Gender and Sexuality in Star Trek

[scotpens]

. . . Branding yourself with an insulting term is self-deprecation, not political resistance. Not being Humpty Dumpty, words don't mean what we want.

When we're speaking of subjective connotation rather than objective definition, words, at least to some extent, do mean what we want them to. If some gays proudly identify themselves as "queer," it isn't self-deprecating to them.

Personally, I see nothing wrong with using the word "queer" because -- and this may be a bit presumptive on my part -- I like to think of myself as an Honorary Gay Person.

 

[david g]

Daddy Todd, thanks for responding.

I take your point about the "maladroit" handling of these themes on Trek's part. And I'm certainly not attempting to exculpate the franchise for its failure to explore them explicitly.

Nevertheless, I am attempting to evoke the ways in which, in my view, Trek speaks to the experience of gayness in a repressive culture. As earlier controversies in this thread touched on, the issue of what an artist or a work of art intended to say is, at best, a controversial one. My interest is less focused on intentionality than it is on what interpretation can discover in the work. (Is that the same thing as wish-fulfillment? Perhaps. But then most interpretation probably is...!)

I also dont mean to suggest that a gay experience of Trek necessarily depends on identification with its themes of loneliness and outsiderness. Indeed, the very escapism at its core is also a huge part of its appeal--its appeal to the idea of a better and simply a different world.

 

[Daddy Todd]

I take your point about the "maladroit" handling of these themes on Trek's part. And I'm certainly not attempting to exculpate the franchise for its failure to explore them explicitly.

And the episode most people point to as the definitive Trek treatment of gender-variant issues ended with the individual being "cured" of hir gender-variant nature. It was as if Star Trek was telling us that "reparative therapy" worked.

I'd rather they ignored LGBT issues entirely than present a false and misleading conclusion as they did in "The Outcast."

 

[david g]

Daddy Todd, I couldnt agree more about "The Outcast," though it is a very well-made and acted episode.

I argue that episodes like "The Offspring," technically not at all about gay themes, is actually a much more resonant episode along these lines than "The Outcast."

"The Offspring" begins with Lal having to choose an identity, including a gender, and experiences a series of bewilderments over this chosen identity and sexuality itself.

 

[Myasishchev]

I take your point about the "maladroit" handling of these themes on Trek's part. And I'm certainly not attempting to exculpate the franchise for its failure to explore them explicitly.

And the episode most people point to as the definitive Trek treatment of gender-variant issues ended with the individual being "cured" of hir gender-variant nature. It was as if Star Trek was telling us that "reparative therapy" worked.

I'd rather they ignored LGBT issues entirely than present a false and misleading conclusion as they did in "The Outcast."

Where's the nitpicking over that episode where they rip off the Manchurian Candidate? Because I'm pretty sure that MK-Ultra silliness doesn't work either.

Anyway, the issue isn't whether it worked (and, really, we have no idea whether it worked since we saw about ten seconds of putative success and apparently Riker gives up easy). Brainwashing works all the time in Star Trek. The point of the episode is that the J'naii's reprogramming efforts--and by extension any analogous real-world efforts--were shown in a starkly negative light. Indeed, they were portrayed as evil. What do you want?

And there are self-denying retards who will tell you that it's worked, just like Soren did. The only problem I might have with "The Outcast" is that there, it was a state action, and Soren was subject to the power of the state to compel her* to get "treatment." In real life, it's people who are simply too weak to own up to their own existence or resist social pressures. That is, in "The Outcast," Soren was clearly a victim, but in real life the victimhood status of people who agree to undergo such "therapy" is far less clear.**

The point about the invisibility is well taken, but saying "The Outcast" is useless as a statement about homosexuality because it features a basically heterosexual relationship is like saying that we can learn nothing from "The Ant and the Grasshopper," because the message it contains is really only applicable to the narrow interests of insects. You gotta have a little ecumenism.

Now, if you want to complain about an episode that treats gender issues with a real disrespect, there's always "Profit and Lace." (Of course that's just a dumb farce modeled on, and by that I mean it rips off, Some Like It Hot, but it does have a weird, probably unintentional--but positive--implication that gender identity is so potentially fluid that physical sex can be changed in a couple of hours and no one bothers with any psychological workup or even asking why the patient is seeking reassignment, and the t-person, at worst, faces roughly the same amount of persecution from the exoteric society as they would by wearing a goofy hat. Forty years of Flash Gordon, and suddenly Trek gets all Accelerando on us.)

