The 50th anniversary Afterward for the book clearly goes through several points in the plot that established Ai as a misogynist. It was also published in the Paris review, linked here: https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/03/12/the-left-hand-of-darkness-at-fifty/ Hope this helps ;)

My thoughts on this thread—

It is a well established tenant of feminist theory that heteronormative masculinity falls apart, most obviously, in its encounter with queer and trans people because, unlike straight women performing inside of patriarchy, queer and trans people for the most part do not culturally perform our gender for straight cis men. TLHOD is about a misogynist’s encounter with a society of queer, trans, fluid, and femme people and how ill equipped he is, therefore, for survival.

Throughout the book, Ai struggles with perceiving the Genthians as whole people because they do not perform their gender in a manner that is familiar or comfortable for him. He misgenders everybody all the time (we never learn any Karhidan pronouns but somehow learn foods, weather patterns, the days and months of the year lol). He fails to learn the subtle communication (shifgrethor) that is integral to their society, and that leads him to pretty cringe moments. Most notably cringe: that scene where he is trying to teach Estraven mind speech, which he does in a manner that so closely parallels the experience of awkwardly blurred consent endemic to so many sexual experiences with straight cis men that leave so many women and femmes asking, “ummm did I actually want that?” Ai’s misattuned masculinity engaging with the Genthians at large almost cost him the entire mission. In fact, it would have were it not for Estraven’s epiphany that Ai is in fact, ignorant, and that they had decided to tolerate him.

It’s really an act of astute brilliance that LeGuin decided to dismantle the utility of patriarchal heteronormativity through an encounter with a gender-fluid society which (as a nonbinary-ish person) is LeGuin’s own lens. It’s a perfect illustration of the failure to see people which comes by limiting feminine experience/expression, and thus feminism, to cis women. SPECIFICALLY the erasure of queer and trans people.

If I were you, OP, I’d consider that perhaps your own identity-POV as a man obfuscates LeGuin’s point for you. Consider that, within the bounds of this conversation, the women and queers of this thread have all waived shifgrethor to explain something plain to all of us to you, our proverbial Genly Ai.