So, no more barriers to (SPOILERS)

yes.. though I am not against females in major roles, just for me, the Doctor should remain male..I just think the current Gaiman script leaves open the possibility, which some future writer or director with the guts decides to utilize as a precedent could do..in that situation I would have to bow out as a fan of the show because to me it would change so much, however there are those who would argue against that assertion.. sighting that there is no difference.. but to me, yes, there is a difference between men and women..that is why we have different names to distinguish ourselves from the other sexes, in addition to the obvious physical differences..the ambiguous time lord can change from one to the other schtick sets up that a time lord is in fact multi-gendered which opens a whole new can of worms in itself, and in fact makes time lords now unisex in theory.. so what now, in describing the doctor we have to refer to him as "he-maybe a future she" when making our comments? I find the whole idea absurd and dislike it..

 

I tend to agree that the Doctor should remain male, as I think his masculine gender identity is just too essential a part of his nature to get rid of it.

I'm aware of no one who claims there are no differences between men and women. The question is how much or how little of our concepts of gender roles are social and how much are biological in origin.

No, it wouldn't mean that Time Lords are unisex (by which I take it you mean, "being both sexes simultaneously") or multi-gendered. It would mean that a Time Lord can change sex and change gender, not that they would hold both sexes or gender roles simultaneously.

Well, no, you'd refer to the Doctor as "he" because his sex is male and he self-identifies with the male gender role. You would no more refer to the Doctor as "he/maybe-a-future-she" just because he could, in theory, change his sex than you would to anyone in real life (since, in real life, people can, of course, change their sexes and gender identities).

 

Agreed, I wouldn't necessarily be opposed to a female Doctor, but, I think it'd be far better to have a spin off character, who could be introduced in Doctor Who. I was excited to find one of the Dr Who Unbound Audios was a Female version of the Doctor, but, i don't like what they did with it.

If they did decide to have a female regeneration, I'd suggest they plan on it being only a single series to test the waters. If well rec'd, then let her continue, if not well rec'd regenerate her in the Christmas Special. (Would that unsurety cause a Production delay, or could the following series' scripts be planned by considering both scenarios and conduct a search for the next male Doctor in advance, just in case?)

 

Re: So, no more barriers to a Female Doctor, then.

And Nine said the process was dodgy and that you never know what you're gonna end up with - "I might have two heads, or no head!" I figured then that Girl was an option.

 

Re: So, no more barriers to a Female Doctor, then.

^ Indeed, regeneration has always been portrayed as a imperfect and complicated process.

 

I'd like to see a female Doctor done in a way that wasn't a joke (see "Curse of the Fatal Death" or "Exile"). I'd like to think it can be done and done well.

 

I wouldn"t mind an alternate universe doctor who was female, and met the male version of ours, in which our doctor promptly states he prefers to remain his male format.. thus solidifying the premise for future would be radical directors who may stoop to gimmickery to sell mediocre scripts.. assuming no other writers can top the good stories we now get.. with the exception of the flying fish special.. I was kinda put off by that..

 

So Time Lords can regenerate into a different species but not a different sex of the same species? I'd have thought that the different species was the actual slippery slope.

 

THIS is my worry about a female Doctor showing up. That it would be run for laughs and then "fixed" somehow.

 

the chameleon arch changes a time lord DNA to resemble human, but at the core they are still time lords.. the regeneration energy bottled up in the fog watch reverts their DNA back to Time lord after opening..that change is artifical and makes sense..

changing genders to me just seems silly and unusual.. the concept of marriage to time lords would seem trivial, being that one day you could wake up to your partner as a man, or woman..and find yourself no longer interested assuming you don't want to swing in another direction..

 

I'm not talking about the fob watch. Time Lords can regenerate into different species -- it has been established. Take the blue-skinned Romana, for example.

 

Gender and sex are two completley different things. Depending on your culture, gender can be pretty easy.

Now changing your sex, there's the clincher.

 

I take it you don't have a lot of experience interacting with people who are transgendered or transsexual?

I would find it hard to think that a Time Lord would just arbitrarily change his or her sex without discussing it with his or her spouse first. Not much of a marriage if you have so little respect for your spouse when making major personal decisions like that.

Of course, that's also based on the assumption that Time Lords perceive marriage the way Humans do. Maybe for Time Lords, the concept of sexual orientation doesn't exist, and marriage is only about love, and not sex. Maybe a typical male Time Lord would have no problem whatsoever with the idea of waking up to discover that his husband is now his wife. Maybe a typical Time Lady would have no problem whatsoever with the idea of waking up the next morning to discover that her husband is now her wife. Maybe a typical Time Lord would have absolutely no problem whatsoever with waking up the next morning to discover that his wife is now his husband. Maybe a Time Lady would have no problem whatsoever with the idea of waking up to discover that her wife is now her husband.

ETA:

Certainly that character you quote in your signature suggests that Time Lords aren't necessarily as obsessed with their bodies and taking their identities from their bodies as Humans are. "Free of these bodies?" Guess he's not too attached to the idea of being male, then.

 

valid points...

and no I haven't had a lot of experience interacting with people who are transgendered or transsexual

 

There are lots of things both in this universe and the fictional ones that can happen. I'm perfectly comfortable with the idea that this can happen. Pretty dubious over whether it will in the foreseeable future. Which makes all this a purely hypothetical discussion.

 

Not that different from finding out your partner is the same sex as before, but with a different appearance and personality. I mean, one day you're married to Peter Davison, and the next to Colin Baker?

And it's not that trivial. If you're a Time Lord without the Doctor's sort of lifestyle, it would be what, a century or two between regenerations, until you die of old age or a fatal-level accident? Human marriages end if one partner dies of old age or an accident, too. It's just for Time Lords, after a (human) lifetime together they can end the marriage after regeneration, or else spend another lifetime together if they still want each other after the regeneration.

 

Well, since there's only 2 Regenerations left, and we don't know what exactly the Valleyard thing means (in between regenerations 11 and 12), we're already up against the wall, so, I think we can already assume something will be done, wether it be the 502 regenerations spoken of in Sarah Jane or if they simply find some way to legitimately give him more.

Hey, now there's a possibility for getting around the events of the Doctor's death in The Impossible Astronaut, the Valleyard (or other "in between" is the one who gets killed)

One would think, though, that the Showrunner at the time we need a 13th regeneration, would want to milk the drama of at least going through the motions that Doctor 13 really believes he will die forever, and then be amazed when he regenerates, instead of fading away into his final sleep

 

A female Doctor would be death to the ratings. There's nothing so conservative with a small 'c' as the British television watching public. Points of View would be inundated with letters from Mr Angry from Purley, Sir Tufton Bufton and Lord Harrumph.

 

I don't think any of them watch Doctor Who. They're all lying in a darkened room, calling for their nurses after Don't Scare The Hare.

Besides, There's be the "More BBC, More!" brigade against them.