To what extent are Trills/Jadzia & Ezri Dax bisexual/transgender metaphors/allegories?

[Deledrius]

Great points about Dax both in- and out-of-universe, MixedDrops.

[clearspira]

Look its very simple: Trills have the MEMORIES of the other sex, they do not want to be the other sex. This is a shit allegory for transgenderism. This is on par with the J'Naii being allegories for homosexuality (and yeah, if you want a trans allegory, they are far closer no matter what the producers of that ep wanted). Jadzia only kissed that woman, not because she is gay, but because she has the MEMORIES of a heterosexual man. One of the things that drove Worf wild was that she loved herself some D. to the point that she flirts continuously and has a string of other men behind her. Again, picking the most heterosexual woman in Trek as a homosexual allegory is a shit allegory.

Funnily enough, if we went with the TNG Trills then we COULD have had a trans plot with Jadzia perhaps being forced to choose between bodies or something. But they are completely different to DS9 Trills and that is not the plot we had in that ep.

And with respect, the idea that I didn't want to drop the subject, YOU are the one who seemingly posted it on four other threads within a few days of each other.

[clearspira]

Considering Berman-era Trek, I believe the writers never intended Jadzia Dax to be bisexual or transgender.

Oh bullshit. The entire Reassociation episode was about homophobia, just like the episode where Odo linked with the other male changeling/Metamorph was.

Huh? No it wasn't. It was about the ruling that Trills could not get together with a former partner. If her former partner was male then it would have been the same with her former wife. And I have no idea what you are banging on about with Laas.

[Yukaphile]

Because it's my belief, and I'd like you to respect that, all you did was insist I "didn't prove it," while I didn't have to. You're free to not see that, and I'm free to see that, given the complex and nuanced character of Dax and Trills in general. But since you didn't get that, I felt pressured to create a whole thread. I'm not accusing you, mind. I just think there's been a miscommunication. So can we please clear this up?

Look, while there have been a few instances where I'd be tempted to "experiment" (I'm much pickier with guys than women), I'm overall het, though I describe myself as het-flexible. So what would happen to me if I got a memory dump of another life, which included a woman who'd had sex with men, perhaps lots of them, and even had kids? Pregnancy and childbirth? How would that affect my identity? That's where I see the potential allegory for bi/trans stuff. There's still so much about the brain and our identities we don't understand. Would it drop most of the restraint that makes me hesitant to do it with a lot of guys? So I wouldn't be as picky? No way to know for sure. And I know Ron Moore saw it that way. So I feel as if I have every right to see it that way, given the poor state of LGBT representation in mainstream media. Hell, my Socialist friend in Peru saw the same thing too.

[Simplicius]

I have what I think are fairly standard opinions on the topic.

1. Odan's Trill were just a mistake, creatively. They're nothing like the Trill in DS9 and seem to exist purely as an allegory (which is a poor foundation for a recurring species). Thankfully, they were retconned seemingly out of existence. Crusher liked Odan in his male bodies and disliked him in his (their?) female one because she's heterosexual.

Odan itself is the symbiont, simple as, and is presumably bisexual (to the extent that such a term even applies). The hosts don't factor in beyond the physically because, unlike what I call the Kriosian Trill (headcanon nonsense that I won't go into), the symbiont's personality is one hundred percent dominant.

2. The lesbianism of 'Rejoined' is metatextual, it only serves to say something about overall Federation society in the 23rd Century, rather than anything about Jadzia specifically or the Trill in general. It's basically confirming, in a frustratingly subtle way, that homophobia is a non-issue amongst Starfleet/humanity/federation. If Jadzia had shown any explicit attraction to a woman Dax hadn't previously been involved with, then we could talk. Otherwise, it's basically just "If It's You, It's Okay".

...

On the subject of Ezri, then it would appear that Mirror Universe Ezri Teagan is a lesbian. If we were to assume a connection between individuals across the divide (which we shouldn't - the MU in DS9 did a good job of giving everything appropriate funhouse mirror reflection) then that would make her joining with Dax sort of creepy (since it would seem to have totally suppressed that aspect of her personality). I don't believe that though, MU Ezri just exists as a distorted reflection of Ezri Dax rather than being the same person just living in a different environment.

Trek never got anywhere closer to a statement on gay issues than 'Rejoined', but that may be damning it with faint praise. No gays in VOY, none in ENT, a pointless interview/article-only gay in Kelvin and even DIS barely makes an effort (since, in this day and age, the shoe is on the other foot and obstinently refusing to include could've been riskier than not).

[Yukaphile]

Maybe I'm just grasping at straws because the LGBT representation in Trek has been quite poor, but I consider Dax superior to the first gay couple in Trek because she has male and female memories. Only someone who's transitioned would know all that stuff "from the other side of the aisle," so to speak. And nothing implies that those hosts were anything less than straight, so she knows what it's like to be a man looking at a woman's ass or boobs, and feeling sexual desire. I dunno, when I hear Dax talking about men's issues with Sisko, in a woman's body, I see a man inside a woman, or vice versa if she had been male, and if Trek writers ever do return to the Trills, I think they'll agree with me, and this is one instance where updating it to conform to the times won't be "betraying" their basic concept, because it was restrained by Rick Berman's homophobia. No, it will be updating it. My only concern is that it will be as subtle as a wrecking ball knocking down a building made of more wrecking balls. Subtlety is a precision tool the current crop of writers seem to lack.

[Makeshift Python]

That’s you’re view, though I don’t really see it as authentic as the homosexual relationship Trek finally depicted in DIS, especially with actors of that orientation being a big plus. DIS is vastly superior to DS9 on that regard, which Berman Trek is just embarrassingly outdated even for the 90s.

[Yukaphile]

Lemme guess, though. Did they make that very "in your face" like Chuck criticized with in his TOR reviews? The term he used, "gay-dropping?" See, for me, I don't want Trek to be too hard left. I want it to be something that speaks more to universal values, that gives it a more timeless feel. Ira Steven Behr was quite right when he said that, though using the word "conservative" was wrong, imo.

[Admiral X]

Only the mirror universe versions of the characters were allowed to be bi or gay as a way of getting around the rules put down by Berman and Roddenberry.

As for the episode everyone is talking about, I don't think it can really be read as Jadzia being bi so much as the Dax having influence on her. The writing made a pretty big deal about it being between the symbiots since both hosts were different, IIRC. And since Jadzia was never shown to be dating women, I don't think one can really conclude she's bi in anything other than one's own headcannon. I like the idea myself, personally, but outside of that one episode there's just nothing to support it.

[Yukaphile]

How can you not see this is very much a trans allegory? Jadzia is technically both a man and a woman in a woman's body. That's precisely what a transgendered person is, and she understand that kind of stuff from both sides of the coin. And STD hasn't gotten anywhere near that kind of topic yet. Oh sure, they gave us a gay couple, but tbh, that should have been Garak and Bashir twenty years ago. And if they ever bring back the Trills, I guarantee you, they'll agree more with my view than with the people here. Though, I have no problems with that, and ironically, that's one area I'll praise the writers in - provided it's subtle, and doesn't break previously established character archetypes. Because to me, the story should come first. I just don't want it to be anything like "Make the Klingons Glorious Again!"