Star Trek and Transgenderism
Star Trek Insiders and "outcasts"
This is hardly the beginning or end of the discussion, but it makes for a good starting point, methinks.
Here's what concerns me about the matter: We know that there's not an insignificant number of transgender folk in the human species. Some contemporary estimates place the number of trans folk somewhere between 0.2% and 0.5%, and frankly I suspect we may approach 1% of the worldwide population. That's enough that you'd think a sizable starship should have at least one trans person. So, where are they?
I mean, you could ask the same question about gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, and queer folk in general. It's as if we all were so thoroughly assimilated that nobody can tell we're there, and therefore heteronormativity and cisnormativity hold sway. My interpretation is that we got so good at gender reassignment treatments that most binary-identified trans folk--trans women and men--were able to completely blend into a cisnormative world. But that leaves genderqueers, agender folk, neutrois folk, gender-fluid folk, etc. with nowhere to really go, unless they go through periods of strong identity with one side or another of the gender binary and are able to change gender as quickly and conveniently as humans could be made to pass as Klingon. But again, that's very assimilationist and frankly a little depressing to me.
Any thoughts?
This is hardly the beginning or end of the discussion, but it makes for a good starting point, methinks.
Here's what concerns me about the matter: We know that there's not an insignificant number of transgender folk in the human species. Some contemporary estimates place the number of trans folk somewhere between 0.2% and 0.5%, and frankly I suspect we may approach 1% of the worldwide population. That's enough that you'd think a sizable starship should have at least one trans person. So, where are they?
I mean, you could ask the same question about gay, lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, and queer folk in general. It's as if we all were so thoroughly assimilated that nobody can tell we're there, and therefore heteronormativity and cisnormativity hold sway. My interpretation is that we got so good at gender reassignment treatments that most binary-identified trans folk--trans women and men--were able to completely blend into a cisnormative world. But that leaves genderqueers, agender folk, neutrois folk, gender-fluid folk, etc. with nowhere to really go, unless they go through periods of strong identity with one side or another of the gender binary and are able to change gender as quickly and conveniently as humans could be made to pass as Klingon. But again, that's very assimilationist and frankly a little depressing to me.
Any thoughts?
