Out characters in the novelverse?

[JD]

I never really read any kind of flirting in the Nog-Shar relationship.
I might have asked this before, and if so I apologize, but wasn't there a book where Prynn made a reference to having a relationship with a woman some time in the past? I swear I remember reading that somewhere.

 

[DS9Continuing]

She admitted that she had once considered asking a girl out when she was having a particularly bad boy-trouble streak, but decided against it. It never went past the thinking about stage, IIRC.

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[Bry_Sinclair]

For the whole Nog-Shar thing I never saw any hint of flirtation or attraction between the two.

Shar did have a more intimate relationship with the zhen in his bondgroup, but I'm sure there is a line that the thaan (other 'male') had been his first true love when they met--it has been a while since I read those books though, so my memory could be a little hazy.

I actually really like the idea of Jake being gay, as it would have been a good angle to explore the topic from; someone just starting to find their identity, which their sexuality is just another facet of. It would also have been interesting to see how the Jake/Nog relationship (and I'm not meaning them becoming boyfriends) developed.

After all Quark did ask Sisko about how he'd react if Jake married a Ferengi female, so how might he have taken Jake and Nog getting together

 

[DS9Continuing]

Shar did have a more intimate relationship with the zhen in his bondgroup, but I'm sure there is a line that the thaan (other 'male') had been his first true love when they met--it has been a while since I read those books though, so my memory could be a little hazy.

That's what I recall as well - that Anichent was the first one he really bonded with. That they used to secretly hold hands in class and things, just cute little high-school romance stuff like that. And that he remained Shar's "first love" in that way. Dizhei was the solid, reliable rock of the group, not a passionate relationship but certainly a warm and affectionate one. And Thriss was the one that really got his engine going, hence them doing the naughty when they shouldn't have.

It would be interesting to try to establish if there is homosexuality in Andorians - if a thaan could have a relationship with another thaan, or a shen with another shen. There would be no real concept of "bisexuality" as we understand it, since the default position is "trisexuality" already - any one individual has to be sexually attracted to three other sexes for the whole thing to work at all. Does that necessarily extrapolate to activity between individuals of the same sex being socially acceptable? Not really, especially when the cultural imperative to reproduce is so massively ingrained into them.

But then, it's also been established that once those obligations have been satisfied, and the small window of safe reproduction is closed, they can pretty much do what they want. So the situation might be more along the lines of, as long as you fulfil your obligations to the bond, feel free to sleep with or have a relationship with whoever you want after that. Indeed I think Shar even says as much when contemplating a possible relationship with Prynn.

And that all depends on whether homosexuality even exists in the Andorian species at the genetic level as it does in humans and Romulans and Klingons, for which we have no evidence one way or the other, before you get to the social level.

And what about transgender Andorians? That could really fuck shit up.

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[chrinFinity]

That said, I bet there is already some example of a canon character that has been outed in a TrekLit story.

Hawk was gay. Worf's replacement, from First Contact. I'm fuzzy on the details but I think it was supposed to even be mentioned in the movies, but it was changed before filming (or maybe even filmed and cut). Probably for the best as the guy was killed pretty badly and that would have been the wrong message.

I was always hoping Kes would come out.

 

[chrinFinity]

Then again, though, given how misogynist Ferengi society is, what if they were like the Ancient Greeks, who promoted same-sex male relationships as the only true love that could exist (because they considered women little more than draft animals)?

Consider the 113th rule of acquisition: "Always have sex with the boss..." in a culture where women are disallowed to leave their homes, or earn profit.

 

[Sho]

^ Good find!

 

[chrinFinity]

Another instance of subtle pro-queer messages hidden in DS9, in the episode "Rules of Acquisition," when Pel (female Ferengi disguised with male gender expression) is confessing to Dax about the true nature of her sex and gender and her attraction to Quark, we get this exchange:

DAX: I don't care what anybody says, I love him.
PEL: So do I.
DAX: You really do, don't you?
PEL: What?
DAX: Love Quark. Don't bother trying to deny it. I've seen the way you look at him.
PEL: Please, keep your voice down.
DAX: Does he know?
PEL: He doesn't even know I'm a female.
DAX: You're a woman?

Dax delivers the line "You really do, don't you?" with a note of approval in her voice, and a smile. Then, "You're a woman?" is expressed with shock.

 

[starri]

Heck, if ANY species is going to by default understand same-sex attraction, it would be the Trill.

 

[Mage]

That said, I bet there is already some example of a canon character that has been outed in a TrekLit story.

Hawk was gay. Worf's replacement, from First Contact. I'm fuzzy on the details but I think it was supposed to even be mentioned in the movies, but it was changed before filming (or maybe even filmed and cut). Probably for the best as the guy was killed pretty badly and that would have been the wrong message.

I was always hoping Kes would come out.

