A big part of science fiction is how fictional technology and environments of the future that would seem very strange to us are completely normal to them. I agree that this should also extend to society itself and its speculative future progress. In the same sense that a character wouldn’t find a replicator to be strange technology it wouldn’t make sense to treat someones sexual orientation or gender to be strange if it is a social issue that was supposedly a thing of the distant past. I find that a lot of 21st century social issues seem to find their way into modern Star Trek in ways that don’t make a lot of sense.
Yeah, I mean, one of the most annoying parts is that there could have been ways for them to draw attention to characters being gay without it feeling pandery. Like, maybe Joestar Humantrek has a Caitian boyfriend and there’s a recurring gag where Joestar Humantrek is regularly in sickbay with a bleeding anus. Now you draw attention to the gay characters but it doesn’t feel pandery because the focus isn’t that Joestar Humantrek is gay, the focus is that Joestar Humantrek keeps winding up with a perforated colon because he can’t stop taking his boyfriend’s barbed cat dick in the ass.
A big part of science fiction is how fictional technology and environments of the future that would seem very strange to us are completely normal to them. I agree that this should also extend to society itself and its speculative future progress. In the same sense that a character wouldn’t find a replicator to be strange technology it wouldn’t make sense to treat someones sexual orientation or gender to be strange if it is a social issue that was supposedly a thing of the distant past. I find that a lot of 21st century social issues seem to find their way into modern Star Trek in ways that don’t make a lot of sense.
I’m struggling to recall if this ever happened, can you give an example of when someone’s sexual orientation was treated differently?
Yeah, I mean, one of the most annoying parts is that there could have been ways for them to draw attention to characters being gay without it feeling pandery. Like, maybe Joestar Humantrek has a Caitian boyfriend and there’s a recurring gag where Joestar Humantrek is regularly in sickbay with a bleeding anus. Now you draw attention to the gay characters but it doesn’t feel pandery because the focus isn’t that Joestar Humantrek is gay, the focus is that Joestar Humantrek keeps winding up with a perforated colon because he can’t stop taking his boyfriend’s barbed cat dick in the ass.