Hmm, I read fantasy a lot more than sci-fi. I did a quick check for books I read recently and all sci-fi ones are by male authors (excluding Becky Chambers). The most recent is "Daros" by Dave Dobson which fits your other criteria.
I once studied the map of Charon and asked myself who is Octavia Butler? Guess what Xenogenesis was about. Next I recalled Cherryh's Foreigner series and then searched my mind palace for the works of Le Guin and found The Left Hand of Darkness and The Word for World Is Forest.
Xenogenesis, now being published under the title Lilith’s Brood, is about colonization, coercion, identity. Missing all of that because sex—and more importantly the changing nature of the humans’ desires—plays a large role in the work is missing the forest for the trees.
* "Legends & Lattes" by Travis Baldree
* "Dreadgod" by Will Wight
* "Tongue Eater" by John Bierce
* "The Umbral Storm" by Alec Hutson
* "Soul Relic" by Samuel Hinton
* "The Weirkey Chronicles" by Sarah Lin
* "The Eldest Throne" by Bernie Anés Paz
* "The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet" by Becky Chambers (reread)