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Captain pl1ngpl0ng
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Hehe...yeah i kinda belive thats true.
I only remember one character, no idea if that was a real trans, but that role was kinda powerful,.. What show was it again.... A motorsycle gang serie...
The lack of national diversity in the Discovery cast...
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I only remember one character, no idea if that was a real trans, but that role was kinda powerful,.. What show was it again.... A motorsycle gang serie...
The only role I consider positive and actually played by a trans person was Nomi on Sense8 and it’s been cancelled.
I hate to say this, but in the Trek world, where gender reassignment can be done in a few hours (and be fully reversible if need be) I'm not sure if trans people per se would exist. That is that as soon as the first indications of gender dysphoria took place it would be immediately dealt with (probably in early childhood) so trans status wouldn't be that salient.
I'm sure they would just perform the surgery and update the person's birth records accordingly. Considering Starfleet is encountering species with multiple genders, or no genders i doubt that gender dysphoria would be an issue. I'm sure there are plenty of starfleet officers, who are no longer the sex they were at birth, we just haven't seen them yet. Hopefully we do at some point.
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Captain pl1ngpl0ng
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Sons Of Anarchy! That's the serie..
And about how flat and dead the relationship between Ash and Burnham is, if they got half the intensity that those two actors in SOA had, then i could maby believe in that "love-story".
Umm no. The fact that their sex didn’t match their gender makes them trans. They don’t magically become cis because of some magical surgery. The whole idea seems like a shitty excuse to ignore trans people and especially trans actors by claiming we’ve been “cured” in the future, farther erasing them.
That occurred to me when writing about Morgan Kelly (security chief of the Essex in the 2160s), whom I've portrayed as a trans woman in my Rise of the Federation novels. So I thought of an explanation for why her colonial upbringing and life experience would've delayed her realization of her true gender until adulthood.
Still, maybe you're defining "trans" too narrowly. The flipside might be that if gender reassignment is that easy, it might lead to an increased embrace of genderfluidity. It seems to me that giving people more options is likely to result in more diversity, not less.
I’d assume that there would still be social pressure and pressure from families in the future. It’s extremely likely it would still take someone to adulthood to accept they were trans. But even though some people know from an early age, others so take a long time to even realize something isn’t right. We’re all born assuming how we live is completely normal, some believe that everyone feels like them but never says it. So they go their entire life without questioning it.
How did the nationality of the Discovery crew turn into a gender thing featuring Sons of Anarchy? 
The future that I see people here talking about will have nationalities much more homogenized (except for a Frenchman with an English accent). We don't know what the future will look like.
I can see descendants of Trek fans of the 2000s demanding that the world be changed to fit the "historical documents."
Really. Look around you. The seeds of that are being planted now.
But people, it's just a TV show.
:smh:
The future that I see people here talking about will have nationalities much more homogenized (except for a Frenchman with an English accent). We don't know what the future will look like.
I can see descendants of Trek fans of the 2000s demanding that the world be changed to fit the "historical documents."
Really. Look around you. The seeds of that are being planted now.
But people, it's just a TV show.
:smh:
It’s easy to be dismissive when you’ve seen people like yourself for so long you no longer question it.How did the nationality of the Discovery crew turn into a gender thing featuring Sons of Anarchy?
The future that I see people here talking about will have nationalities much more homogenized (except for a Frenchman with an English accent). We don't know what the future will look like.
I can see descendants of Trek fans of the 2000s demanding that the world be changed to fit the "historical documents."
Really. Look around you. The seeds of that are being planted now.
But people, it's just a TV show.
:smh:
If I may I’d like to recommend the Greek movie Strella AKA A Woman’s Way. Mina Orfanou, the lead actress of the film is a real trans woman. On the downside she portrays a trans sex worker and there are elements of the plot that may be disturbing for some viewers.
I dunno. I tend to see the Trek world as pretty much akin to Iain Banks's Culture series in regards to gender. Gender reassignment is simple and reversible, so people often switch back and forth over the course of their life just because they feel like it. Hell, I identify as 100% cis male, but if I could step into a doctors' office for a few hours, come out looking exactly as I would have if I was born with a female body, and could switch back at any time, I assuredly would have tried out being a woman for at least awhile in my 20s to see what it was like. And I'm not even the product of a 23rd/24th century culture, where I presume transphobia is dead.
Regardless, as I said in my first post, I said that more aptly trans status wouldn't be salient. Trans status became a salient point of identity because we live in a transphobic culture. If we lived in a culture without transphobia, it might be accorded as little import as being left handed or having blue eyes.
Of course, Trek has never really been meant to be an accurate depiction of what the far future would be like, but to provide a mirror on contemporary issues. To the extent that this is true I absolutely agree there should be a trans depiction in Trek.
The question is though, how to depict it? I mean, presuming transphobia is dead, you'd basically just see an actor/actress who at some point showed some holos of themselves as a child presenting as the other gender, and then an "oh yeah..." and then it would be dropped entirely. To deal with the complexities of trans issues, you'd probably have to have an alien or splinter human culture who was transphobic to contrast the Federation's acceptance with the condemnation of the othered culture of the week.
And the nonbinary/genderqueer population who do not transition and take to neutral expressions?
Skants.
Presumably yes. Although of course it's never been depicted as such, but I blame a lot of that on Berman being a social reactionary.
Trust me, not as comfortable as they look. I suppose that was their best offer in 1987 though.
As in being lazy and playing it so safe it was a sleeping aid half the time, yes.
It’s precisely the approach taken over in Mass Effect, and it got shot to pieces by T’Internet. I don’t think there is anything approaching a consensus on the ‘right’ way to handle it in Space Opera. Knights of Sidonia maybe.
I don’t know, a trans character played by a trans actor would be a nice start. There does not need to be some plot to deal with it. There was never a plot to explain why Uhura was the communications officer, she was just there. You seem to be thinking this would be a one off story, I want a cast member there for the entire run.
It wasn't that long ago that left-handedness was seen as an aberration that needed to be "cured" through abusive "therapies" that left their victims psychologically scarred for life. And I wouldn't be surprised if there was a time when blue-eyed people were persecuted, because the past sucked.
Well, the best way to do it would be to hire a trans actor or actress, even if the character's trans identity doesn't come up overtly in the story. After all, this isn't just about representation in fiction, it's about inclusion in the actual workplace. Include trans people as actors, writers, producers, etc. and the characters will follow. Same as with any other group of people.
After all, LGBTQ themes in science fiction can be expressed through metaphor and fantastic analogy. Yes, sometimes that's done by cis/hetero people as a way to pay lip service to inclusion, as in TNG: "The Outcast," say, but when it's done by LGBTQ creators using allegory to express their own distinct viewpoint and experiences, it can have a lot more power and authenticity and enrich the creative process. For instance, Sense8 is co-created by trans director Lana Wachowski and includes a trans lead character played by a trans actress, and it deals with that in a very honest, authentic, and personal way; but it also uses that experience to inform the SF allegory of the sensates, people from diverse walks of life who become psychically joined and get to experience otherness directly, both the otherness of their fellow sensates of different sexes, races, orientations, etc. and their collective otherness as a persecuted minority. It's more than just including the odd token character, it's about using that perspective to inform the whole creation, to express that experience both literally and allegorically.
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