Homosexual Rights in the Star Trek Universe

[DonIago]

I think if I tried telling anyone who I know is attracted to both genders that they're gay, it would be pointed out to me (with varying levels of humor by individual) that no, they're bisexual.

If I maintained that they were gay because they do have some attraction to members of the same gender, the level of humor would probably decrease over time.

In other words, while they may -technically- be gay -as a part of- being bisexual, from a general usage and possibly an etiquette standpoint I don't believe it's considered proper to refer to bisexual people as gay.

 

[Hazel]

I think if I tried telling anyone who I know is attracted to both genders that they're gay, it would be pointed out to me (with varying levels of humor by individual) that no, they're bisexual.

If I maintained that they were gay because they do have some attraction to members of the same gender, the level of humor would probably decrease over time.

In other words, while they may -technically- be gay -as a part of- being bisexual, from a general usage and possibly an etiquette standpoint I don't believe it's considered proper to refer to bisexual people as gay.

From my own experience, 'queer' and QUILTBAG are the blanket terms for anyone whose sexuality is not 100% heterosexual (and cissexual/gendered). Never heard anyone use 'gay' in that way though. It seems quite binary. Maybe it's a cultural difference (on an international and intra-national level)?

And on a similar note, I wish people (in general, not this thread) would stop accidentally or deliberately erasing bisexuality. We're real, dammit!

 

[PhoenixClass]

T'Girl, I don't understand why you would adopt an interpretation that is so, well, depressing. It is of course your right to read the canon narrowly but I don't think that interpretation is consistent with the broader context of the show.


By the way, as for the whole gay-includes-bi debate, I've never heard the term used that way. I ask my fiance and his best friend and they've never heard it used that way either (not a scientific poll, I know). As you said, you only are going by the community you live in, so maybe it is just a local use of the word that is different from how most people use it.

 

[Sindatur]

Eh, if a Bi-Sexual person indulges their same sex attraction in a sex act with only the same sex (IE: Not a threesome or more including both sexes) that is a Gay Act, (Just as indulging their opposite Sex attraction is a straight act), so, "Gay includes Bi-Sexual" could be a legitimate interpretation (Though, I understand Bi-Sexual people not liking it and feeling it marginalizes them)

To be perfectly honest, I really don't like the term Gay that much (And I am Gay), because it conjures up images of "prancing fairies" for me, which most of us are not.

And to inject a little levity, I have trouble reading a thread title including the word Homosexual, and not pronouncing it with a lispth (Homothecthual). It's so old school, like folks who still call Black people "Colored"

 

[T'Girl]

T'Girl, I don't understand why you would adopt an interpretation that is so, well, depressing. It is of course your right to read the canon narrowly but I don't think that interpretation is consistent with the broader context of the show.

Alright, your turn, consistent with what is on screen (not what TPTB are thinking) how would you explain the absense of gays?

As you said, you only are going by the community you live in, so maybe it is just a local use of the word that is different from how most people use it.

I can't say the entire country or world uses the term gay as I do. In cities on the west coast of America and in New Orleans I have referred to people I knew to be bisexual as gay and have heard bi's self-identify using the term gay. In Brazil on visits to my family there, if you're not straight or celebate you're gay.

The transexuals and transgenders I associate with use gay regardless if they like boy, girls or both. They're gays because they're tran's.

Now it not that I've never run across anyone who holds that the term gay is exclusive to homosexuals, I even met some male homosexuals who insist that lesbians shouldn't use the term gay either.

 

[Hazel]

T'Girl, I don't understand why you would adopt an interpretation that is so, well, depressing. It is of course your right to read the canon narrowly but I don't think that interpretation is consistent with the broader context of the show.

Alright, your turn, consistent with what is on screen (not what TPTB are thinking) how would you explain the absense of gays?

Just to be glib for a moment, that's a bit like asking how you explain the absence of bees. We don't see them in Star Trek (I'm waiting for someone to point out the bee-centric episode and shame me now) but I'm determined to believe they're there because hey, bees; they're awesome.

