Transgender Themes in Science Fiction

[Forkboy]

Cheryl Morgan is a cheryl.jpgscience fiction critic who takes a particular interest in feminist and gender issues. Her online book review magazine, Emerald City, won a Hugo Award in 2004. While the magazine has now ceased publication, Cheryl still occasionally writes about books and gender at her personal blog, Cheryl's Mewsings.

In the future, all sorts of things will be possible. One day we may even get jet packs and flying cars. We may also be able to re-shape our bodies in all sorts of interesting ways. It is not unexpected, therefore, to find sex changes featured in many science fiction stories. But just how relevant are such stories to real transgender people? Do these stories portray transgender experiences accurately? Could they help non-transgender people understand the issues somewhat better? Or is there something else going on?

Given the amount of science fiction that features sex changes, I'm not going to be able to cover anywhere near everything. I'm also going to restrict myself to books, which is what I know about. But hopefully I'll cover a range of different approaches to transgender issues and give you a good idea of what is out there.

http://www.bilerico.com/2008/09/transgender_themes_in_science_fiction.php

[comtec]

1. Star trek deals with this ALOT in the books

and to a minor extent in DS9 and Voyager.

[racaulk]

4. Star Trek was my first thought also.

Two TV episodes that dealt with gender issues immediately came to my mind.

In TNG, there was an episode that dealt with an alien species that had only one gender. Their species had evolved in a way that having a second gender was redundant, so everyone was the same androgynous gender. One vestage that was left over from this evolutionary track however was that some members of the species were born with a male or female "orientation," which their society viewed as an abnormality. Those persons had to live in secret about that orientation, because if they were found out, they were forced to succumb to some sort of procedure to "correct" them to make them "normal."

In Enterprise, there was an episode that dealt with an alien species that had three genders. There were the traditional male and female, and a third gender that was necessary for procreation (I believe members of this gender produced an enzyme that was necessary for conception). The members of this gender were in a distinct minority in the population (around 2%, if my memory serves me), an they were treated as second-class citizens by their male and female counterparts. They did not have access to education and did not have full and equal rights in their society.

Even though these issues dealt with people in a fictional universe, some of the same issues presented are very prescient in our own societies, and we can see some of these same issues of mistreatment in the treatment of some minorities in our own lives.

[One_Life_To_Give]

2. Guess I have some reading to do

Very interesting, thanks for posting this!!

[Moloch]

3. The only one I can think of...

is Rocky Horror Picture Show. Such a great movie.