*Or "hir"? I'm willing to bow to superior experience on this, but if someone is physically female (which I guess we can assume), and more importantly identifies as female, an intersex term is not appropriate. I mean, t-girls do prefer "her," right?
**On the other hand, America is not the world. Iran or Pakistan's response to homosexuality, while possibly kinder than Saudi Arabia's or some Christians', is equally, as the sociologists say, "completely fucking stupid."

 

[david g]

I'm not so sure that those who seek reparative, "Ex-Gay" treatments are not often coerced into doing so. I think about a plot on "Veronica Mars," for example, about a teenage boy forced into such a program by his parents, and then killing himself, as frighteningly relevant to a lot of what goes on today.

I like "The Outcast" more than I dislike it. The episode clearly does critique the J'naii's reprogramming of Soren. The problem with the episode is that it actually ends up demonizing the *transgendered* aspects of the J'naii all in favor of producing a positive, though quite allegorical, pro-gay message. It's, at best, a mixed-up episode.

 

[Daddy Todd]

Where's the nitpicking over that episode where they rip off the Manchurian Candidate? Because I'm pretty sure that MK-Ultra silliness doesn't work either.

What has that got to do with the topic at hand? this isn't a laundry list of Trek stupidities; I'm talking about Trek's handling of LGBT issues.

Anyway, the issue isn't whether it worked (and, really, we have no idea whether it worked since we saw about ten seconds of putative success and apparently Riker gives up easy). Brainwashing works all the time in Star Trek. The point of the episode is that the J'naii's reprogramming efforts--and by extension any analogous real-world efforts--were shown in a starkly negative light. Indeed, they were portrayed as evil. What do you want?

I want to see unamiguously LGBT characters in filmed Star Trek. Not in an "issue" story, but simply as characters who happen to be gay.

And there are self-denying retards who will tell you that it's worked, just like Soren did. The only problem I might have with "The Outcast" is that there, it was a state action, and Soren was subject to the power of the state to compel her* to get "treatment." In real life, it's people who are simply too weak to own up to their own existence or resist social pressures. That is, in "The Outcast," Soren was clearly a victim, but in real life the victimhood status of people who agree to undergo such "therapy" is far less clear.**

If someone forces someone to choose between their sexual orientation and their family/community/church, it's pretty clear to me who the victim is.

The point about the invisibility is well taken, but saying "The Outcast" is useless as a statement about homosexuality because it features a basically heterosexual relationship is like saying that we can learn nothing from "The Ant and the Grasshopper," because the message it contains is really only applicable to the narrow interests of insects. You gotta have a little ecumenism.

Straw man argument, since neither of us has stated that "The Outcast" was "useless as a statement about homosexuality."

Now, if you want to complain about an episode that treats gender issues with a real disrespect, there's always "Profit and Lace." (Of course that's just a dumb farce modeled on, and by that I mean it rips off, Some Like It Hot, but it does have a weird, probably unintentional--but positive--implication that gender identity is so potentially fluid that physical sex can be changed in a couple of hours and no one bothers with any psychological workup or even asking why the patient is seeking reassignment, and the t-person, at worst, faces roughly the same amount of persecution from the exoteric society as they would by wearing a goofy hat. Forty years of Flash Gordon, and suddenly Trek gets all Accelerando on us.)

Yeah, I'm not crazy about that episode, either.

There was one DS9 episode that I liked, when the female Ferengi was disguised as a male and fell in love with Quark. Dax's reaction, thinking "she" was a "he," was pitch-perfect. (Sorry, I can't remember the name of the episode after 15 years...)

*Or "hir"? I'm willing to bow to superior experience on this, but if someone is physically female (which I guess we can assume), and more importantly identifies as female, an intersex term is not appropriate. I mean, t-girls do prefer "her," right?

My recollection of the episode is that the J'naii were androgynes; neither male nor female. Thus, the ungendered pronoun.

**On the other hand, America is not the world. Iran or Pakistan's response to homosexuality, while possibly kinder than Saudi Arabia's or some Christians', is equally, as the sociologists say, "completely fucking stupid."

We can always find some society that's worse on LGBT issues than the USA. We can also find many that are significantly better. What's your point? That we shouldn't complain about injustices we see because we could be worse off?

 

[Myasishchev]

I'm not so sure that those who seek reparative, "Ex-Gay" treatments are not often coerced into doing so. I think about a plot on "Veronica Mars," for example, about a teenage boy forced into such a program by his parents, and then killing himself, as frighteningly relevant to a lot of what goes on today.

Minors are on exception; if put into a situation like the one described, they face similar pressures in dealing with their orientation as those dealt with by someone in an officially intolerant state--that is, they are subject to the whims of people who have legal power over them.

