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Mary Sue site's article on DS9 and Queerness

There could have been some interesting way to approach gay and trans stories. Ezri could have been guy with a similar story to what actually aired and still hooked up with Bashir in the end. It could be interesting with male Ezri and Worf in doing the bait and switch of Worf not giving a shit about Ezri's gender but just put off that this guy reminds him so much of his dead wife. They could have just had male-male or female-female couples standing around in the background of scenes or holding hands or whatever. In the 2000s I was thinking of a story for Enterprise that probably sounds a bit like similar to parts of Lifesigns and Alter Ego in someone communicating across an alien race's planetary network through virtual reality, and it might have been Reed or Mayweather talking to some female alien but then it becomes apparent that it's actually some alien guy who felt more comfortable talking as a female and feels they identify as one. You do something with the changelings who could be a man or woman or alien or anything. Maybe old Odo from the time travel planet was a woman for part of his two hundred years. I sort of become annoyed when I hear they were at least going to give it a go in TNG season 1 with Blood and Fire, which might have been crap too, but at least someone was trying to bring something to the table, and then they sat on their hands for the next 18 years and give us slop like Prophet and Lace.
Making the story about an alien or trill past life is a bit of a cop out.

Would people feel that it would be enough just to hire a trans actor and then just never mention her transition in the show but we would all know ? Maybe you could have little things like pictures of the person as a child in their room showing them as previous gender.

I would prefer that to a trans storyline but being heterosexual I wouldn't know too much about what would be the best way to do it
 
I think perhaps I went a little too far by choosing the word "operated" in order to highlight how far the series needs to go in order to represent transgender people. Yes, it would be nice to see a major character making the decision to undergo surgical procedures to alter their morphology/physiology in order to affect a different gender presentation (and not just wake up in the body of the opposite sex). However, gender reassignment surgery is not the only means of achieving the effects disired of all transgender persons. There should be sufficient leeway for the writers in exploring different aspects of the transgender experience. Discovery suggested that it is possible to alter someone internally into a different species. STIV suggested that who organs could be replaced. Maybe it's enough to give someone a womb?
 
ETA: let me say that there is at least one character for whom we can speculate a sexuality that is not shown on screen: Malcolm Reed. IIANM, the character was originally intended to be gay, Keating implored the producers to make the character gay, and he claims to have unceasingly played him gay.
- Sorry to pull out this one quote and go off topic a bit (ENT rather than DS9), but I watched this Gaaays In Spaaace virtual celebration panel the other day that featured Dominic Keating and Connor Trinneer. Interestingly, DK says that he found out about Malcolm being gay from a magazine in a supermarket before Enterprise had started (or finished) filming. He says he contacted Brannon Braga who, after a little joking around, told him it was rubbish. But having thought about it, DK said he would have been perfectly fine playing Malcolm gay, even though ultimately he didn't because it wasn't warranted.
This isn't to prove or disprove anything that you said, Bad Thoughts, after all, stories change over time - even those that we tell and retell ourselves - I just thought it was a nice little titbit of info.

Back on topic, when I was a teenager, I would have loved to have seen someone like me on Star Trek (TNG, DS9) that I could identify with when I was slowly coming to terms with and understanding my sexuality. I really think Garak and Bashir was a missed opportunity, but I do agree that DS9 was queerer than the other Treks (not that that's a difficult thing to surpass).
 
Keating said in 2014 that he was told they're gonna announce Reed as Trek's first gay character in the Advocate as a big cover story, but then it didn't happen.
 
Keating said in 2014 that he was told they're gonna announce Reed as Trek's first gay character in the Advocate as a big cover story, but then it didn't happen.

While I generally don't like Renegade Cut, the Berman video talks at length about how it was him who wanted to avoid any sort of gay character in Star Trek.

ENT was also his baby.
 
There were numerous openly gay characters on TV before DS9. They could have gone there if they chose. According to many, Rick Berman himself was not in favor and was possibly a homophobe.
That's a serious accusation.

I'm not too fond of Berman but I don't think that he's a homophobe.

He was probably counting the money and didn't want anything controversial to cause viewers to drop off.
 
That's a serious accusation.

I'm not too fond of Berman but I don't think that he's a homophobe.

He was probably counting the money and didn't want anything controversial to cause viewers to drop off.

I'm not sure that's a distinction with a difference.
 

