Or it could be more like, "I may look caucasian, but my mother/father is black/Mexican/Puerto Rican/Vietnamese/etc., and fuck you and your racist diatribe"--a conversation I've had with surprising frequency.
Homosexual Rights in the Star Trek Universe
- Thread starter The Overlord
- Start date
- Status
Or it could be more like, "I may look caucasian, but my mother/father is black/Mexican/Puerto Rican/Vietnamese/etc., and fuck you and your racist diatribe"--a conversation I've had with surprising frequency.
Damn, Lieutenant O'Rouke gets all the hunky, intelligent men!
Damn, Lieutenant O'Rouke gets all the hunky, intelligent men!
Yeah, but they often die tragically or have to return to their home worlds eventually.
And don't get me started about the times you have to push them in front of a truck to restore the timeline . . . .
(But, you know, just to belabor the point, it's worth noting that possibly the most celebrated TREK episode of all time revolves around the fact that Kirk falls in love with Edith Keeler, thereby "pointing out" his sexual orientation.)
The Federation Department of Temporal Investigations has only allowed us to view the logs of heterosexual captains thus far. They're saving the others to show us when we, as a culture, are more advanced.Come on Nightdiamond, you've seen the show, main character's heterosexuality is regularly being "pointed out." Pike's hetero attraction to Vina in the first pilot, Kirk's speaking of nearly marrying a woman in the second pilot, Riker and Deanna's past relationship in TNG pilot, Sisko's marriage to a woman in DS9's pilot, Janeway's relationship to a man in VOY's pilot.
Exactly. The trick is not to treat it as an "issue," but as simply a matter of who each individual is attracted to--or have holodeck romances with.
If even a gelatinous blob like Odo can have romantic subplots, I'm sure Lieutenant Jack O'Rourke of the Starship Endeavor can fall for that hunky male scientist from Gamma Omega VIII with having to make a big deal of it.
If someone is born gay and it is not a choice then wouldn't that mean it is a genetic or chemical abnormality? If, like someone said above, it is due to hormones while in the womb then wouldn't 24th century technology be able to fix that?
I'm not trying to be offensive but it seems to me if the doctor did his checkup on the mother and saw the hormones were out of whack in the mothers' uterus he could just pull out the hypo spray or whatever and viola, hormone level fixed.
Would 24th century society view it as something that needed to be 'cured?' Is being gay like having blue versus brown eyes or something like having cerebral palsy? The former obviously there is nothing wrong either way, the latter you would of course want to "fix" your baby to make him/her normal.
So there is a real chance that homosexuality would not even exist and have been "cured" in the 24th century.
Disclaimer: Not trying to be offensive just bringing up something to think about/discuss. If I have been offensive please let me know why/how.
I'm not trying to be offensive but it seems to me if the doctor did his checkup on the mother and saw the hormones were out of whack in the mothers' uterus he could just pull out the hypo spray or whatever and viola, hormone level fixed.
Would 24th century society view it as something that needed to be 'cured?' Is being gay like having blue versus brown eyes or something like having cerebral palsy? The former obviously there is nothing wrong either way, the latter you would of course want to "fix" your baby to make him/her normal.
So there is a real chance that homosexuality would not even exist and have been "cured" in the 24th century.
Disclaimer: Not trying to be offensive just bringing up something to think about/discuss. If I have been offensive please let me know why/how.
This has been discussed before on the board.
Being gay is not a disorder. Disorders are conditions that require treatment. Being gay isn't a condition that requires treatment. That's pretty much the end of it, right there.
Come on Nightdiamond, you've seen the show, main character's heterosexuality is regularly being "pointed out." Pike's hetero attraction to Vina in the first pilot, Kirk's speaking of nearly marrying a woman in the second pilot, Riker and Deanna's past relationship in TNG pilot, Sisko's marriage to a woman in DS9's pilot, Janeway's relationship to a man in VOY's pilot.
Oh yes, because that's the 'norm', you see. There's nothing either usual or unusual about a trek character expressing heterosexuality, because it's considered the 'default' behavior. OTOH, homosexuality was a social issue that now, is no longer an issue. So for a character to say or show they are homosexual, it would be seen as unnecessary, because it's a non issue.
Why announce you are gay when a heterosexual doesn't announce they're heterosexual?