Those I do not particlarly like are the adults who, for whatever misguided reason, attempt to "convert" to heterosexuality later in life. There is an element of choice for them, that makes them seem cowardly, even incapable of rational thought. I sympathize greatly with the gay kid who's abused by his parents for the form his existence took; but I can only pity the gay 30 year old who married a woman when he was 24, had four kids while he cheats on her bareback, and is so full of self-loathing he turns to a con artist of a churchman to "convert."

At some point the heteronormative environment can no longer be blamed for the problems the adult homosexual has caused for themself and others, because they are an adult, capable of shaping their environment into a healthy one full of sodomy.

I like "The Outcast" more than I dislike it. The episode clearly does critique the J'naii's reprogramming of Soren. The problem with the episode is that it actually ends up demonizing the *transgendered* aspects of the J'naii all in favor of producing a positive, though quite allegorical, pro-gay message. It's, at best, a mixed-up episode.

That's actually a pretty interesting line of thought that didn't occur to me.

I don't know if demonizes the transgendered aspects so much as it demonizes its conformist aspects, however. It's not like it's setting out to be critical of a real line of thought among true intersexed (versus transgendered) people on Earth advocating the creation of a world where love is against the law, or at least maleness and femaleness are. I don't think it's all that mixed-up: I think it works better because it flips the roles entirely. The truly queer (just try fitting the J'Naii into a purely LGBT paradigm) are persecuting the straights, what we as a society recognize as "normal." And it's clear that it's wrong, whether violence flows one way or the other.

Where's the nitpicking over that episode where they rip off the Manchurian Candidate? Because I'm pretty sure that MK-Ultra silliness doesn't work either.

What has that got to do with the topic at hand? this isn't a laundry list of Trek stupidities; I'm talking about Trek's handling of LGBT issues.

Because (as mentioned, like, two lines down), brainwashing works in Trek. Why shouldn't it work here? I don't think it can be fairly read, in its context, to imply that brainwashing works in real life, any moreso than warp drive works in real life. The point was never whether it works or not, but whether it ought to be done. The answer is that it ought not, because it is obviously evil.

It might actually work better using a heterosexual relationship as the touchstone. Even the bigot can recognize that what the J'naii do is obviously evil; yet even the blind can recognize that it is fundamentally the same evil as is wrought on homosexuals.

As a side note, it's not like such "therapy" (particularly when backed up by coercion) wouldn't necessarily work--behaviorally. It has worked, behaviorally. Burning people at stakes works, behaviorally. That is all the more insidious.

I want to see unamiguously LGBT characters in filmed Star Trek. Not in an "issue" story, but simply as characters who happen to be gay.

Hey, so do all right-thinking people.

If someone forces someone to choose between their sexual orientation and their family/community/church, it's pretty clear to me who the victim is.

A family/community/church that forces someone to choose them over their sexual orientation is no family/community/church worth belonging to.

The fact is, I feel far sorrier for the person who is subject to persecution by the machinery of a state, than the person who is bullied by a brimstone-spewing preacher or alienated from their parents.

Straw man argument, since neither of us has stated that "The Outcast" was "useless as a statement about homosexuality."

Fine, withdrawn. You don't seem to be to up on the episode, however.

Yeah, I'm not crazy about that episode, either.

There was one DS9 episode that I liked, when the female Ferengi was disguised as a male and fell in love with Quark. Dax's reaction, thinking "she" was a "he," was pitch-perfect. (Sorry, I can't remember the name of the episode after 15 years...)

I don't recall the name either. I remember finding it kinda dull, and also a little infuriating, because I've never been at all sure what Ferengi society was supposed to be a comment on. The 19th century? Because they certainly don't satire anything remotely topical. Their particular brand of misogyny could at least be read as critical of conservative Islam (mirror-universe version), if all their other traits didn't tend to make that untenable.

Oh, that reminds me, they did do much worse than "Profit and Lace." The mirror-universe Kira Nerys. Christ, now that's insensitivity. That's the kind of insensitivity to lesbian issues that you wouldn't even expect from a pornographic film. And I'm dead serious: at least lesbians in porn aren't usually portrayed as genocidal. That's like Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS insensitivity. Damn.

I suppose David's book criticizes that choice pretty hard...

My recollection of the episode is that the J'naii were androgynes; neither male nor female. Thus, the ungendered pronoun.

But the character was gendered. Minor point.

We can always find some society that's worse on LGBT issues than the USA. We can also find many that are significantly better. What's your point? That we shouldn't complain about injustices we see because we could be worse off?

Of course not. All I'm saying in that little footnote is that the episode is probably more reflective of what goes on in countries where the state takes an active hand in persecuting homosexuals than it is reflective of America.

