How does "Bloodchild" by Octavia Butler approach race and gender?

In the short story "Bloodchild," Olivia Butler uses science fiction as a vehicle to explore issues relating to race and gender. In relation to the former, she deals with the possibility of love between different races. Indeed, Butler herself has characterized "Bloodchild" as "a love story between two different beings."

To be sure, the love that exists between Gan and T'Gatoi is by no means conventional. But perhaps that's the whole point. In detailing the unusual relationship between two very different beings, Butler is making a point about the problematic relations between white and Black people.

If there really is love in this relationship, then it is grounded in exploitation, as Gan is being used as a child-bearing entity. On one interpretation, this could be seen as a statement of the impossibility of interracial relationships without some degree of exploitation.

In relation to the topic of gender, Butler invites us to imagine what it would be like if a man had to go through the process of childbirth. This role reversal encourages us to develop a point of view that encompasses both male and female perspectives.

That Gan is the object of exploitation is crucial in this regard. Butler undoubtedly wants her male readers to identify with him in order to gain a better understanding of what it means to be a woman under the patriarchy. Gan's exploitation by the alien Tlics can be seen as a metaphor for how women are treated in a patriarchal society.

How does Octavia Butler's "Bloodchild" resonate considering her African American female identity?

Octavia Butler’s short story “Bloodchild” has a special resonance given that she was an African American woman because her identity helps readers to see the conflict between Terrans and the Tlic as representative of the oppressive dynamic between Black people and white people in the United States during the time of slavery. Taking Butler’s race into account, it’s possible to argue that the Tlic symbolize the masters and Terrans are their slaves. Like Black slaves in America, Terrans have little control over their bodies. They are at the mercy of the Tlic. Conversely, the Tlic depend on Terrans for survival. They need Terrans to reproduce their species just as the South relied on chattel slaves to maintain their economy and racialized society.

Keeping Butler’s race in consideration, it might also compel readers to see her short story as a comment on general race relations in the United States. One could contend that the Tlic and Terrans speak to how racism works separately from formal institutions like chattel slavery, the Black codes, or the Jim Crow laws. Terrans can move about, but only with the Tlic. If one reads details like this in the context of Butler’s racial identity, one might begin to think about how people of color continue to depend on proximity to whiteness for certain rights and privileges.