Celebrating Pride Month: Which Star Trek characters do you think were probably LGBT?
Posted: Wed Jun 07, 2023 7:33 pm
Here's my contribution to Pride Month. I think there are a number of characters who probably were LGBT in Trek but weren't allowed to be thanks to the era of the show they were on or the attitudes of the writing staff. I want to name three which I thought would make interesting discussions.
Harry Kim. Yeah, starting off obvious, but I do not think he was intentionally written gay - it just sure has hell comes off like that. By my count he has passed up sex four times and a fifth which was a maybe. Once with the pleasure planet woman from ''Prime Factors'' who was literally clawing at his chest, one with an exact duplicate of his own girlfriend to go and hang out with Tom, once with Seven after pursing her for the whole episode no less, and once with the randy Klingon woman. The fifth maybe is the fact that one of the Delaney twins was into him but he wanted the other one/fell out of a gondola.
Now of course, there is the Glowing Woman. He has sex with her. Apparently anyway, given how we are told that she doesn't actually have a vagina. And the beautiful thing about her is, he knew that she would be gone in a couple of days. No long term commitments.
He has so much more chemistry with Tom over literally anyone else. That doesn't mean anything on its own, but ever notice how Libby just stops coming up in conversation after a while? As far as we know he never gets a ''Dear John'' like Janeway did with Mark. He just stops mentioning her. And all the while he is going after all of these other women. ''For Libby damn it, because there is nothing gay about this.''
The second would be Nog. The interesting thing about Nog is that he STARTS OFF like Quark. A rather misogynistic delinquent who treats women like crap. But he ends up proving himself to be one of the most unconventional Ferengi in history short of his own father - Grand Nagus Rom. We never hear about his love life after he joins Starfleet and, like Harry, his major friendships all seem to be with guys. Jake, Chief O'Brien, his idolisation of the leader of Red Squad. I'm not sure that I ever remember him getting oo-mox from a lady either. If there is anyone on DS9 who has the potential to be gay then I really do think that it is him.
And finally, Janice Lester. Hoo-boy. If there was ever a controversial can of worms it's ''Turnabout Intruder''. But its her statement that she would ''rather be dead then live with the indignity of being a woman'' that gets me. I don't know how else to interpret that then to say, yeah, she probably was trans. Or had enough internalised misogyny to sink a battleship. Especially after the whole ''women aren't allowed to be captains'' thing was retconned by both ENT and DIS so it now comes off as her pulling that rule out of her butt.
Harry Kim. Yeah, starting off obvious, but I do not think he was intentionally written gay - it just sure has hell comes off like that. By my count he has passed up sex four times and a fifth which was a maybe. Once with the pleasure planet woman from ''Prime Factors'' who was literally clawing at his chest, one with an exact duplicate of his own girlfriend to go and hang out with Tom, once with Seven after pursing her for the whole episode no less, and once with the randy Klingon woman. The fifth maybe is the fact that one of the Delaney twins was into him but he wanted the other one/fell out of a gondola.
Now of course, there is the Glowing Woman. He has sex with her. Apparently anyway, given how we are told that she doesn't actually have a vagina. And the beautiful thing about her is, he knew that she would be gone in a couple of days. No long term commitments.
He has so much more chemistry with Tom over literally anyone else. That doesn't mean anything on its own, but ever notice how Libby just stops coming up in conversation after a while? As far as we know he never gets a ''Dear John'' like Janeway did with Mark. He just stops mentioning her. And all the while he is going after all of these other women. ''For Libby damn it, because there is nothing gay about this.''
The second would be Nog. The interesting thing about Nog is that he STARTS OFF like Quark. A rather misogynistic delinquent who treats women like crap. But he ends up proving himself to be one of the most unconventional Ferengi in history short of his own father - Grand Nagus Rom. We never hear about his love life after he joins Starfleet and, like Harry, his major friendships all seem to be with guys. Jake, Chief O'Brien, his idolisation of the leader of Red Squad. I'm not sure that I ever remember him getting oo-mox from a lady either. If there is anyone on DS9 who has the potential to be gay then I really do think that it is him.
And finally, Janice Lester. Hoo-boy. If there was ever a controversial can of worms it's ''Turnabout Intruder''. But its her statement that she would ''rather be dead then live with the indignity of being a woman'' that gets me. I don't know how else to interpret that then to say, yeah, she probably was trans. Or had enough internalised misogyny to sink a battleship. Especially after the whole ''women aren't allowed to be captains'' thing was retconned by both ENT and DIS so it now comes off as her pulling that rule out of her butt.