"The crying game" was a good work for doing that. The plot did not focus on the trans issues and in fact only introduced it 1/2 way through. Still one of my favourite movies and songs.

So let me know when folks are going to start transferring and stuff ... it looks like the transfers are live ... so waiting to hear when to do it ... I got 2 accounts and lots of toons heh

I admit that a trans character on a mainstream fictional work whose trans-ness (for lack of a better word) is unremarkable and not the defining characteristic of the character would be lovely.

I don't trust Hollywood to do it properly. At all. At (censored) all.

Quote by lilithvf1998

Sam, I cried for Soren, FWIW. Her story sounded an awful lot like mine, subtracting out the issue of whether her gender had any implication for her sexual attractions. And the J'Naii's treatment of gender is not that far off from the way we humans treat ours, only instead of androgyny there is an insistence on a rigid and immutable gender binary. There are plenty in our society that would love to somehow force trans folk's brains to conform to what they think should match the genitalia--I'm reminded of this fact every time a cis person declares trans folk to be mentally ill, or to claim that reparative therapy can make a trans person cisgender the same way they claim it can make gays and lesbians into straight folk.

Lesley, maybe for you it's a non-issue, but if it were a non-issue for me I wouldn't have brought it up in the first place.

Nova, you're right about the ham-fisted treatment of trans characters in popular culture, but that just means the Star Trek universe doesn't have to do much to be progressive.

What Trek has tried to do in the past was to show a currant issue from a slant that would allow it to be less human, but still apparent as something and raise questions about it. And you are right about Soren there. That was half the plots point. That was it really right to "help" someone overcome that in that way. In the same way mant today still think you can "pray away the gay" and so on.

Frakes himself apparently said he wanted Soren to be made more masculine in it which would have leant an even stronger male/male gay angle to the story. That came either from the Wiki article on the episode itself or sexuality in Star Trek itself.

Where the Federation itself is meant to be far beyond such issues, but those they encounter may not be and how they will often try to help or at least shed light on why there way is bad.
Classic case is the TNG episode where a colony or genetically "pure" people face extinction until Geordi is able to help reinforce their colony to survive a passing comet fragment. Showing how someone "disabled" who would have never lived in their group actually saves them.

The issue at times like those is when Trek wont go far enough with what it is saying and doing. Often taking the more subtle route or losing the message when it tries to be too subtle.

Quote by Nova

Quote by LesleyA

Not trying to be a stick in the mud here but as far as gender is concerned, all characters except the occasional Ferengi female or Betazoid are all fully clothed making a definitive gender id almost impossible.

You're not being a stick in the mud, you're being sensible.

Given the ham-handed way that film and television handle THE CHARACTER THAT IS A WOMAN. . . OR IS SHE? it's something of a relief to me that Star Trek hasn't taken the opportunity to disappoint us.

Alas it has already if you count Quark getting made up to appear Female and convince the Ferengi that women can do business. I forget which episode it was, but it was truly dire. That managed to make a mockery of TVs and women in general I suspect in how he portrayed them as well.

Sam, I cried for Soren, FWIW. Her story sounded an awful lot like mine, subtracting out the issue of whether her gender had any implication for her sexual attractions. And the J'Naii's treatment of gender is not that far off from the way we humans treat ours, only instead of androgyny there is an insistence on a rigid and immutable gender binary. There are plenty in our society that would love to somehow force trans folk's brains to conform to what they think should match the genitalia--I'm reminded of this fact every time a cis person declares trans folk to be mentally ill, or to claim that reparative therapy can make a trans person cisgender the same way they claim it can make gays and lesbians into straight folk.

Lesley, maybe for you it's a non-issue, but if it were a non-issue for me I wouldn't have brought it up in the first place.

Nova, you're right about the ham-fisted treatment of trans characters in popular culture, but that just means the Star Trek universe doesn't have to do much to be progressive.

Quote by LesleyA

Not trying to be a stick in the mud here but as far as gender is concerned, all characters except the occasional Ferengi female or Betazoid are all fully clothed making a definitive gender id almost impossible.

You're not being a stick in the mud, you're being sensible.

Given the ham-handed way that film and television handle THE CHARACTER THAT IS A WOMAN. . . OR IS SHE? it's something of a relief to me that Star Trek hasn't taken the opportunity to disappoint us.

