LGBT Characters in Trek (Help and no flames Please)

[DS9Continuing]

Also, Jason, I don't know if this is of interest, but in Twilight, I believe, either Quark or Treir (and possibly both) think about people's relationships and attractiveness to others without regard to them being of opposite genders. I'd have to search for the references, but I know they're in there.

The reference I remember regards the introduction of Hetik as the station's first dabo boy.

To paraphrase:

QUARK
I don’t care what his name is or why he’s here. I want him to stop touching my dabo wheel. And tell him to put some clothes on.

TREIR
He’s wearing more than I am.

QUARK
You have more parts people want to see.

TREIR
Some people. But some would rather see Hetik’s parts.

QUARK
What’s your point?

And later, we do indeed see some dabo players at the table, and some of the females are adoring Treir, and some of the males are adoring Hetik.

 

[neogothboy74]

So, I got the Star Trek: The Motion Picture novel (paperback 1st Editon) and it doesn't seem to have this thing that people talk about where Kirk mentions that he & Spock aren't a couple even though they have no problem with that kind of thing...which I've heard people talk about in the past. Is that bit in every edition? If not what edition is it in? If it's in here...where is it? lol

 

[kkozoriz1]

If I recall it's in the forward, supposedly written by Kirk. He mentions that he'd not heard the rumor but that Spock had.

 

[Christopher]

So, I got the Star Trek: The Motion Picture novel (paperback 1st Editon) and it doesn't seem to have this thing that people talk about where Kirk mentions that he & Spock aren't a couple even though they have no problem with that kind of thing...which I've heard people talk about in the past. Is that bit in every edition? If not what edition is it in? If it's in here...where is it? lol

It's a footnote on page 22, discussing the definition of the Vulcan word t'hy'la.

 

[kkozoriz1]

I knew it was outside of the main text somewhere.

 

[Joel_Kirk]

I just read it.

Pretty interesting.

 

[neogothboy74]

Thanks Christopher! I'd always been told it was in the forward, so I read it like 3 times (I was really tired) and was a little annoyed when it wasn't there. lol. I actually only bought it for that reference. I mean, Gene Roddenberry, creater of TREK, writing as KIRK that he has no problem with gays; that's pretty crucial IMO.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Yup, no problem with gays, just not gay himself.

It should also be noted that the disclaimer didn't slow down the K/Sers one little bit.

 

[DGCatAniSiri]

Yup, no problem with gays, just not gay himself.

It should also be noted that the disclaimer didn't slow down the K/Sers one little bit.

Would anything, really?

 

[JoeZhang]

Yup, no problem with gays, just not gay himself.

It should also be noted that the disclaimer didn't slow down the K/Sers one little bit.

Repressed - in his mind, the naked wrestling they do together is simply 'training'.

 

[captcalhoun]

Yup, no problem with gays, just not gay himself.

It should also be noted that the disclaimer didn't slow down the K/Sers one little bit.

Would anything, really?

a tactical nuke?

 

[Smitty]

aren't tribbles gay? They should be, I think they are.

 

[Christopher]

No, they're hermaphroditic. Or possibly parthenogenetic, given that McCoy described them as "practically born pregnant."

 

[david g]

I hope that Brannon Braga's words make an impact.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/...not-having-homosexual-character_n_814885.html

But, as I argue in my book GENDER AND SEXUALITY IN STAR TREK, Trek *has* consistently spoken to its gay and lesbian audience over the years with its achingly poignant depictions of difference, otherness, and social outsiders. While actual gay characters would be wonderful, to say, the least, it's misleading to think that Trek never depicts queer identity.

 

[Daddy Todd]

While actual gay characters would be wonderful, to say, the least, it's misleading to think that Trek never depicts queer identity.

Well, I'm not particularly queer, but I am gay, and I've felt for decades that Star Trek never portrayed anything like a clearly defined LGB or T character.

I know you feel otherwise, but I think canonical Star Trek completely and utterly failed to be inclusive of non-hetero people.

 

[Christopher]

As usual, the truth is between the extremes. Modern Trek did try to encode the occasional gay allegory with episodes like "The Outcast" and "Stigma," but Rick Berman's dictates forbade any overt acknowledgment of homosexuality.

 

[david g]

Of course Trek should be criticized for its lack of gay characters. No question there.


What I try to get at in my book is why gay and lesbian audiences since the beginning of Trek fandom have been so drawn to its universe. My argument is that Trek has a queer sensibility, one that comes through not only in its allegories but in the universalism of its central themes of hope and loneliness, exploration and disconnection, the emotional experience of difference and otherness. None of this exculpates the franchise for its failures to represent queerness. But I think that what I resist is the tendency to ignore the queer aspects inherent in Trek--something of which the franchise itself is guilty.

 

[Daddy Todd]

As usual, the truth is between the extremes. Modern Trek did try to encode the occasional gay allegory with episodes like "The Outcast" and "Stigma," but Rick Berman's dictates forbade any overt acknowledgment of homosexuality.

And the message "encoded" in "The Outcast" is, Reparative Therapy works! Gender variant people can be cured using a simple process, in a matter of hours!

That was worse than no message at all.

 

[Christopher]

And the message "encoded" in "The Outcast" is, Reparative Therapy works! Gender variant people can be cured using a simple process, in a matter of hours!

That was worse than no message at all.

Oh, come on. The episode clearly presented that as a bad thing. Acknowledging that brainwashing "works" hardly counts as endorsing it.

 

[JustKate]

^ I agree. The character was "cured," true - but only at the cost of becoming someone other than (or even less than) herself. It was painted as a tragedy, a victory for prejudice and conformity, so how could that be construed as an endorsement?