Hawk being gay was mostly cut because it served no purpose to the story, plus how do you add into the movie without it sounding silly?
"Where's luitenant Hawk, your gay conn-officer?"
"Sadly, our gay conn-officer was killed."
It's a bit odd like that.

Throughout my 30 years of life, I've had several gay and lesbian friends, and to me being gay is no issue. And I think that for the Federation in the 24th century, the same thing applies; it's no longer a big deal.
So, for the writers, it's very difficult to write a story about a character discovering that he/she is homosexual and writing intense drama around it.
Honoustly, if (for example) Nog would turn out to be gay, the changes of someone from his inner circle reacting with disgust or hatred (something I've come to understand is the biggest fear for gay and lesbian people these days), sounds very stupid. So you have to first bring them into a situation where the character is surrounded by people who hate homosexuality, and THEN having that person coming out, so to say.
Story-wise, all of that would be almost soapy, and personally, I believe that's the biggest reason TrekLit writers have never made a big deal about gay or lesbian characters, and just write them like that. Like with Sean Hawk and Keru. They just were a gay couple, and it was the most normal thing in the world.
And, again personally, I found that very satisfying, since it very much implied that that is a future we are heading towards.

 

[Christopher]

^Exactly. That's the flaw with all those rationalizations you heard from Trek and other producers about not including gay characters because they didn't know how to do it without it being An Issue. Just include them and treat their relationships the same way you'd treat any other relationships. Neither dwell on them nor exclude them, just treat them casually. You can see this in Trek Lit, and in a lot of current TV shows. For instance, the Canadian erotic-adventure series Lost Girl, whose main character is a succubus. She enters into relationships with men and women with equal casualness, and her lesbian relationships are treated just as routinely as her hetero ones, without any special attention being called to them as something different or surprising or unusually kinky or whatever. (My upcoming Only Superhuman takes much the same approach.)

 

[Sci]

^Exactly. That's the flaw with all those rationalizations you heard from Trek and other producers about not including gay characters because they didn't know how to do it without it being An Issue. Just include them and treat their relationships the same way you'd treat any other relationships

Just to play Devil's Advocate, though, I would point out that canonical Star Trek has in general never been very good at portraying heterosexual romantic relationships; there's a reason one of KRAD's categories in his Rewatching TNG column for Tor is called "No Sex, Please, We're Starfleet."

So while I certainly agree TNG/DSN/VOY should have featured LGBT characters and relationships and have treated them equally, that doesn't mean I'd trust them to able to do it right.

But I'm digressing from the main point of this thread.

 

[DonIago]

I would have rather seen an LGBT character portrayed in a way where I could say "Well, that was a pretty bad job of it, but at least they were obviously trying" than not at all.

 

[JD]

^Exactly. That's the flaw with all those rationalizations you heard from Trek and other producers about not including gay characters because they didn't know how to do it without it being An Issue. Just include them and treat their relationships the same way you'd treat any other relationships. Neither dwell on them nor exclude them, just treat them casually. You can see this in Trek Lit, and in a lot of current TV shows. For instance, the Canadian erotic-adventure series Lost Girl, whose main character is a succubus. She enters into relationships with men and women with equal casualness, and her lesbian relationships are treated just as routinely as her hetero ones, without any special attention being called to them as something different or surprising or unusually kinky or whatever. (My upcoming Only Superhuman takes much the same approach.)

They did the same kind of thing on Monday's Teen Wolf. The characters were at a party, and there was a pan over all of the people dancing and making out and one of the couple making out was two guys. They didn't draw attention to it, or focus on it any more than any of the other couples. They were just a couple partying, with no more emphasis than any of the other couples they showed.

 

[Sho]

^ Which is great, and unfortunately still no small gesture, but it would have been oh-so-much more powerful in the late 80s, early 90s at the height of the HIV crisis when false stigmata were running rampant. I think we're all in agreement that Trek missed an opportunity there. And not just because we expected it from Trek, but context-free, it was a powerful show and had the platform to do it.

 

[Captaindemotion]

In general, Trek just didn't show an ability to deal with relationships the way the like of the Buffyverse did.

I know people like to say that Joss Whedon loved to set up great relationships just so he could kill one half off or split them up. But love, sex and same-sex relationships were all treated so much more maturely and matter-of-factly there than in Trek.

 

[Sho]

Hmm, not sure. I mean Star Trek did nothing particularly naturally. The characters speak about nothing like "regular blokes" do. That's not meant as condemnation, it's just the fact of its stylization: Trek dialog is heightened, theater-like dialog. If romance is handled somewhat aloof and stiffly, that actually fits the theme. Perhaps the problem was actually more that romance was never quite lyrical enough. Then again, if you look at it from this angle, the Kira + Odo romance, awkward as it felt at times, was actually quite epic stuff.

That said, why I have no great love for Enterprise, I think Trip + T'Pol was actually probably the best-handled couple in the franchise. The actors sold it well.

We're getting totally off-topic now though .