DiscussionStar Trek TNG: The Outcast

submitted by fr_bandersnatchghey... from self.LGBDropTheT

I've been working long hours at home since Covid struck. I've been keeping the TV on in the background, I guess so I don't feel so alone all day? I'm not a Star Trek person, but I know that the series are long and would provide ample background chatter, so Star Trek: The Next Generation has been playing on Netflix. I keep an eye on it from time to time.

Season 5, Episode 18, "The Outcast". The crew encounters an androgynous race in which gender specificity is regarded as "unacceptable". Relationships are non-sexual and everyone is interchangeable. Gender expression and sexual interaction are considered primitive and perverse and those who begin to display gendered tendencies or behaviors are subject to forcible corrective therapy.

The main alien protagonist begins working with Riker (thankfully fully grown into his handsome beard by this point) and over time admits that 'they' are interested in him and an illicit affair begins. (It feels like this guy's contaminated the gene pools of hundreds of galaxies over the course of this series). I won't give away the ending in case folks are interested in watching for themselves.

The episode originally aired in 1992 and I'm impressed that Star Trek was willing to take on the subject matter. Perhaps it wasn't as taboo then as I think it was. My impression is that the episode is coded to be a parable for homosexuality and gay conversion therapy, but was cloaked in the preposterous idea of a gender-less society to force the audience to see the discrimination in a sympathetic light. Homosexuality-shaming from the T quadrant aside, obviously we aren't in a world of state-sanctioned non-binary coercive therapy, but I found it... humorous? Telling? SOMETHING, that the far-fetched fictions of 1992 are not terribly far off the mark of reality 28 years later.

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[–]xanditAGAB (Assigned Gay at Birth) 7 insightful - 1 fun7 insightful - 0 fun8 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

remember back then alot of tv shows would do a homosexuality episode and then forget about it. It was usually the main character grappling with it then doing the right thing in the end by supporting that person. Since alot of trekkies wanted a gay character the best we could get was this episode... it was supposed to be coded for homosexuality, i don't think they realized they were actually dealing with trans stuff. I think they were just trying to make it seem alien. Needless to say no one was happy with the episode. Its obvious the alien is female and so its just another Riker falls in love with an alien episode. Another episode on TNG is when beverly crusher's ex is a trill and goes from male to female, and beverly decides she can't keep the relationship going as she is heterosexual. You have to wait until DS9 for the first lesbian kiss on trek involving trills again. But to be honest with the trill stuff, it really reads like trans ideology, in that there's a gender separate from the host body.

[–]writerlylesbian 4 insightful - 2 fun4 insightful - 1 fun5 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

I remember that episode. It was meant to be coded for homosexuality, but inadvertently I think they were really talking about what would be called 'gender identity' today. Been years since I watched the episode, but I remember a lot of the things that made the individual decide she was female was liking make-up, and yoga, and other superficially 'girly' things. And I guess falling for a guy meant she was female, because we all know all females are heterosexual, obviously.

[–]davids877Straight Male Man 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (7 children)

The Orville, Season 1, Epoisode 3. "About a girl"

[–]fr_bandersnatchghey...[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (6 children)

Not familiar with that series. But similar I presume?

[–]xanditAGAB (Assigned Gay at Birth) 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

It's closer to classic trek than the new stuff that is actual trek. It's made by Seth MacFarlane.

[–]davids877Straight Male Man 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (4 children)

Tangentially similar.

Spoilers for the episode: Spaceship from 'totally not a knock-off of the federation' Mixed species crew, humans and others. One crewmember is from an all male species with a husband. They hatch a child, child is actually female, request an immediate sex change from their ship's doctor(human), she says 'no way in hell'. Ship's captain(human) says the same. They return to their planet where a trial begins with the ship's crew representing no-sex-change. Even with proof that there are females doing stuff in their society the society decides to change the child's sex. Fin.

[–]fr_bandersnatchghey...[S] 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (3 children)

And is the audience intended to sympathize with or oppose the sex change?

[–]davids877Straight Male Man 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

I think as the crew is the stand-in for the audience they are meant to oppose it. It's considered a 'downer' ending. The up-beat-trek ending would have been "Ok, we've convinced this evil alien race to stop doing sex corrective surgery on their female children."

It was just 3 years ago, I'm not even sure if that episode would fly today with the massive increase in the visibility of the trans agenda.

[–]MarkJeffersonTight defenses and we draw the line 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I remember watching this. Definitely a downer ending. It would be deemed transphobic now to even suggest that a forced transition of a newborn could be seem as anything but the most wonderful thing in the whole universe.

[–]davids877Straight Male Man 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I can see today's take on it: Transphobic ship's doctor refuses. Captain orders her to, she still refuses. They go to the alien's home planet. Doctor sees the results of the 0.1% who weren't transitioned at birth and how their lives were destroyed by the alien equivalent of puberty making them the wrong shape/unattractive/whatever and the doctor sees the error of her ways and says that if any of the alien people need transitioning when their ship is around to just give her a call.

[–]Q-Continuum-kin 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

This planet is boring, Jean-Luc.

[–]MarkJeffersonTight defenses and we draw the line 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Tis a silly place.

[–]Movellon 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Now we know what Butler used to watch while stoned in the 90's.