Outdated by today’s understanding of identity but this '90s show banged out many subversive pro-trans messages.
Kor, Dahar Master and Trans Ally 🏳️⚧️
When one of my best friends from childhood came out to me, he texted me after a few years of not having spoken (life stuff, not intentional on either side). This is basically how it went.
Him: hey, man
Me: [dead name]! I’ve missed you, what’s up?
Him: Actually, it’s [new, male name] now. I’m transitioning.
Me: [new, male name]! I’ve missed you, what’s up?
Totally unintentional to the star trek reference, but he got a real kick it out of it, and reference ds9 after lol
Makes me tear up a little
Save this one to send to your transphobic family members as needed.
male, female, or anywhere in between — the spots go all the way down
“the spots go all the way down” can this be the universal code for acceptance?
I think it is what past Rutherford would have said to an attractive trill trying to get in their pants.
Doesn’t he date her for a while after getting his memory wiped?
Both before and after getting his memory wiped. But I think his past personality took over after that.
Does anyone know the background of this character? Is she some being that changes sex randomly every night?
She’s a symbiotic species with a slug-like creature in her. The humanoid part only lives about as long as a human, but the slug lives for many centuries and when one host body dies, the slug is moved to another. It contains memories from previous hosts. This scene was from shortly after one host died and the slug was moved into a new one, who wasn’t quite as prepared for the transition.
Brain memories and muscle memory. Ezir was able to do backflips because a previous host was a gymnast
Muscle memory is a type of brain memory. It’s not literally stored in the muscles or anything like that.
Also worth mentioning that while memories are retained in the slug, each host/slug combination is considered to be a unique being and not necessarily exactly the same person as past incarnations. They deliberately play with the boundary of this to show how having different body or gender is part of who we are but doesn’t totally define us.
Ok, it was mentioned that she is a Trill with a symbiote that moves from host to host, BUT a couple relevant points.
1 - The worm (symbiote) that lives in them merges with the host, combining personalities. This symbiote has been joined to eight hosts at this point, which means there’s about that meany people’s lives in there.
2 - Not all trill get a symbiote, they typically go to a special academy and need to be in an elite group to get one. Once you merge, you can’t unmerge without killing the host.
3 - this host, Ezri, was untrained and would not normally get a symbiote, but the previous host was killed and she was the closest available host, so she was assigned this symbiote without being properly prepared.
4 - two of the previous hosts - Curzon (a male host) and Jadzia (a female host) were extremely popular and well respected, which put a lot of extra pressure on the current host, leading to a lot of self doubt and personal identity confusion.
A note on point 2: the merging doesn’t become “permanent” per se immediately. There’s a brief window of a few days or so when the symbyote can be removed from the host, undoing the blending, but it’s quite psychologically traumatic for the host the be separated once the blending has begun and physically traumatic for the symbyote.
She’s a Trill, a being that maintains its prior memories from host to host.
I see, that’s cool!
This is Ezri Dax… She is a Trill. Some trill host symbiotes. The symbiotes live longer than their hosts. During hosting memories and personalities blend, and the symbiote will carry that blending into the next host.
Her symbiote is named Dax and was previously hosted by both another female, Jadzia, and a male Curzon, and several others.
Jazdia Dax was the name of Jadzia hosting Dax. Curzon Dax was the name of Curzon hosting Dax.
A long lived slug lookin thing that lives inside a humanoid host body and kinda merges their personality and memories. Ezri is like the 8th host to Dax.
If you’re gonna hang out in a Star Trek fedicomm you’re probably gonna wanna watch TOS (The Original Series), TNG (The Next Generation) and DS9 (Deep Space Nine) at a minimum. They’re quite good, but fair warning: the special effects are pretty dated, especially in TOS. The writing and acting hold up terrifically, though.
*with caveats. Some episodes are best left skipped.
Or specifically-watched to see just how BAD Star Trek could be at its lowest points. Looking at you, Code of Honor…
The episode that came to my mind. There are others, but none so bad.
