Transsexuals in Star Trek

[Christopher]

The relevant dialogue from "Profit and Lace," from Chakoteya's transcript site:

ROM: Doctor Bashir certainly did a wonderful job on you. I'd call the operation a complete success.
LEETA: It must have been a very delicate procedure.

LEETA: There go his hormones.
ROM: You mean, her hormones.

Also, when Brunt attempts to out Quark as a male in disguise:

(With his back to us, Quark opens his dress to show Nilva his full monty.)
QUARK: Now are you sure?
NILVA: Oh, completely.
BRUNT: I tell you that is not a female.
NILVA: Well, she's close enough for me.

Sure sounds like gender reassignment surgery to me, complete with hormone therapy.

 

[kirkfan]

How is "Profit and Lace" special proof here? Quark just donned a fairly extensive costume and got some hormones to match. We didn't learn that he would, say, fool a tricorder (Brunt sounded as if he knew Quark would fail, he just never got a word in edgewise) or be able to have children the way Ferengi females do. (Although UFP-level medicine probably should allow males to bear children in various ways, too.)

Timo Saloniemi

I'm pretty sure Quark had a full on sex change operation - whether it extended to the point that he could've conceived and born children we don't know, but he definitley had a female Ferengi body, not some kind of costume.

It's made quite clear when he disrobes in front of Brunt and Sluggo cola guy.

 

[Timo]

But that's what I mean by "costume" - feminized earlobes, fake boobs, penis temporarily put in a jar or hidden inside skin. That's little different from what you can purchase from a novelty shop. Nothing suggests the sort of biological changes that would define femininity in the broader medical sense - the sort that should be within the means of UFP (and Ferengi, and Cardassian) medicine.

Whether there was any hormonal treatment involved, or whether Quark just got caught in the role, it's difficult to tell. All the dialogue about hormones could certainly be taken as mere humorous banter.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[sonak]

I presume that, in the utopia of the Federation, gender distinctions will be considered so unimportant that no-one would bother.

Huh? Why is it "utopian" to not have gender distinctions? Distinction is not equivalent to discrimination.

 

[kirkfan]

But that's what I mean by "costume" - feminized earlobes, fake boobs, penis temporarily put in a jar or hidden inside skin. That's little different from what you can purchase from a novelty shop. Nothing suggests the sort of biological changes that would define femininity in the broader medical sense - the sort that should be within the means of UFP (and Ferengi, and Cardassian) medicine.

Whether there was any hormonal treatment involved, or whether Quark just got caught in the role, it's difficult to tell. All the dialogue about hormones could certainly be taken as mere humorous banter.

Timo Saloniemi

It's been strongly implied that he underwent hormonal treatment as well. When he hugged with Odo, for example! An unaltered Quark would never have asked that.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I guess the part I don't understand is why our culture has a need to put things into either the male 'Bucket' or the female 'Bucket'. Can't you just be you? It seems like we're applying archaic gender ideas to modern social constructs that don't need them.

Why can't you just be a heterosexual male with some traits that society has artificially placed in the female 'Bucket' and have it just be who you are without needing to convince others to react to you in an archaically gender-typed way? Shouldn't people react to you based on who you are as an individual and not whether they perceive you as male or female? (If intention of sex is not a factor).

If a man dresses like a woman, why even label it 'Transvestite', why not just say this is how this individual prefers to dress?

Also isn't there a correlation with chronic depression?

 

[Kilana2]

Also isn't there a correlation with chronic depression?

In what way?

 

[Misfit Toy]

Keep the discussion Trek-related, please.

 

[T'Girl]

If people can be altered to seem Klingon then why not another gender.

Depends on what they want. Do they want to seem to be another gender, or do they want to be the gender they already are and have the physical form to match?.

Not the same thing.

 

[Christopher]

I guess the part I don't understand is why our culture has a need to put things into either the male 'Bucket' or the female 'Bucket'. Can't you just be you? It seems like we're applying archaic gender ideas to modern social constructs that don't need them.

You can be whatever you want, but other people want to be something else. Just because you can't see things through their eyes, that doesn't make them wrong. It just makes them different.

Also isn't there a correlation with chronic depression?

Only if you're prohibited from being what you feel most comfortable being. The depression isn't the result or cause of having an atypical sexual or gender identity, it's the result of being stigmatized for it or prevented from embracing it.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Not judging, just trying to understand something I don't and expand my horizons.

Like, I don't see your biological sex as either 'Correct' or 'Incorrect', just a scientific observation. And I see gender as more of a cultural construct used to justify patriarchal social structures than a facet of your core identity.

But I guess you can say, if you're allowed to be whatever you want, aren't other people allowed to interpret it however they want?

And I don't think chronic depression is the cause of having a different gender identity, but I haven't heard a lot of cases of it being cured by changing your sex to the one closer to your inner feelings either.