I've seen this particular argument a lot, and there is some logic to it.
But--- if you leave the things the way they are, homosexuals are going to be invisible in Trek society. Rarely or never mentioned. They are completely accepted. They're just not there to be seen.
Just like Trek characters never talk about bathrooms or birth control. Or soda pop, or rap or grunge music. That's the catch-22.
When Worf told Beverly the new host had arrived, she said, send him in'.
She was all smiles until she saw the new host was a female. Then her smile dropped and her attitude changed. She was clearly expecting a male.
It might have been a harsh thing for Beverly, because it might have hurt the perception of her being an enlightened, open minded 24th century woman.
Because of this, Beverly Crusher can be seen being disappointed that the new host wasn't a male. She can call off the relationship.
Beverly Crusher can give a speech about the limits of love.
But Beverly Crusher can not been seen saying that she doesn't like females and that she's only into males.
Even though it her preference, and her right, it would affect the perception of how 24th century humans are--
Catch 22
I understand your defensiveness, but I think we're among friends here, for the most part, and galad2003 is just pointing out that it might be possible to "cure", and even gay people who have been discriminated against because of being gay might not want their kids to deal with that. And lots of things that don't require treatment get it anyway - botox, erectile dysfunction, cosmetic use of contacts, using plastic surgery to give women back "breasts" after having theirs removed due to cancer: none of these are necessary, strictly speaking.
So if we come to a point where parents can screen for diseases and choose traits like eye and hair color and so on, would they choose not to have their kids be gay? I would be against that, and I think enough people would be that there would still be gay people, anyway, but some parents might, and it's worth consideration in Trek, even if only to explore why that sort of thing is a bad idea. IDIC.
I was simply stating matters of fact, in response to the suggestions that perhaps homosexuality is comparable to cerebral palsy and that
That's not being defensive, but since you characterized my take as defensive, that's a sure-fire indication that you didn't understand where I was coming from at all.
Um, OK.but I think we're among friends here [...] IDIC.
But why on Earth would you need to "announce" it? Nobody is suggesting dialogue along the lines of "Look. It's our new chief engineer. He's gay, you know. Not that there's anything wrong with that."
But that hardly means gay characters are doomed to be "invisible" unless you make an issue of it.
Again, as far as I know, nobody ever "announced" that Mr.Scott was straight. But we got the idea when he was mooning over Mira Romaine or Caroline Palamas or flirting with that belly-dancer on Argelius. You could do the same thing with any hypothetical gay character. All you have to do is tweak the genders:
"Boy, Lt. O'Rourke really seems to have fallen hard for that new security officer. Hope he doesn't get his heart broken again."
Just off the top of my head, more easy Star Trek ways to establish that a character is gay without implying that this is an issue in the future.
1) The characters beam down for shore leave and Lt. O'Roarke is shown flirting with an attractive member of the same gender. (Remember McCoy with those Playboy bunnies on his arms in "Shore Leave.")
2) Lt. O'Roarke has an awkward reunion with an old flame. "I've never forgotten our time on Sylvan VI . . . or how much it hurt to lose you." (Think Decker/Ilia, Riker/Troi, or Kirk/Everybody.)
3) The crew encounters a shape-changing alien that takes the form of O'Roarke's long-lost love. (Think "Mantrap.")
Like I said, that's just off the top of my head. No "announcements" or "issues" involved.Simply let the characters interact with members of their preferred gender the same way Star Trek characters have done for years.
Just change "Mira Romaine" to "Mark Romaine" and you're set. It's that easy. No Catch-22 required.
It seems hard to believe the enlightened future of Star Trek would view homosexuality as something that needed to be "fixed" or "cured", given how far away we've come from that today. Seems very regressive to me. There's nothing to "cure".
I think the definition 'fix' is a worrying one. 'Alter' may be a better term there.
This obviously depends on what is normal. Hormones change over a woman's lifetime, more testosterone is released in a woman's system as she has more children (culminating in menopause and often baroness), and that the latter children are more likely to be gay. The hormone change is technically 'normal', so do you adjust that? No, of course not. It's a result of a normal process of reproduction.
I think this comes back to not caring. It won't matter. To get through figuring out if there was a 'gay' gene you'd have to experiment on fetuses, and at least in the UK I know that's illegal.
