Slightly pathetic that theres never been LGBT characters in ST

Based on this, let's play devil's advocate for a minute.

Is it fair to place so much responsibility on Trek to show gay characters to begin with?

What if it's just a sci fi show that wants to out out entertaining stories about humans in a positive future?

Was the Kirk and Uhura kiss a political statement, or simply a necessary part of the story, and the producers and the actors weren't going to back down?

In the next Trek series, if they show a same sex relationship, in a normal context, would it end up being a political statement or a necessary part of the story?

Would there be a "they finally did it!" tone to it?

And if Beverly wasn't being homophobic when she rejected another female, is Trek being homophobic because LGBT are not seen onscreen?

 

I don't really care for romance stories in science fiction to begin with, so adding gay characters to Star Trek just means more opportunities for love stories I don't want to see.

 

I just think the lack of gay characters in Star Trek wasn't based on a decision not to show gay people so much as 500 decisions to show straight people. Writers were coming up with stories based on their own experience and what kind of storylines have shown results for them in the past.

 

If there are no gay characters, there will just be more straight characters, who are realistically going to have a better chance at getting more romantic scenes anyways.

It's also not as if the only story that can be told with gay characters is a romance.

I don't want a "they finally did it!" moment. Any half way decent writer can use a gay character naturally in the story. This isn't all that hard to do. What would be worse than "they finally did it!" is to continue the rather embarassing history of continuing to erase LGBT from Trek's future. Gay characters belong in Trek's "entertaining stories of humans in a positive future". That future is starting to look less positive and more homophobic with the continued erasure, just as it would look pretty racist if we'd never seen a person of color in it's nearly 50 years of history.

What's going on here is called erasure, where minorities don't seem to exist in a work of fiction. That might not be so bad in one or two movies, but over the course of hundreds of hours and hundreds of characters, it is homophobic.

People have every right to their opinion, but I don't think a cis straight person has the right to tell gay people a half century history of LGBT erasure isn't homophobic. I mean, sure, you can say it, but I find it kind of insulting. It seems like every few days I read someone suggesting that gays have been "cured" or all wiped out in Trek, and their history of erasure leaves that possibility at least remotely possible to people who ignore the novels. I give credit to the novels for bringing LGBT inclusion where the movies and tv series have failed to live up Trek's legacy of diversity.

 

We know that some of Trek's writers were gay, and Gerrold's Blood and Fire episode did include gay characters and it was rejected, and from what I've read Gerrold faced some pretty ugly homophobic harassment that led to him no longer writing for TNG.

The erasure of gays from the hundreds of episodes and dozen movies of Trek was not an oversight or an accident. It was a choice that was made repeatedly. Many Trek actors including Stewart, Avery, Mulgrew and Bakula approached TPTB about including gay characters, so TPTB were aware of the issue and they chose every time not to include LGBT characters.

 

Someone (in another thread) suggested that homosexuality or bisexuality could be acknowledged by having one of the cat people that Kirk was in bed with in STID be a guy (male cat person).
The thing is, if that was done I think that's all we'd be talking about now. I can see the bylines 'Star Trek's Captain Kirk is gay'. Who'd care about Marcus' underwear?

I think making Kirk or Spock or McCoy gay or bisexual would change the emphasis of the movies unless it were written in a very clever way (and I don't think the writers are up to it). I think any other characters are fair game though.

Like some other posters here I'm not keen on any romance in a Star trek movie. Unless its necessary to the story or in the background. I just don't think Star trek ever does it well.

 

That was me that suggested the bisexual cat person threeway lol
I'd rather we had gotten that the Marcus underwear debacle. That was an off the cuff throwaway idea, and I'm sure something better could be done than that, but I wouldn't have hated it if it had happened.
I'm not campagining to really make an established character be revealed as bi - but it could be done, and I wouldn't hate it if it happened. Every movie introduces several new characters though.
As for Trek and romance, there are a few good examples - Sarek and Amanda come to mind as being very well done, but that is admitedly an exception to the rule. I don't expect any gay character to get any more or less romantic development than the straight characters. Gay character does not equal more romance than a straight character.

 

Actually I thought the idea was good. A gay/bisexual character acknowledged with no fuss.
Unfortunately I feel that even in the 21st century that Paramount is not prepared to risk any backlash. Personally I think if they had done it, it would have bought in more money at the box office.

 

I'm not exactly sure how that all played out but "Blood and Fire" being axed and Gerrold's exit may have had more to do with the wrangling over "Created by" credit on the series. D.C. Fontana and Bob Justman also left the series early on and were also involved in the "Created by" conflict.

 

I find it weird that you are seemingly being dismissive based on age. You do know lots of people who don't qualify as "boys and girls" want to see gay characters, and not just because it is exotic. What is this, the zoo? NO. The world is full of old straight people who have gay children, gay siblings, gay friends, gay co workers, gay PEOPLE in their lives and they look at tv and ask where the heck are the people they know and love?

 

LBTQ make up 3.4% of the population in theory.

http://inamerica.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/19/3-4-americans-identify-as-lgbt/

 

I can name at least two actors in major trek roles that are gay. Sulu TOS and Spock in the new films.

So weve had two real life gay actors in major roles and zero gay characters in the whole trek universe...

Im a live and let live kind of guy. I just dont like people playing politics with my fiction, and of course the other poster above is right. Its actually more of a political statement not to include 1 gay character in something that big.

Star trek is selectively showing the results of some kind of gay genocide at this point, to make conservative "family equals nuclear family" America happy.

 

Sulu and Spock are not actors, they're fictional characters. Takei and Quinto are actors who played those characters.

When did you gain the creative rights to Star Trek?

 

Who, me? All I asked for were statistics that he used to make the statement.

 

That poll says "identify as LGBT", which isn't the same thing as what people actually are. That article itself states that the percentages who identify themselves that way vary by group, which implies there are groups in which people are less likely to identify as that. If 3.4% of the populace identifies as in a group when within a culture where there are still stigmas associated with such groups, then the actual number is likely higher.

Furthermore, those statistics typically go binary, forgetting the idea that sexuality is a spectrum, and a lot of people aren't 100% either, and thus frequently omits bisexuals, so the number of people who may actually have same sex attraction relationships is in all likelihood higher still.

 

Obviously I am talking to the person you quote who used the term "boys and girls" I addressed. By quoting you as well I'm agreeing with your question.

 

^ I'd only been awake about 2 hours when I asked that, so forgive me, the brain wasn't in full operation yet.

 

Depend on how the questions were phrased in the survey. If it's engaging in gay/bisexual sexual activity within a certain time period, and transgenders who are actively seek/have had sex reassignment surgeries (SRS) the number is around 3.8 percent.

However if the questions had to do with sexual orientation and inclinations (not activities) for gay/bisexuals, and transsexuals who identify as such but who aren't necessarily seeking SRS, the number more than doubles to around 8 to 10 percent.

If you're gay and not sexually active, you're still gay.

 

And I am sorry if I sounded snippy, I was awake for half an hour when I posted that, I am the sleep deprived winner!!!!

Wait. What?

 

This. Conservatives often will do these questions loaded to get the answers they want to report low numbers of LGBT people. Given the hostile atmosphere many gay people live in, it's no wonder that these surveys often have lower numbers than there are in reality. The way you conduct a survey, how you draw the people that are questioned, annonynimity issues, all can play a factor in fixing a survey to suit your agenda.
From personal experience, 8 - 10% seems right to me.
I'd ask though, how high does that percent have to be for a minority group to get equal rights and fair treatment?
Whether the % is 1, 5 or 10, should it matter?