Back on topic, I would think in the 24th century people just live with each other as they are without passing any kind of judgment. But I think they do it by transplanting cloned organs, not through genetic changes.

 

[Christopher]

^But as we've said, people who get sex changes don't do it because they're afraid of being judged by others; it's because their biology doesn't match their own images of themselves and what they want to be physically as well as emotionally. As I already said, if someone is comfortable having a physiology that's different from their behavioral gender, that's fine, and there are plenty of people like that. But that's just one possibility. It works for some people but not others.

You know, there are college courses on human sexuality, and plenty of textbooks for same. You could audit a class, or borrow a text from your local library. And I'm sure there's material online for people who are curious about these questions. If you really want to find out, there are plenty of ways you can get more detailed information than you'll find on a Star Trek discussion board.

 

[borgboy]

Maybe start a general Trans thread in the Neutral Zone forum? I'd continue to follow the discussion there.

 

[kirkfan]

I think a growing number of people are bothered by the homophobia of the whole franchise. In fact, it would have been a good idea in the last two movies, to have made one of the regulars gay, Chekov for example. He could have taken advantage of the split timeline to come out of his closet.

 

[Captain Robau]

Transexuals should be treated the same in our universe as the trek universe - as equals and people who are trying to accomplish what they feel they should be.

They should be allowed to make their change - after a psychological evaluation to make sure it is something they truly want. After, they would be treated as the sex they are. I really don't see anyone having an issue with it. If someone was born a man and they feel they should be a woman, then let them make that decision and be happy with who they are.

It is about realizing who you are as a person and trying to be the best person you can be. Even in this day in age, I can't see why people would object to it. It is who they are born to be and they are just trying to achieve that.

 

[Timo]

I think a growing number of people are bothered by the homophobia of the whole franchise.

This is sort of in the eye of the beholder, though. Star Trek in general leaves many things unsaid, because they would be expensive, complicated or controversial. Filling the gaps is possible in many ways, all of them up to the audience to decide.

Say, there aren't all that many heterosexual relationships in Star Trek, either. Trek characters just don't stay together much. Partners come and go, but when they don't, we are none the wiser: there's nothing to help us tell whether a character is actually happily married, and to whom, unless it somehow becomes a plot point. Even main characters may suffer from "closet marriages" - Sulu, say. Or Spock, after a fashion. No way of telling whether those are homosexual, heterosexual, zoophilic, paedophilic, xenophilic, panupunitoplastic or whatever.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[kirkfan]

I think a growing number of people are bothered by the homophobia of the whole franchise.

This is sort of in the eye of the beholder, though. Star Trek in general leaves many things unsaid, because they would be expensive, complicated or controversial. Filling the gaps is possible in many ways, all of them up to the audience to decide.

Say, there aren't all that many heterosexual relationships in Star Trek, either. Trek characters just don't stay together much. Partners come and go, but when they don't, we are none the wiser: there's nothing to help us tell whether a character is actually happily married, and to whom, unless it somehow becomes a plot point. Even main characters may suffer from "closet marriages" - Sulu, say. Or Spock, after a fashion. No way of telling whether those are homosexual, heterosexual, zoophilic, paedophilic, xenophilic, panupunitoplastic or whatever.

Timo Saloniemi

That's not good enough. In real life you can't live among regular people without acknowledging someone's gayness at one point of the day or the other. It's become part of normal life, for a long time at that. You have to live in a cave or be openly homophobic not to know that. I don't see why ST that's purportedly about the future can't even acknowledge the present, or even the past for that matter.

 

[T'Girl]

Transexuals should be treated the same in our universe as the trek universe - as equals and people who are trying to accomplish what they feel they should be.

Problem is, we don't know that transsexuals in the Trek-verse are treated as equals.

They should be allowed to make their change - after a psychological evaluation to make sure it is something they truly want.

While pre-change counciling is a good idea, being psychologically evaluated sounds like the decision to be able to proceed is in someone elses hands. Which wouldn't be right.

 

[kirkfan]

Transexuals should be treated the same in our universe as the trek universe - as equals and people who are trying to accomplish what they feel they should be.

Problem is, we don't know that transsexuals in the Trek-verse are treated as equals.

They should be allowed to make their change - after a psychological evaluation to make sure it is something they truly want.

While pre-change counciling is a good idea, being psychologically evaluated sounds like the decision to be able to proceed is in someone elses hands. Which wouldn't be right.

I agree with you on that one. It should be no one's damn business but the persons's making the change.

 

[Christopher]

Problem is, we don't know that transsexuals in the Trek-verse are treated as equals.

I don't see any reason to imagine they aren't. After all, the Federation includes species with different forms of sexuality. Trill can change sex, Andorians have four-partner weddings (which the novels have interpreted to mean they have four sexes), etc. The Federation is built on diversity, so it would be odd if they had a problem with trans people.