Spock’s Brain? Sub Rosa?
I said what I said.
Those episodes are frequently discussed and memed, though, so as far as community involvement goes they’re actually among the most important!
Not code of honor. There’s no redeeming quality in that.
Outdated by today’s understanding of identity
Because she’s talking about being a Trill host to a symbiote, not being transgender. They are two entirely different things.
Animal Farm was just about farm animals
Trill don’t seem to suffer much from social stigma or body dysphoria. Their “transition” is deeply rooted in their culture. TNG S05E17 “The Outcast” feels much more representative.
Trill don’t seem to suffer much from social stigma or body dysphoria
Yes. And trans people would be the same if accepted by society like trill are. That’s the lesson.
The Trill aren’t a stand-in for trans people. The show used their experience to occasionally send a message. They had to be subversive enough in this era that the majority of middle America that had no appetite for it wouldn’t even notice.
You’re ignoring my point but don’t bother. Let’s call it progress that you didn’t call Ezri ugly in this post.
call Ezri ugly
Does that actually happen? If anything, I see posts fawning over her. Maybe I’m just thinking about my own posts, though…
I knew that would be it before I clicked. You’re batshit.
I guess mom’s advice was right: don’t feed the trills
Listen to her. She doesn’t want you to repeat her own mistake ;p
Being a Joined Trill is a lot more like being genderfluid than trans. For example Jadzia didn’t look back on her time as the male Curzon as “wrong” or dysphoric. She WAS happy as a man and IS happy as a woman.
Ezri was a lot more confused, but only because she hadn’t been prepared for the joining like Curzon or Jadzia had been, and was thus more overwhelmed by all the new and unexpected memories. It didn’t last, and Illa seemed far more comfortable in her own skin.
“Would you still love me if my personality was the almagamation of 50 other people linked by a giant, immortal slug?”
Yeah I think the msot honest read here is just that the lines means she is forgetful lol
After this show, I always wanted to name my future daughter Esri but then I wound up working with the IRL geo mapping software company which goes by the same name and now I just can’t seem to bother.
That and I’m still a burnt out virgin still living with parents. lmao
^when you wanted Ezri but got Norvo
My name if I was a girl was going to be Isis, so I guess I dodged a bullet with that one.
I guess QGIS is out of the question
Another example of this subversion was in one of the first few episodes of DS9 when someone refers to Jadzia “before she was a woman.”
I believe DS9 showed two women kissing for the first time on TV.
Edit: Correction, it was not in fact the first kiss between women on TV.
First kiss was Law and Order Feb 1991.
Oct 1995 was Dax’s kiss.
And in Feb of 2001 Willow Rosenberg couldn’t figure out what to wear.
May not have been the first but it still made me cry happy tears when I first watched it a few months ago.
Is it outdated, or just substantially different?
Human ideas of identity don’t incorporate a person literally moving from one aged body to another youthful one, several times over hundreds of years.The outdated part is the notion of needing to see under the covers to figure out gender. We know now that gender expression is not constrained by physical body features.
In humans that’s true.
But what of alien body hopping slugs, who are half themselves and half their host? It doesn’t seem right to assume the blending of consciousness and frequent body swapping wouldn’t change that notion.As I said, it’s substantially different.
[sigh]… Animal Farm is just about farm animals
Of course not. But this is about opening up people to more broad ways of thinking. You seem to be ignoring anything broader than humans. Not all people are humans.
All people watching this television show in the 1990s were in fact human.
That’s an assumption.
But even if true, it’s immaterial to my point.That’s an assumption?? Bro. Request new instructions.
Definetely feel this… dont feel comfortable, myself.
If trans, never stop looking for the supportive people to surround yourself with. They had to be subversive in the 90s and they may have to again in the future. But they will always be there.
Except they should uphold the reassociation taboo. That episode always didn’t quite work for me. That norm is more an anti-monopoly regulation than a system of oppression lol
