connect with Genly's confusion because we are raised in a society where people have a set gender and are referred to as either he or she. Also, if humans where to come in contact with "aliens" we would understand the curiosity Genly has for Gethenian culture and vice versa. For example, when first reading the novel I imagined the movie E.T. and how when the alien reached Earth and Elliot took "him" home, (now I feel what Genly feels because I am unsure as to how to categorize E.T.) everyone had a reaction and then resulting in the government tracking him down. Overall, Genly tries to categorize Gethenians but since he is in their planet, he will always be considered the odd one.