MemoryAlpha editor refuses to change Adira's Gender to "Non-Binary"

See ya ig

 

We'd be happy to... except we really don't know who might be, and it's not something you typically ask someone. Anyone here is welcome to join us over at MA, though.

 

Adira was born human, but are they still human?

Metaphysically obviously still human

But if they they tested Adira for human traits, would they have adopted enough alien traits for them to fall out of a strict definition of fully human?

There was an Elementary where a bone marrow recipient, their blood type changed, and it was harder to figure out that they were the murderer.

 

Oh Guy, you bring some joy in this tiring debate.

 

As a rule, having a endosymbiotic relationship with an organism doesn't in and of itself cause speciation. Your cells' mitochondria and intestinal bacterial colonies say "hi", by the way...

 

Quite so. The double-standard is hypocritical. The rationalization of it being about canon is just that, a rationalization; it is not rational. It is about what the people writing and editing the articles are capable of processing both culturally and linguistically. The articles conform to these limitations.

It is never stated canonically that, if a Starfleet officer in the TOS era wears the miniskirt uniform, then they are female. In DS9 "Trials and Tribble-ations," when Dax said that "... women wore less," she did not say less what. The ability to process what she said and correctly interpret it, in the contexts both of the shows (TOS and DS9) and of the cultures in which they aired (decades apart) as referring to the miniskirt uniform that was in-universe acceptable for female officers, that is what is required to "get it." To those who get it, it is obvious.

But if we follow the letter of the canon rationalization, all those starship crew members wearing miniskirts in the background identified e.g. as unnamed females? Bogus. See, e.g., "A female yeoman" [https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wik...e_(NCC-1701)_operations_personnel#Yeoman_.232] etc.

The sad truth is that some people aren't ready or able to process sexuality on a higher plane than tiddies vs no tiddies, whereas others must. It doesn't mean that it has to end there.

Some people want to reinforce the historical limitations of language, while others want language and discourse to evolve to become more inclusive, to recognize people who historically would have been marginalized.

Bringing a non-binary person to the fore is obviously what the DISCO team was trying to accomplish with Adira. It's obvious to me, because thankfully, I get it, at least well enough to see. As a Star Trek fan, I think the conversation here is worth having, because clearly fandom, like all humanity, is still a work in progress.

 

Exactly. it seems the mentality here is “we can’t picture gender beyond a binary state, so we’ll resist any evolution against the idea.”

 

Hm... ...use "sex" instead of "gender"?

 

It’s just making excuses to justify treating the only non-binary character differently than any other character solely on the basis that they’re non-binary. Hiding it behind an anal retentive level of devotion to canon to justify it is extremely shitty. The character means something to people. They’re going to bring in new people to the fandom. They’re going to be a role model to kids who find Star Trek years from now just like all of us did and becomes as obsessed as most of us are. Now imagine how they feel coming to see the MA article to see shit like that, to see the reaction to the character from fans who failed to live up to what the show taught them, to see the open bigotry that’s appeared in this thread, it’s shameful. I’m trans, I was raised on Star Trek since birth. I came out on this board before I did with most people in my life. Seeing a character like Adira and Gray would have been amazing when I was young, it would’ve saved me from a lot pain. But from even before these characters appeared and the very notion of trans characters were brought up, it led to nothing but the most ignorant and awful opinions. Just vile ideas about why they should never do it or use it to just push their own awful ideas about trans people. Then the characters were first announced in casting reports and it brought out such hatred and it’s only continued to get worse. We can’t have a single thread about the characters without it turning into a cesspool. I dread having to go through these threads just because I have to read through all this shit. I just want to enjoy the fact that they exist.

The character is non-binary, which is beyond the gender binary. They’re using the correct term.

 

surely you've noticed that they use "physiology", probably meaning morphology/anatomy, to determine all the "genders" for every character page. in all those cases, using their metric, "sex" is closer to the truth than "gender".

 

Thanks for coming by, Renegade.

 

Those characters are also all cis, so sex and gender would be the same. I know the difference since I’ve had first hand experience and I don’t need a cis person to explain it to me.

 

I guess you don't mean to say that anatomical and morphological criteria (which MA is using) can determine gender and that gender and sex are the same...
And how do we know any of them are cis?

 

Your posts have helped me, at least.

 

Because they’re fictional characters who were written in a time when everyone was just assumed to be cis because that’s how it was written. Especially during the Berman era which was deeply homophobic and the notion of trans people hadn’t entered the public awareness outside of transphobic jokes, curiosities on documentaries, and Jerry Springer. That’s why they made a big deal of Adira and Gray being the first trans characters, because there weren’t any before. Those characters were written before. Do I have to explain linear time to you too?

 

The fact that it seems to help some people get it and the hope that it somehow makes the world slightly better for some trans person is what makes me keep doing this.

 

I have no fucking idea why people feel so threatened that some individuals don't consider themselves to be male or female, or why they'll expend so much energy arguing that these individuals aren't what they say they are.

It's like they think they're defenders of the faith or something.

 

If you didn't just "keep saying the same thing over and over again" and actually addressed the bias, hypocrisy and double standards people keep pointing out are inherent in the things you "keep saying over and over again" maybe this would have been a loss. As it stands, no.

 

Yeah, those are all pretty standard things to feel when you're on the wrong side of the argument I guess...