[glibness off]

 

[Sindatur]

T'Girl, I don't understand why you would adopt an interpretation that is so, well, depressing. It is of course your right to read the canon narrowly but I don't think that interpretation is consistent with the broader context of the show.

Alright, your turn, consistent with what is on screen (not what TPTB are thinking) how would you explain the absense of gays?

Just to be glib for a moment, that's a bit like asking how you explain the absence of bees. We don't see them in Star Trek (I'm waiting for someone to point out the bee-centric episode and shame me now) but I'm determined to believe they're there because hey, bees; they're awesome.

[glibness off]

Well, there's been Doctor Who/Star Trek crossovers and there was that First Doctor Serial that featured a Bee People (The Web Planet) and I think there was also some bees in Planet of Giants Serial, so...

 

[geneo]

Only if the younger viewers are gay themselves. I don't know any younger viewers who are straight who wants a diverse cast, one that includes a gay character.

I just keep remembering the loss in viewership of Star Trek Phase II when they introduced their gay characters, showing 2 men in bed together and subsequently kept Peter Kirk (who is gay) in the show. The last episode has Peter absent to the delight of many people of the straight people around my community who are Star Trek Phase II fans so the fact that the gay character is absent increased viewership. So if that is any reference that can be used, more viewership will be the result of continued absent of gay characters.

 

[DonIago]

How many younger viewers have you asked?

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Just to be glib for a moment, that's a bit like asking how you explain the absence of bees. We don't see them in Star Trek (I'm waiting for someone to point out the bee-centric episode and shame me now) but I'm determined to believe they're there because hey, bees; they're awesome.

[glibness off]

You picked a pretty bad example, because bees were mentioned in "Operation -- Annihilate!" in the present tense:

MCCOY: The same. Evidently, when the creature attacks, it leaves a stinger much like a bee or wasp, leaving one of these in the victim's body.

Out-of-universe, it was mentioned so the viewer would understand, but in-universe you wouldn't use an obsolete example in that way to make that sort of a point.

If you like the 24th century better, here's the same sort of deal from "The Nth Degree":

CRUSHER: Not necessarily. It might be something as simple as an allergic reaction to a bee sting.

Bees are a bad example for another reason. Honeybees are in trouble:

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2149141,00.html
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wildtv/endangered.html

In "The Man Trap", the Earth buffalo [sic] was said to be completely extinct, something that is not even true of the American buffalo in the wild. Then you have humpback whales, said in TVH to be hunted to extinction by the 21st century, as of right now contrary to likely fact. Assuming the existence of a creature that is at risk of becoming extinct in the real world, even when it has been completely unmentioned in canon, doesn't sound like a sure bet in a world that was evidently more extinction-prone than ours during its 20th and 21st centuries.

In any case, we can rest reasonably assured that bees still exist in the 24th century, by canon.

 

[PhoenixClass]

OK but his point was that just because something is not mentioned does not mean it does not exist.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

OK but his point was that just because something is not mentioned does not mean it does not exist.

In general that is so. It's just that there have been so many opportunities for it come up by now that it not coming up could be taken as evidence of its absence. Personally, I think homosexuality is just fine in the Star Trek universe, but given that crimes against nature have occurred in Star Trek, other conclusions aren't on their faces unreasonable.

If you take a 20-sided D&D die (regular icosahedron), and roll it 100 times, the odds are greater than 99% that an 11 will come up at least once. If 11 doesn't come up at all, then that's strong evidence that 11 can't be rolled by the die, i.e., that the die is loaded. The odds of 11 coming up at least once in 200 rolls of a fair icosahedral die are greater than 99.99%.

In any situation that is analogous to this one, something not coming up on the show is evidence that it doesn't exist, at least the way it does in the real world. Personally, I think that out-of-universe considerations are what's causing the odds to get skewed. However, that's not the only logical conclusion, and there can't be anything like a canonical appearance of a gay crew member in a future film or episode to definitively establish that gays exist in-universe and aren't discriminated against.

