• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

News Trans character announced

Status
Not open for further replies.
Some trans kids might think "Oh, this is sort of like me!" but they're also going to think "Am I just some sort of freak imaginary alien?"
.....
Nichole Main in Supergirl .... is actually a fucking alien instead of a Earthling human.
....
I don't think it's lazy but I do think it's very problematic that the first trans character in a series run by a bunch of cis people is being portrayed as an alien, rather than a human from the planet Earth. Really goes to show that cis people shouldn't be given the keys to the car.

To quote Captain Kirk: "Spock, you want to know something?, Everybody's Human."
 
To quote Captain Kirk: "Spock, you want to know something?, Everybody's Human."

Being a human isn't an excuse for the poor decisions of cis people in positions of power over the manner in which marginalized people are depicted in mass media. Listen to the experiences of trans people and non-binary and the criticisms that trans and non-binary people have of the system.
 
Going to be interesting to see how they do this, especially given the way modern Federation medical tech makes things like completely re-writing your DNA a simple out patient procedure.
 
The person most likely to know something about current contracts is @Maurice
I'd have to look at the current WGA rules and some things have changed due to streaming et al, but historically it's been the case that if a nonstaffer creates a character they have to be paid for that character's reuse. I know Ellison's separation rights meant he had to be paid if the Guardian of Forever got reused, but I'm not sure if he signed a standard contract or something more custom negotiated.
 
With 32nd tech I’d imagine they could just change the gender of a person completely. They wouldn’t be trans people.
Anyway I hope they do female to male. It always seems to be the other way round.
 
With 32nd tech I’d imagine they could just change the gender of a person completely. They wouldn’t be trans people.
Anyway I hope they do female to male. It always seems to be the other way round.

Transgender people are transgender because we are assigned falsely at birth (it's based merely upon how our genitals look). If I were to magically acquire the body of a person assigned female at birth I would still be a transgender person because I was still wrongly assigned at birth and had to transition. Until medical technology and knowledge is accumulated to accurately assign gender at birth transgender and non-binary people will continue to exist.

But still, this whole topic makes me feel very uncomfortable because it's getting close to eugenics shit to erase transgender people and also ignores that not every transgender person has gender dysphoria. Many trans and non-binary people do not want to undergo surgery. The end-goal of transition is not always perfectly passing, the end-goal is whatever the individual needs. For some women that's big, fat mommy milkers and a cute lil' pp, for others it's bottom surgery or facial feminization surgery.
 
I don't think it's lazy but I do think it's very problematic that the first trans character in a series run by a bunch of cis people is being portrayed as an alien, rather than a human from the planet Earth. Really goes to show that cis people shouldn't be given the keys to the car.
When it comes to Trek, I just see some of the alien races are essentially just humans with a different culture. At least when it comes to the more human looking ones that the audience is supposed to identify with. I’m a trans woman and I used to identify with Dax to some extent. The trills aren’t really treated as “the other” like they were in TNG. They obviously have their own culture and they share with other characters, but generally in the same sense that the humans would share aspects of their culture with their friends.

With 32nd tech I’d imagine they could just change the gender of a person completely. They wouldn’t be trans people.
Anyway I hope they do female to male. It always seems to be the other way round.
There would still be trans people, trans people didn’t suddenly appear because the medical treatment became possible. They’ve always existed in every single culture throughout history and always will exist, it’s just part of being human.
 
Transgender people are transgender because we are assigned falsely at birth (it's based merely upon how our genitals look). If I were to magically acquire the body of a person assigned female at birth I would still be a transgender person because I was still wrongly assigned at birth and had to transition. Until medical technology and knowledge is accumulated to accurately assign gender at birth transgender and non-binary people will continue to exist.

But still, this whole topic makes me feel very uncomfortable because it's getting close to eugenics shit to erase transgender people and also ignores that not every transgender person has gender dysphoria. Many trans and non-binary people do not want to undergo surgery. The end-goal of transition is not always perfectly passing, the end-goal is whatever the individual needs. For some women that's big, fat mommy milkers and a cute lil' pp, for others it's bottom surgery or facial feminization surgery.
To me it reads as an excuse to just hire cis people because of the assumption that trans people look a certain way and cis people are how a specific gender should look. As if all men and all women look exactly the same and there isn’t a wide spectrum of shapes that humans fit into.
 