 

[T'Girl]

*Or "hir"? I'm willing to bow to superior experience on this, but if someone is physically female (which I guess we can assume), and more importantly identifies as female, an intersex term is not appropriate. I mean, t-girls do prefer "her," right?

I sometimes throw in the Japanese "ano-hito" (the person to whom we're referring to) into a conversation, I find both hir and shi to currently be a bit awkward, you have to explain it. Simply using they, their and them to refer to a individual IMHO is better and I believe grammatically correct. And yes, tgirls do prefer the traditional feminine identifier "her."

My recollection of the episode is that the were androgynes; neither male nor female. Thus, the ungendered pronoun.

In the case of the J'naii, as I understand it, they have two seperate genders, what their society insisted upon was a total lack of personal gender identity. They have discarded gender roles within their culture.

SOREN: I am tired of lies. I am female. I was born that way.

What Soren's, a biological female's, crime was under the J'naii law was is that she identified with being feminine. Androgyne feel neither masculine nor feminine (or sometimes both) but not one or the other.

. . . Branding yourself with an insulting term is self-deprecation,

Calling myself queer is no worst than referring to myself as a tranzee.

I like to think of myself as an Honorary Gay Person.

Your certificate is in the mail.

 

[Myasishchev]

*Or "hir"? I'm willing to bow to superior experience on this, but if someone is physically female (which I guess we can assume), and more importantly identifies as female, an intersex term is not appropriate. I mean, t-girls do prefer "her," right?

I sometimes throw in the Japanese "ano-hito" (the person to whom we're referring to) into a conversation, I find both hir and shi to currently be a bit awkward, you have to explain it. Simply using they, their and them to refer to a individual IMHO is better and I believe grammatically correct. And yes, tgirls do prefer the traditional feminine identifier "her."

Called it! USA! USA! USA!

And... I just got your regular name. So on balance I might be slightly less clever than I thought (99% clever or thereabouts).

Rather brilliant pun though, actually.

Re: the pronouns, people who think the singular-they is not grammatically correct are being a bit ridiculous in their attempt to keep the English pronoun set from shifting, as if our language has always been exactly the same since Harold Godwinson took an arrow in the eye.

 

[Therin of Andor]

It was as if Star Trek was telling us that "reparative therapy" worked.

I didn't get that message. I thought the episode suggested that we should have been horrified/amused that the planet's leaders thought the solution was so easy. But, like when Spock quipped about revisiting Khan on Ceti Alpha V in a century's time, here was yet another time bomb waiting to explode in unexpected ways.

 

[Psi'a Meese]

This is the most constructive BBS thread I've seen use the words gay and Star Trek as its subject matter. Thanks for the heads-up about this book. It does sound provocative in it's own approach. And if it encourages further example of dialogue - like this one - it's promising. It's been suggested in this thread that there is more than one approach to the topic. I can only encourage other authors to consider pursuing them. IMO, it's good for the community to have more than one point of view.

STJ, I thought it was good that you brought a different view to the thread regarding use of the word 'queer'. As I tell my friends inside - and outside - of the gay community, "The myth of the gay agenda is just that. A myth. We aren't required by anyone to think alike. We've never been the Borg Collective and hopefully never will be..."

That said, a few things gave me pause enough to comment.

*snip*

It is not possible to "reappropriate" words, especially ones with such negative connotations. Thinking you can is where you and others go wrong. The attempt to reappropriate "gay" as a nonpejorative has failed. Worse, in addition to deceiving oneself that self-deprecation is in-your-face defiance (), the whole point to the "queer" label is that it is not an identity, which is read as "stereotype." Sorry, but while I can see why some people in small enough circles can deceive themselves, "queer" is a self-deprecating evasion.

The re-appropriating of the word has already occurred as recently as 1990. Queer Nation was but one more step in the gay rights movement within major cities across the USA. And while I'm aware that not all my GLBT friends took to that specific approach, it did occur. The historical jury is still out with regards to any success of re-appropriating of the word, queer. I can say I've witnessed a cycle of its use over the past twenty years. It's back in vogue amongst the non-academic youth from what I've heard in recent months.

*snip*

You might even suspect the broader definitions of "queer" would include the majority. Including myself. To which I say, don't call me queer.

I would never presume to label someone who I don't know. And even then I wait for others to label themselves - assuming they bother to do so. To the thread topic, I also take your statement to mean you don't care to pay for - or to read a copy of - Mr. Greven's book. Which was really all you needed to say.

 

[david g]

Psi'a, I thought I should mention that I love the episode "Is There in Truth No Beauty." I discuss it in chapter one of my book.