 

[Misfit Toy]

I just keep remembering the loss in viewership of Star Trek Phase II when they introduced their gay characters, showing 2 men in bed together and subsequently kept Peter Kirk (who is gay) in the show. The last episode has Peter absent to the delight of many people of the straight people around my community who are Star Trek Phase II fans so the fact that the gay character is absent increased viewership. So if that is any reference that can be used, more viewership will be the result of continued absent of gay characters.

Where's your documentation of the loss of viewership due to the inclusion of a gay character?

Your guess that "the many straight people of your community who are Star Trek Phase II fans" (how many IS that anyway? ) were "delighted" is anecdotal *at best*.

 

[geneo]

I just keep remembering the loss in viewership of Star Trek Phase II when they introduced their gay characters, showing 2 men in bed together and subsequently kept Peter Kirk (who is gay) in the show. The last episode has Peter absent to the delight of many people of the straight people around my community who are Star Trek Phase II fans so the fact that the gay character is absent increased viewership. So if that is any reference that can be used, more viewership will be the result of continued absent of gay characters.

Where's your documentation of the loss of viewership due to the inclusion of a gay character?

Your guess that "the many straight people of your community who are Star Trek Phase II fans" (how many IS that anyway? ) were "delighted" is anecdotal *at best*.

My documentation is in the forums over there, the many viewers who rose up and said it was uncalled for and never have been back. I do have my sources over there to tell me things that go on. Since I live here and you don't, I think I know my community and friends a tad more than you do.

 

[Hazel]

Yes, I knew the bees thing would bite me in the ass. As I said, I was being glib so the example wasn't really the point (but kudos for everyone's bee-related knowledge)

And if we're going to use anecdotal evidence, I know plenty of straight people who want gay characters/more diversity. For a large population of them, look to slash fans.

 

[geneo]

How many younger viewers have you asked?

Plenty in my community my dear friend. Plenty here and in Rockwall TX where my grandson lives, sort of like Cheers - where everyone knows your name. Based on my findings one can gather that there are lots more than you think.

 

[Sindatur]

How many younger viewers have you asked?

Plenty in my community my dear friend. Plenty here and in Rockwall TX where my grandson lives, sort of like Cheers - where everyone knows your name. Based on my findings one can gather that there are lots more than you think.

Well, yea, but, we already know small towns in West Virginia and Texas are Anti-Gay, but, that's a very tiny part of the 300 Million+ population in the US and the 6 Billion+ population of the world.

Obviously you don't know every SciFi fan in West Virginia, because, through the internet, I know two straight West Virginian Trek Fans, who would definitely welcome the diversity of a Gay character in a new Trek

 

[BigJake]

Only if the younger viewers are gay themselves. I don't know any younger viewers who are straight who wants a diverse cast, one that includes a gay character.

Considering that roughly three quarters of America's youth poll solidly in favour of same-sex marriage, I find your speculations about "younger viewers" straight or otherwise a bit suspect.

In general, it's pretty depressing that purported fans of a show set in the 23rd century should evince that much trouble catching up to the 21st. It is certainly not generally true of Phase II fans in my experience that they display the kind of petty, narrow mindset that would tune into or out of a show based on whether any of its characters are gay. That may have been a truism in the Sixties, it isn't so today.

 

[Maurice]

Anecdotal evidence of complaining fans is no evidence at all. If "Blood and Fire" turned off some viewers it was probably because it was bad, overlong, and the relationship between the romantic leads was poorly played. Their initial "love" scene was longer than any single love scene in Trek history, and would have been just as lame with a straight couple.

 

[geneo]

Anecdotal evidence of complaining fans is no evidence at all. If "Blood and Fire" turned off some viewers it was probably because it was bad, overlong, and the relationship between the romantic leads was poorly played. Their initial "love" scene was longer than any single love scene in Trek history, and would have been just as lame with a straight couple.

Straight or not, it didn't need to even be in there. But I admit I did not even watch it because I don't support that.