When it comes to Trek, I just see some of the alien races are essentially just humans with a different culture. At least when it comes to the more human looking ones that the audience is supposed to identify with. I’m a trans woman and I used to identify with Dax to some extent. The trills aren’t really treated as “the other” like they were in TNG. They obviously have their own culture and they share with other characters, but generally in the same sense that the humans would share aspects of their culture with their friends.

I don't disagree with you whatsoever, my issue stems from out-of-universe. I think this is a bad decision to make within the context of the production. You're looking at a majority cis production team answering to a majority cis corporation. If this were a couple of trans people with the freedom to do their own thing I wouldn't have qualms whatsoever. My issue is that trans people are being framed as being the 'not from Earth' characters who are also visibly not from Earth. I had a similar issue casting Nicole Maines as an alien character in Supergirl because it's entirely extraneous and works against sending the message. If we already had two or three trans characters who were from Earth I wouldn't be making this distinction whatsoever. I mean, I still headcanon characters as being trans all the time myself ("Jadzia, my dear friend!"), I simply feel we need to pay extra scrutiny to how outright trans and enby folks are depicted in our media as controlled by cis people.
 
To me it reads as an excuse to just hire cis people because of the assumption that trans people look a certain way and cis people are how a specific gender should look. As if all men and all women look exactly the same and there isn’t a wide spectrum of shapes that humans fit into.

Chris Sarandon was cast as a trans woman in Dog Day Afternoon (and was nominated for an Oscar) precisely because the trans women that they auditioned all "looked too much like real women". It's really insulting, especially because this trend has continued with John Lithgow, Hillary Swank and Jeffrey Tambour.

We're just zoo animals to them.
 
I don't disagree with you whatsoever, my issue stems from out-of-universe. I think this is a bad decision to make within the context of the production. You're looking at a majority cis production team answering to a majority cis corporation. If this were a couple of trans people with the freedom to do their own thing I wouldn't have qualms whatsoever. My issue is that trans people are being framed as being the 'not from Earth' characters who are also visibly not from Earth. I had a similar issue casting Nicole Maines as an alien character in Supergirl because it's entirely extraneous and works against sending the message. If we already had two or three trans characters who were from Earth I wouldn't be making this distinction whatsoever. I mean, I still headcanon characters as being trans all the time myself ("Jadzia, my dear friend!"), I simply feel we need to pay extra scrutiny to how outright trans and enby folks are depicted in our media as controlled by cis people.
I get that. For me I guess it depends on how it's handled in the context of the show. If being trans is treated as a sort of universal thing where any species with the concept of gender has individuals who are trans it's so accepted that humans (really Western Civilization since other human cultures at least had places in society for gender non-conforming people) are treated as being the odd ones for how it was handled in the past.

Chris Sarandon was cast as a trans woman in Dog Day Afternoon (and was nominated for an Oscar) precisely because the trans women that they auditioned all "looked too much like real women". It's really insulting, especially because this trend has continued with John Lithgow, Hillary Swank and Jeffrey Tambour.

We're just zoo animals to them.
I know, a lot of it really damaged how I saw myself growing up and still has a major impact on how I see myself now. Sense8 was the first show I saw with a trans woman played by a trans woman who wasn't treated in a very negative light. It probably saved my life given the direction it was taking.
 
I don't think "The Outcast" really works even as a trans allegory. The actress is still cisgender and the character is still an alien. Some trans kids might think "Oh, this is sort of like me!" but they're also going to think "Am I just some sort of freak imaginary alien?"

Yes, this is fair. I think it works better for gender than sexual orientation, but it's still ultimately garbage. The ending - Soren is forced to undergo some kind of conversion therapy and the Enterprise crew let it happen - is just horrible.
 
The Outcast just ends up being misery porn about LGBTQ people and that was the positive narrative for much of the 80s and 90s. Where instead of just the butt of a joke, the gay or trans person was treated with sympathy but they end up being killed for existing. While that does help cis and heterosexual people to learn to have empathy for gay and trans people, it assumes that no gay and trans people were watching and seeing this as the best possible future they could have.
 
Yeah, Hollywood depicts us as either serial killers (Dressed to Kill, Psycho, Sleepaway Camp, Silence of the Lambs), jokes or disgusting. Remember all that vomiting in Ace Ventura when everyone realized they had made out with a trans woman? Goddamn, it makes me angry to think about.

I grew up with this stuff, too, but I also luckily had some positive outlets thanks to manga having such alluring depictions of women (cool but also feminine) or through erotic literature that depicted "becoming a woman" positively. Without that I don't think I'd have had the courage to really examine my deep-seated issues with the gender I was assigned at birth.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top