trans/enby representation in star trek the next generation (spoilers obviously)

homemadedynamite 10/3/2023 07:51 am 241

(side note: i'm almost finished with season 5 so there can (and probably will be) more. also this is a show from the 80s/90s so while the language/representation isn't perfect its extremely progressive for a show from that era)

anyways a list of (somewhat dubiously, somewhat not) canon trans/enby characters:

- Data (states that he is not a male, but an android that is atomically male.)

- Lal (is programmed to be genderless, but Data states that he is allowing his child to pick their own sex and apperance.)

- the Bynars (aren't men or women and think collectively, so could be a system allegory as well. also they speak in binary code lol)

- Odan (not sure what his gender is, but Trill are transferred into different host bodies, and he is transferred into a female body at the end) (side note I love how Beverly Crusher's biggest problem with being in love with him is that he keeps transferring into different bodies and not that he's in a womans body lmfao)

- Soren (trans female) (side note: her species is basically a genderless race that forces everyone to be genderless and puts people through what is obviously a conversion therapy allegory if they do turn out to have a gender. basically this episode is "a world where being gay is the norm" but actually done right and with gender)

- Borg are genderless (because everything besides assimilation is irrelavent to them, including gender)

- not a character but the episode The Measure Of A Man seems to be a trans allegory (tldr: they decide if Data has any rights as a human or is property of the Enterprise.)