Post-Gender Posthumans in Ghost in the Shell and Serial Experiments Lain

Ghost in the Shell (1995) and Serial Experiments Lain (1999) are influential works in the cyberpunk genre that explore themes of gender and identity intersecting with technology. In the former, protagonist Major Motoko Kusanagi grapples with her cyborg existence and its meaning as the lines between humanity and technology blur when a sentient artificial intelligence with the ability to reprogram souls and memories emerges. A world so far ahead in its definitions of humanity may seem to be beyond gender as well, with Kusanagi seemingly fitting the definition of a post-gender cyborg in the manner of Donna Haraway’s A Cyborg Manifesto, but a closer examination using a Deleuzian lens suggests otherwise. In actuality, Kusanagi, comfortably, never challenges the audiences’ perceptions of gender the same way it may question humanity and technology. In contrast, a cyborg identity character that does question these norms is protagonist Lain Iwakura, of Serial Experiments Lain, by almost entirely bypassing the sexual themes that Ghost in the Shell attempts to address. Thus, despite not being a physical cyborg like Kusanagi, Lain presents a truer interpretation of a post-gender posthuman cyborg identity.