To Boldly Go. . .
The Star Trek universe drew me up into the stars almost fifty years ago, and it’s been a place I’ve loved revisiting ever since. During this year of pandemic and lock-downs, it’s been especially comforting to revisit these old friends from the future.
What’s not to like about a universe that celebrates “infinite diversity in infinite combinations”? A place where poverty has been abolished and so many of the unsolvable problems of our age have been resolved?
Of course, the Trek universe is still populated by flawed human beings (as well as flawed members of other interstellar species). Without that reality, there wouldn’t have been many interesting stories, would there?
The Original Series concluded its three-year run with an episode called Turnabout Intruder, the title an apparent reference to the Thorne Smith sex-swap comedy novel of the 1930s. The protagonist of this story is Dr. Janice Lester, an old flame of Captain Kirk’s (Was there one woman in the universe who wasn’t bedded by Kirk?).
Dr. Lester has been harboring a grudge for years; Starfleet doesn’t allow women to become starship captains because they’re emotionally not suited for the job. (Don’t try telling that to Kathryn Janeway, especially if you want to walk away from the encounter intact.) She gains access to a device that will allow her to swap bodies with Kirk.
Suffice it to say things don’t end well for Dr. Lester. It always baffled me that a program as progressive on racial issues could be so backward on feminist/gender issues.
Let’s fast forward twenty-three years and the Next Generation episode, The Outcast. The Enterprise-D is contacted for help by a genderless species . . .or are they? First Officer Will Riker, the Next Generation’s answer to Jim Kirk, finds himself falling for a member of this race called Soren. Soren, it seems, is willing to boldly go where none of her people have gone before: she declares herself to be female.
Soren
Her speech affirming her identity sends a shiver up my spine every time I hear it:
“I am tired of lies. I am female. I have had those feelings, those longings, all my life. It is not unnatural. I am not sick because I feel this way. I do not need to be helped. I do not need to be cured. What I need, and what all of those who are like me need, is your understanding and your compassion.”
Soren’s story doesn’t end well either. She is forced to undergo a form of conversion therapy, no doubt as cruel and invasive then as it is right now. It’s a depressing outcome, but at least her voice was heard. At least it was heard.
Category: Transgender Body & Soul
About the Author (Author Profile)
Claire Hall was born and grew up in a large city on the left coast and has spent most of her adult years in a beautiful small coastal community where she's now an elected official in local government after spending many years as a newspaper and radio reporter. In her space time she loves reading, writing fiction (her first novel was published by a regional press a couple of years ago), watching classic Hollywood movies, and walking.Subscribe
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