You could take the "If I was still Kurzon" line the author brings up as more about Cassidy being straight and thus wouldn't be into Jadzia than any commentary on Jadzia. Similarly, while Garak was...fluid? Bi? Pan? Julian very much only had eyes for the ladies (though Siddigs and Robinsons Youtube series opens up possibilities with Julian having a brief romance with Dax's male host following Ezri...if a mod thinks that should have a spoiler tag could they put one on?).

^ I always like to think all Trek characters are pansexual, seeing how frequently they get it on with aliens.

Just a bunch of Jack Harknesseseses?
 
Keating said in 2014 that he was told they're gonna announce Reed as Trek's first gay character in the Advocate as a big cover story, but then it didn't happen.
He was at least bicurious, the sexual tension and chemistry between him and Hayes was palatable!
 
Perhaps I missed something. Didn't Behr accept a fair amount of blame? It wasn't all on Berman. There were things that Behr and the other writers were willing to fight for, and a regular LGBT character (or relationship) was not one of them.

BTW, I prefer not to see any "Jew counting money" images being deployed.
 
Behr does admit that they "should have done better" than just one episode in seven years and that when it came to whether the studio would allow a gay character he said "probably not, but we never asked".
 
Since ISB et al. apparently didn't ask, it's hard to say whether they would have tried to fight for it if they had asked and been initially turned down. Given his remorse in retrospect, I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one.
 
Reeeeeal easy to say stuff like this now, isn’t it? I was reading about the Gilmore Girls after watching that a few weeks back, and even that show wasn’t allowed a gay character.

Given the negative reactions to Rejoined and how close the show came to getting cancelled, it really doesn’t seem like having an openly gay character was a fight they could have won. I honestly find articles like this a little insulting, especially since DS9 devoted a whole episode to how hard it is to represent progressive ideals when the public aren’t ready for it AND pushed hard enough to at least get one of the first on screen lesbian kisses! Maybe the writer of this article should remember TV writers didn’t have the privileges of expression they now enjoy?
 
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That's a serious accusation.

I'm not too fond of Berman but I don't think that he's a homophobe.

He was probably counting the money and didn't want anything controversial to cause viewers to drop off.

That has been suggested by numerous sources. And it's very, very plausible. He refused to even let a same sex couple be glimpsed in the background of Ten Forward.

Either he was a homophobe, or, in your version, a craven coward.

Take your pick.
 
That has been suggested by numerous sources. And it's very, very plausible. He refused to even let a same sex couple be glimpsed in the background of Ten Forward.

Either he was a homophobe, or, in your version, a craven coward.

Take your pick.

I don't know if he's a homophobe or not, although 'numerous sources' certainly seems to point that way. Thing is, I'm not sure refusing to let a same sex couple be glimpsed in Ten Forward means he's either a homophobe or a 'craven coward'. Maybe he is/was a homophobe, but he was also probably well aware of what you could get away with on network TV at that time.
 
I don't know if he's a homophobe or not, although 'numerous sources' certainly seems to point that way. Thing is, I'm not sure refusing to let a same sex couple be glimpsed in Ten Forward means he's either a homophobe or a 'craven coward'. Maybe he is/was a homophobe, but he was also probably well aware of what you could get away with on network TV at that time.

Either he's a homophobe or a coward. There's no middle ground. Otherwise, we would have heard over and over how he legitimately tried to get SOME representation on screen but was rebuffed by the powers that be. And obviously that didn't happen.

Star Trek originally pushed boundaries and didn't play it safe. Unfortunately, the franchise hasn't been truly groundbreaking since the 60s. Every subsequent show has played it safe. Which is cowardly and weak.

In the late 80s, early 90s, gay representation was somewhat similar to POC representation in the 60s - virtually non-existent. The show had a chance to be truly ahead of the curve and progressive and it took the easy way out.

Sure, that was the vast majority of shows at the time. But that's no excuse. Particularly for "Star Trek", which should have been better.
 
Either he's a homophobe or a coward. There's no middle ground. Otherwise, we would have heard over and over how he legitimately tried to get SOME representation on screen but was rebuffed by the powers that be. And obviously that didn't happen.

Or maybe, as I said, he knew what would and wouldn't fly. It's real easy to sit here in 2020 and talk about how someone over 30 years ago should have acted, but that was a hugely different world. It's great that we're now able to have these discussions about sexuality and see LGBTQ people getting better represented, but I think comments like those in this article mostly just trivialise the profound changes needed for that to start happening.
 
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