On LGBT characters in Star Trek
[I found this while searching back through my blog for another post – it was a response to a reply I had gotten on a post, but I felt that, in light of our recent discussions about the reboot/representation in future Trek, maybe I should share it again, because I don’t think I’ve ever said it better than I did here.]
Why the hell shouldn’t I expect an LGBT crewmember and LGBT relationships from Star Trek?
They had one of the first televisied interracial kisses.
They had one of the first televised same-sex kisses.
They had an Asian man and African woman and a Russian on the Bridge of the Enterprise in the height of the Cold War!
So I’m sorry but like hell I can’t expect it to break every barrier. That’s been its mission statement from the very first episode.
You’re right though, it has addressed it, in a single episode of DS9 – one of the many reasons I adore that series more than I ever will Voyager or Enterprise. Because the showrunners of DS9 weren’t afraid to push the envelope, and they made a better show because of it.
People have been calling for a LGBT character and relationship since the Next Generation first aired. By the time it got to Voyager, the showrunners started saying that they ‘wanted’ to do it – Kate Mulgrew even apologised for never having it on her show, saying that she pushed them to do it but they never did.
There were rumours they’d finally have a LGBT character on Enterprise, because again they said they’d do it, but it didn’t happen.
Why? Because the showrunners (i.e. Braga and Berman) were too busy putting attractive women in sexy clothing to bother pushing any more boundaries.
By your logic, it’d be ‘strained’ for the crew of the original Enterprise to represent so many cultures, or to even have a woman on the Bridge, considering the time it was made in. That kind of justification would have resulted in a show so unremarkable it wouldn’t be remembered today, let alone cherished as much as it is.
So I’m sorry, but there is no excuse for the creators not having an LGBT character in Star Trek, considering they’ve been on TV since the 90s, and it’s already 2013. It’s time that Star Trek got with the times and began pushing the envelope again. Because quite frankly, having a gay or lesbian character on a show isn’t pushing any boundaries any more.
When they get around to making a new Star Trek series, you bet your ass I’m going to expect not just one LGBT character, but multiple.
And a full fledged, long-term romantic relationship, because LGBT people deserve a representative on a show that is supposed to be showing us a better future.
I want greatness for Molly Hooper.
youarebeingshaggedbyarareparrot:
I want these two years to have made Molly a woman you wouldn’t want to cross. Not her or any of her people.
These two years will have been tense and long. She’ll see how many people actually do depend on her, how many shelter in the folds of that over bleached and care worn lab coat. She take steps to protect them, from the quiet and still of her stainless steel fortress.
She’ll visit Mrs Hudson for tea and biscuites on quiet afternoons after John moves out. The pair of them will go shopping in Covert Garden and Mrs Hudson will heal a little faster and stronger for having a surroget daughter.
She’ll call in on Sherlock’s homeless network. She doesn’t have his financial resources, still trying to clear student debts as she is but she’ll do what she can. She fix broken bones and bath and dress sores, treat frostbite and chill blains when it gets bitter that second winter he’s gone.
She’ll have to keep her distance from Greg, no matter how hard it kills her. She’d grown to love him, she really had. And she knows one long look into his face will be enough to crack her resolve and have her sobbing and begging for forgiveness. She’d hardly looked away from his broken and betrayed expression at the funeral and remembers tasting blood for most of the grave side services. But she can’t do that, there are too many lives at stake and the bleeding of her own heart will just have to be managed for now.
John, John keeps his distance from her. And she doesn’t blame him. After all, if Sherlock couldn’t see what she was worth until he stood on the knife’s edge, how on earth was John to know. Hell, she didn’t really know herself until Sherlock had gripped her arms, laying his blooded forehead on her thin shoulder and pleaded and thanked her in a broken whisper. And she is just another reminder of the man. But she sees him, going about what she supposed he considered a normal life. Mousy and still, Molly knows now that she can go unnoicted by many if there is something more distracting going on, Jim had over looked her completely and they had share a bed. That thought still makes the bile rise in her. But John was so lonely, and starved of interaction. She as a lonely soul herself can see it, and can see it in others. Mary hasn’t stopped thanking Molly for sort of, kind of introducing them. It was a morning of manoveuring and shadowing around the clinic and the deli half way between it and the school Mary’s currently teaching at. And Molly didn’t really do anything other than observe and calculate John’s lunch breaks where he will walk to the deli, order tea and nothing else and proceed to hardly drink it and then be late and then absent from the arranged lunch meet up with her friend. Mary did all the actual work. But she’s threatening Molly with bridesmaid’s duty should the need ever arise.
Molly’s so happy for them both, the sort of happy that aches even as you smile. The sort of happy that she hopes will allow everyone to heal and come together more, even if the hurried texted messages from unknown numbers tell her the tide will once again come in.
But with the tide coming in, it also brings in things. Dangerous things. Things, that move like spiders and start to prowl certain homesteads of the old city that deserved to be left well alone. She’s seen him, trailing Mary and John, and she’s seen those eyes, that expression, before. Like the man ought to be looking down the length of a gun barrel. Molly knows what she is seeing and she won’t let that happen again.
She’ll take few notes out of The Woman’s book. She’ll play what has been seen in her for years. She will be that ‘weak link’, she let him get closer to the intended target. She bumps into him in the street, all low cut blouse with a peek of negligee and pretty blushing. She’ll be beguilling eyes and soft smiles.
She’ll watch him as he watches John through the sights he’s itching to level at him. She’ll have Mycroft’s number on speed dail, she’ll keep her long knife tapped to the underside of her side of the bed. She’ll watch the tiger hunt in it’s concrete cage. She can wait.
a) I LOVE THE IDEA OF MOLLY BEING THE ONE TO BRING DOWN MORAN YES PLEASE
b) Yes Lestrolly Good
c) MOLLY SETTING JOHN AND MARY UP YES GOOD HIGH FIVES ALL ROUND
d) Molly Fucking Hooper.
lord grant me the strength to accept the plot lines i cannot change
courage to continue to watch the show
and wisdom to remember i am not a member of the psychotic part of the fandom
amen
I will fear no canon. For Thou art with me. Thy fanfic and thy meta, they comfort me
Forever and ever AO3
I recently printed out a couple SuperWood logos to put up on my cubicle walls, and it plus the Hunger Games refresher from last night makes me thoughtful about the way we – as fans – communicate with one another through symbols.
My first experience with a convention led me to start amassing a…









