We need something different to consider, so I will nominate
Looking Through Lace by Ruth Nestvold.
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Amazon US /
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Length: 79 Pages
Quote:
As the only woman on the first contact team, xenolinguist Toni Donato expected her assignment on Christmas would be to analyze the secret women's language -- but then the chief linguist begins to sabotage her work. What is behind it? Why do the men and women have separate languages in the first place? What Toni learns turns everything she thought they knew on its head.
Originally published in Asimov's in 2003, "Looking Through Lace" was a finalist for the Tiptree and Sturgeon awards. The Italian translation won the Premio Italia for best work of speculative fiction in translation in 2007.
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The Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award is an annual award given to the "best short science fiction." The James Tiptree, Jr. Literary Award is "an award encouraging the exploration & expansion of gender" and is named for one of the the pen names for Alice Bradley Sheldon. Mrs. Sheldon was an "American science fiction author better known as James Tiptree, Jr., a pen name she used from 1967 to her death. She was most notable for breaking down the barriers between writing perceived as inherently "male" or "female"—it was not publicly known until 1977 that James Tiptree, Jr. was a woman."
Disclosure: This is in Kindle Unlimited which generally means the e-book is only available on Amazon but it should be easy to convert to another format in Calibre. It is available to purchase (rather than borrow thru KU) at $2.99 right now. There is a paper edition available at B&N.