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

[Yukaphile]

Me and clearspira got into a debate in another thread, and he wouldn't let it go, so... yeah, here I am. I see the Trills as the ultimate transgender/bisexual race, in that because they had memories of both genders, which includes sexual orientation, intimate relationships, and even procreating offspring, they wouldn't be as hung up as we are on gender identity specifics. Now, for me, say... let's say I suddenly became a woman in my next life, had all my memories of this life, and then was a straight woman. That would be a bit of a shock to adjust to, but once I had, and with an addition of new lives, especially if I'd gotten pregnant and had kids, I think any Trill past four lives would definitely no longer consider themselves just male or female so much as a duality of both, and that includes gender identity and our intimate relationships. See what I'm trying to say?

[Deledrius]

I doubt our concepts of any of these things would apply in a way that makes sense to them.

If there was any similarity, it would come down to the hosts, which may be the overriding concern once joined depending on how much or how little a particular joining leans toward the symbiote's personality. Even then, we know very little about Trill host sexuality. This is all assuming it's even remotely comparable to our own even without the joining.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I don't think people consider gender constructs as something they learn to juggle as they get older and wiser, it's more just something they look past personally.

[MixedDrops]

@Deledrius IMO, as far as we know, Trills also have mostly binary gender like humans. Most Trek aliens do, and with the Trill it's more or less outright shown. Whether or not their, er, machinery is the same is of course unknown, but at the very least we know they have men and women (in the best way humans can describe it).

I've said this before in other threads, but I'll try to lay it all out here. There's two things to consider when we're talking about the Trill and any identity concepts thereof:

1. The writers' intentions

Considering Berman-era Trek, I believe the writers never intended Jadzia Dax to be bisexual or transgender. There are two cases where they get close to it: The part where Crusher sees the Odan symbiont in a woman's body, and the famous Jadzia Dax lesbian kiss.

In the former, in retrospect they made somewhat of a mistake in that Crusher suddenly wasn't so interested when the Trill was in a female body, when she was perfectly fine with the Trill being in Riker's body, so it wasn't just a "you look different, therefore problem" situation, she just wasn't interested in banging another woman. For me, this is just a canon confirmation that Crusher is straight, and she does have that speech about humans evolving past looking only at the physical when considering love, so I'll give the episode half credit here. I think it was a good episode regardless, it had some interesting things to think about.

With Jadzia Dax's kiss with Kahn, we have a ton of staff quotes we can go through here:

I remember reading the story and thinking about it. Literally, I was on my way home and started to think this would be a much stronger story - it would really be a stand-out episode of the series - if this was a woman.

it deals with homosexuality and sexual orientation and tolerance, but I'm very proud of the fact that nowhere in the episode does anyone even blink at the fact that these are two women. That's the part that sails by everyone on the show.

To the audience, you're playing out this metaphor of a taboo that you're not supposed to be involved with somebody, and the audience sees these two women who are in love together, but the show will never ever comment on it, because it's really about this Trill taboo, this completely other issue. But the idea of homosexual love is staring the audience in the face no matter what they do, but we never have to mention it in the show. It just became this lovely tale about these two forbidden lovers that just couldn't get over that one had died and didn't get a chance to say goodbye, and here they come together in these two other bodies, but what they once felt for one another is still there, but the societal taboo was so strong that one of them had to back out, one of them wasn't willing to take it all the way. It was just a lovely bit of Star Trek because it really was an allegory for our society, and that's ultimately what Trek does best.

We're not doing a show about lesbians, we're doing a show about Trills.

It was a story about love, and the consequences of making choices out of love. The kiss was irrelevant.

So here, I think it's quite clear what the writers' intents were: Jadzia Dax is not necessarily bisexual when following the events of the episode, but how the lesbian kiss would be perceived by contemporary society was very much on their minds when they wrote the episode. In other words, on the page, for Jadzia this was more about a former lover, but from a metatextual perspective, the lesbian kiss was certainly used to create a more layered social commentary.

Oh, and just because I find this one amusing, I'll throw this one in.

I know they [Paramount Pictures] got a lot of negative feedback, which only goes to prove a point I always believed in, which is that science fiction fans and Star Trek fans are much more conservative than people want to believe, and this whole Gene Roddenberry liberal Humanistic vision is truly not shared by a significant portion of them

2. The viewers' interpretations

Like I've said before, if Yuka or any other people find the potential of the Trill in sexual and gender identity exploration to be something of value, I think it is worth something even if the writers never intended it.

I think the Trill can be used to great effect to explore all kinds of identity, not just sexual or gender identity. They're a really great concept for an alien species, so I hope we get to see more of them in the future.

[Yukaphile]

Ron Moore certainly did. I think there's value in that, given the poor state of our LGBT representation and what STD did.

I really worry about how they'd handle them in STD because then they'd probably pull another "bury your gays" tropes.

I do agree most people want Star Trek to be way more conservative, if that word even applies.

[Makeshift Python]

DIS has been more progressive than the Berman era ever was. The "bury your gays" thing isn't even an issue because they quickly brought him back to life anyway and are actually delving dramatically into such a life changing event far more than a typical Trek episode did in the past.

But you wouldn't know that because you don't even watch the show anyway.

[MixedDrops]

Ehhh...true that they undid the bury your gays thing, but IMO you only get half-credit for going "oh shit" and doing a CTRL+Z. I agree what they're doing with Culber now is one of the most interesting parts of the show, but you shouldn't let them off for doing it in the first place.

[Yukaphile]

And guess what? I'm really not a hardcore leftist. I identify as center left. So I'd prefer if Trek wasn't "progressive" and more tried to tell its message through subtle symbolism, allegory, and metaphor that reaches across the political spectrum to what transcends our differences and unites us as a people. Take Admiral Satie. She was clearly a right-wing McCarthy allegory, yet I've seen people think she's an SJW allegory. When you can get two people on completely opposing ends of the political spectrum to feel that way, while still enjoying the work, that's no small accomplishment. It should be things that are universal, and while they can get political, don't necessarily have to be like an anvil such as "Make the Klingons Glorious Again!" Again, I see Dax as a trans/bi person, and the only flaw she had was not dating women.

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

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.

[Yukaphile]

Okay, I get the bit with space lesbians, but... you mean Laas? I'm... really not seeing the LGBT shading there...