There is already a thread discussing server transfers here: /forums/holocron/43984-re-should-the-guild-switch-servers?limit=6&start=6#44053

Please take all discussions there.

Guild mergers with other guilds isn't an avenue we're going to explore and the discussion should remain focused on our guild.

Thank you,

Thread Locked.

Not trying to be a stick in the mud here but as far as gender is concerned, all characters except the occasional Ferengi female or Betazoid are all fully clothed making a definitive gender id almost impossible.

Like myself I never make a song and dance about my gender so why should they? We have also seen episodes in TNG where the clothing was worn by both genders so transvestism and the like would also be impossible to spot. In 10 forward we see single sex groups sitting around all the time and so how do we know their sexuality? Peoples professionalism would also likely pretty much eliminate any intimate episodes for most shots we see.

Really I think the entire subject is a non issue and if it were a big part then Trek may never have been the success we see it as today.

The easy answer would be to point out how ships like a Galaxy Class have over 1000 people onboard and even over 7 years you can only tell stories about a few of them.

A station like DS9 must have several thousand occupants at any one time. So there would be plenty of options for lots like that within them. But finding a reason and compelling story for why you should focus on one or a few who have had that situation and make a good story around them is another matter.

Trek has tried to touch on Gender issues such as that odd late Next Gen episode where they are on a planet of single gender people and Riker ends up falling for a woman who is genetically female and not like the others. The arguement where he is trying to fight against her being forcefully changed away from what she is/wants to be.

If there is ever another proper Trek show I think you would see a gay character and option for such a story. Alas TOS and TNG were still in far too conservative time for it. ie. Kirk kissing Uhura causing outrage back in the 60/70s.
But we would also want a well implemented character if they did. And to really explore those issues the character would have to be part of the main cast. Alas lower ranks only ever get airtime for low budget episodes and rarely get shown for more then a couple of episodes at best, and as such only get the barest hints of character development.
I know you discounted Trill already but they were the easiest way to include that with Dax and the Lesbian present kiss caused from previous relationship.

Edit: Seems that was The Outcast featuring the J'Naii so I guess you already covered that as well...

Oh, if only I had listened. :(

It took me all weekend to patch. It kept stopping for some reason. Finished patching just in time for the Beta to be over.

Hopefully, I'll join you all next time!

Knights of Stonewall is honestly pretty dead. There are maybe three people who talk in the guild, and no sense of community. I would like to suggest that the people in our group merge with a guild that has an active leadership. I'm not faulting anyone, but I just don't think folks in the lead are interested any more. These forums, if any indication, show no activity.

If we are an origin server, I suggest we know what group is being formed on the destination, because almost everyone will move to the new more crowded server who's active. Would be nice to stick together. If we are a destination server, I think we need to merge with Council and Prismatic Order to have enough people to do anything useful, at minimum chat, though grouping would be nice.

I've already spoken with folks form Stonewall Council about this and they are as friendly as ever. It's not poaching, as one guild pal called it, if you're leaving a silent chat channel.

So any thoughts to what you want to do when server transfers start happening?

First off, we unfortunately won't have any choice in the server we are allowed to move to. Bioware will determine which servers are eligible (the origin server) for transferring to a single destination server. They aren't enabling character transfers to any server of your choice at this time but they aren't saying it won't happen either. When it does become available, I am betting there will be a fee involved-$25 per character is fairly standard. I am still in shock that they are making these mass transfers free but it would have been business suicide to do otherwise.

QiqJoe, I know basically what has to be done but there are currently a couple of hurdles which we will have to work through. You essentially have it correct though, the guildmaster will have to transfer over along with 4 other people and together, they will have to go to the guild coordinator on the fleet to restart the guild. The guild bank can only be dealt with by the guildmaster. They have to personally contact Customer Service to get the bank restored. None of this will happen quickly because they will only be able to do so many transfers/day so there will be quite a waiting list. We are probably going to have to empty the guild banks because essentially this whole process is a disbanding and reforming of the guild so what's left in the bank may not be transferable (except on our toons, of course). :unsure: Re-inviting will happen right away as the restoration of the guild bank is not going to be a quick process. I am just guessing on this based on what I've read so far but I am going to send an inquiry and see if I can get more detailed information. I'll post again when I have any new information. :)

It seems like everyone that has responded so far is in favor of a server switch. Keep the responses coming whether in favor or not.