Missed this the first time reading galad2003's post, but also, there actually IS a basis for considering brown eyes to be superior and blue eyes to be less desirable, from a purely functional standpoint.
Viscerally, knee-jerk, my first thought is that I would go Magneto anyone tried to cure me!
There's nothing wrong with being gay. You have to suppose that gay is something unnatural to want to cure it. It's 1-2 percent of the population, the race won't die out. It's not a disease any more than eye color or skin color is a disease. And that's probably my rational answer. Genetic manipulation is banned in the Federation. And I'll just leave it at that.
In the Star Trek future I think people would not be bothered if their child were gay.
And any such control would be illegal because of the Eugenics wars.
In the real world future it's likely the issue will come up at some point. In some countries parents use technology to raise the odds their child will be male, you have to think those same parents would do the same to select their child's orientation. And also some adults especially in countries like Russia, given the chance to inject themselves with a chemical that makes them heterosexual would elect to do so.
I would wager that will be a big political controversy in the year 2050.
And any such control would be illegal because of the Eugenics wars.
In the real world future it's likely the issue will come up at some point. In some countries parents use technology to raise the odds their child will be male, you have to think those same parents would do the same to select their child's orientation. And also some adults especially in countries like Russia, given the chance to inject themselves with a chemical that makes them heterosexual would elect to do so.
I would wager that will be a big political controversy in the year 2050.
Two of the ways the United Nations defines genocide is calculating to bring about physical destruction of a group (in whole or in part), and imposing measures intended to prevent births within a group. The term genocide is most commonly attached to ethnic, racial, religious, or national groups, and not sexual orientation. Would it be that hard to see gays as a ethnic group?
What galad2003 is describing is the purposeful destruction of a particular group of people by genetically erasing them from the Human genome.
Genocide?
Two of the ways the United Nations defines genocide is calculating to bring about physical destruction of a group (in whole or in part), and imposing measures intended to prevent births within a group. The term genocide is most commonly attached to ethnic, racial, religious, or national groups, and not sexual orientation. Would it be that hard to see gays as a ethnic group?
What galad2003 is describing is the purposeful destruction of a particular group of people by genetically erasing them from the Human genome.
Genocide?
A budding Star Trek morality play?
Two of the ways the United Nations defines genocide is calculating to bring about physical destruction of a group (in whole or in part), and imposing measures intended to prevent births within a group. The term genocide is most commonly attached to ethnic, racial, religious, or national groups, and not sexual orientation. Would it be that hard to see gays as a ethnic group?
What galad2003 is describing is the purposeful destruction of a particular group of people by genetically erasing them from the Human genome.
Genocide?
What?! Seriously?
No one is being killed, a "cured" gay person is still alive, they are just genetically or chemically altered. In fact this may be done before they are ever are aware they are gay (ie. in the womb or at a very young age).
Ok so let's say in the 24th century they find a cure for depression (assuming of course depression is caused by a chemical imbalance). If they implement that cure is it destroying a group of people, depressed people? Is that genocide?
Look, I am not against gay people or anything, I just think of crazy stuff like this. I like to sometimes analyze (sometimes weird) things as an intellectual exercise. (Spock is my favorite character). so for me this is like an intellectual puzzle whereas others this is a very emotional and personal issue that I fully admit I do not understand.
Again, I think this all depends on how society views gay people. Is is a natural condition such as color of your skin or eyes? or is it a genetic/chemical defect? Or is it a lifestyle choice (I know the prevalent thinking is it is not a lifestyle choice, I just bring it up because some people have thought that in the past and possible it could happen again in the future).
I appreciate those of you who read my post fully and those who didn't please reread it and realize I am just playing devil's advocate or posing a what-if scenario. I am certainly not advocating "curing" anyone. I think the magneto/mutant reference is very apt.
A
Amaris
Guest
Removing a disease, such as AIDS, or cancer, before birth isn't unethical. Changing someone's orientation, I believe, is unethical. It would be like saying, "I don't think gingers have souls, so we'll change the child's hair color to something other than red."
Changing the biology of a fetus due to one's ignorance or bigtry is highly unethical, and any doctor who would agree to do so would be engaging in unethical behavior as well. There's no reason to "cure" homosexuality, because homosexuality is just one more genetic trait, like eye color.
- Status
Similar threads