Good news for LGBT peeps: we all did a good job coordinating on Jekk'jekk Tarr to begin with. From what I understand, we don't get a choice as to what our "destination server" is. So, everyone on Jekk'jekk who decides to switch is going to the same server. This means that all the gays, homos, lesbians, transgenders, queer-friendlies, etc. that were on Jekk'jekk will be moving to the same destination server, or else they'll stay on an even less populated Jekk.

I've actually tried out several servers recently that all seem to have a Standard number of users and up, and they were all SIGNIFICANTLY improved from Jekk'jekk. Jedi Covenant was the best by far. Even though Jedi Covenant is PVE, it's an East Coast server. I doubt they'll be merging a West Coast server into that because of potential latency issues moving from West to East. I checked out Drooga's Pleasure Barge, too. It seems nice. It's been consistently Standard every time I look at it, no matter the time of day or morning. No problems there. It's PVE and West Coast, so there's a decent chance we could merge into that. I haven't seen too many other PVE and West Coast servers with high populations that have anything more than a Light population. Granted, that doesn't mean that 10 servers won't merge into a Light population server to cause it to be Heavy. Time will only tell on that.

Question for anyone who knows: do we know what is required to get Knights of Stonewall/Lords of Stonewall transferred over? From what I understand, the founder(s) have to contact customer service and get them to transfer our guild bank from our old server to the new. I also think that they have to establish the new guild on the new server before doing that. I could be wrong, so could someone clarify for me?

Tentative (incomplete) plan for transitioning servers:
1. Have founder(s) transfer their characters.
2. Establish KoS/LoS on the new server.
3. Contact customer service to transfer our old bank to the new server.
4. Re-invite everyone who is a part of the guild.

This is part of my anal-retentiveness. I see the server merge as a new chance for KoS and LoS. The sooner we get established and the more firm ground on which we have to stand, we can recruit new members and make ourselves that much stronger and more diverse of a guild. And you know our motto, "Strength in diversity."

I'd imagine that people who don't identify with the binary genders (for humans, anyway) are likely free to be who they identify as in the shiny happy Star Trek setting. Their invisibility in canon works is because they are mostly invisible to our modern mainstream culture which is creating these works. (Not to mention trans and queer people are still anathema to the big studios.)

I think that we're given the short stick in terms of discussing things like this in terms of fans, because we're often focused on one crew - and even then, mostly senior officers. By my rough calculation (I'm no Vulcan), there's about 0.25% chance of us having seen any kind of non-cis, non-hetero senior officer or captain in Star Trek's run thus far. Now, if we step back and go "Wait a minute, this isn't just a matter of statistics - people write these stories, why aren't they writing queer characters?" I think that's a separate issue rather than "Where are the queers in Starfleet?" The former is a real-life question, the latter seems more like an in-universe question.

See, that's what I meant by "assimilationist"--maybe it's "all good" from their perspective, but it's disheartening to think our loyalty to binary gender is so strong that we'd in essence make people fit into that dichotomy.

I'm thinking the move is totally necessary; Jekk really has been dead lately. Has anyone tried Drooga's Pleasure Barge? I've been looking at the servers for the past few days and it always listed as Standard while the others are light. Perhaps we should consider moving there.

I should point out that I'm purposefully excluding the Trill, J'naii, and other "transgendered species" as Data referred to them in Star Trek Nemesis. Not that they are handled all that elegantly either, but I'm speaking to the human experience intentionally. Star Trek introduced a world to the idea of all races and cultures working together as equals, and despite being somewhat hamfisted about it, also suggested gender equality was not that far off. Only its portrayal was flawed as might be expected given that Gene Rodenberry was coming from the perspective of the Civil Rights Movement, Second Wave Feminism, and the Cold War. He probably didn't know about Stonewall (or the riots at Cooper's Donuts and Compton's Cafeteria before that) and even if he wanted to integrate LGBT folk into his vision of the future, he had plenty on his plate to start with. But, I digress.

I figure they probably sort out trans people young and it's all good.