I think it hits extra hard if he was trans to begin with and Jules was already his chosen name. Because imagine being forced to have your chosen name essentially become your second dead name not because you chose another but because someone, your parents who you trusted, took it from you and killed it.
personally i do think julian bashir is trans, but not in a way that sublimates his genetic alterations into a trans allegory. i think he's disabled and trans at the same time, but i think his rebellion against his parents--the symbolic death of his old self with the name change--that's not about gender, for him, at all.
it's about the incredible violation of autonomy he experienced as a disabled person under the knife of a eugenicist society. it's about the need to reclaim some, any, of the agency that was so completely stolen from him by his parents.
it's about discovering that his entire self was deconstructed and reconstructed, without his knowledge or consent, for the express purpose of being less of a burden on his parents.
because let's not forget that the death of julian's old self was not his decision. it was his parents who killed the old self and created a new one.
let's not forget that human society in star trek is still recovering from the eugenics wars--that just because it's post-scarcity doesn't mean it's a utopia.
let's not forget the multiple episodes where bashir is forced to confront the fact that his "success story" is truthfully a gross reminder of how deeply his society (and his family) hates disabled people, not only shown in how they tried to fix him, but also in the fact that the process so rarely works as intended, yet is still done anyway--and the failures and the ones too far gone to save are locked away! with no connection to general society, and only the bare minimum provision for their physical needs, with no privacy and no autonomy!
and let's not forget that julian sees these people and is torn between the empathy he has for them, and his urge to fix them. and he goes through with this urge on Sarina, "fixing" her to conform to his idea of what she ought to be, treating her as a problem to be solved, objectifying her via "my ideal woman was trapped in this disabled body/mind and i saved her," thus continuing the cycle of violence, because even he can't conceive of a world where the disabled do not need to be fixed. where the violence done to him was wrong. fuck man
Was watching TNG with my dad and during one of the poker scenes he (while referring to Riker) said something like "I don't understand how anyone could call someone they've slept with "Sie" (polite/professional you in German)" but Worf was on screen at the time so it somehow didn't really click that he was talking about Deanna and for a few baffling seconds I lived in a world where my dad had somehow misconstrued Worf and Riker as having canonically slept with each other.
It's about them having met before time, since before the universe, it's about aziraphale watching crowley bring into existence the universe they both love so much.
Oh so you're just gonna tell me that aziraphale and crowley were literally just standing (floating?flying?) there before the beginning right next to each other watching the big bang happen together. Ok yeah ok sure I'm normal about yeah ok yeah I'm alright (I'm not jesus christ).
“Well Mr. Columbo—”
“Actually, it’s Lieutenant Columbo.”
“You’re Starfleet?”
“Star who now?”
(thanks for the caption @brookbee!)
I do love that scene in the man trap where uhura chastises spock for not reacting emotionally to a dead crewman because it could be kirk and "he's the closest thing you have to a friend" all the while spock has spent the entire time since the death announcement looking like he's about to throw up.
Yes, but for the other two it's a kind of "haha what the fuck that's horrible lol" and with geordi it's just "what the fuck that's horrible"
For your consideration.
Also there's something to be said about the way they approach the doctor striving/demanding for people to recognise his autonomy and rights and the way they approach the same thing with, for example, data.
Everyone who treats data as less than human is portrayed as clearly wrong and often downright evil and while the doctor does also get his fair share of plotlines that affirm him being an equal to the humans around him, for every such plotline there are multiple throwaway jokes and off hand comments that basically read as "look at the silly hologram, he wants to be treated like the sentient being that he clearly is", often by characters that the narrative wants us to like and see as morally righteous and while I'm sure that was never intentional it does seem like a reflection of real life attitudes towards disabled people and other minorities.
Namely the shockingly pervasive Notion that, in the case of disabled people, they only deserve accommodations if they're nice and kind and happy and never ever do anything to even mildly offend or disgruntle any given abled person they interact with.
To use datas portrayal as an example yet again, if data offends someone it's almost always due to his lack of understanding of social norms and never portrayed as bad or malicious by the narrative, only misguided. Because data is "nice" the only people who deny his rights or autonomy are villains or quickly proven wrong. The doctor on the other hand, while not a bad person, can be conceited, rude, snarky and sometimes even a bit of a dick and while, again, I'm sure it's not intentional it does feel like the fact that he dares to have an attitude that's anything other than beyond reproach is part of the reason why the narrative doesn't seem to want to grant him his rights quite as easily as other characters both within and outside of the franchise.
Yknow I really wish voyager didn't treat the doctor's frustration with his limited mobility & being treated like a non-person like he was being ridiculous because. He was right. And nobody ever took him seriously what the hell was that about
tumblr just deleted a huge swathe of palestinians who were on here trying to fundraise. if you've been helping any of these fundraisers please take this time to 1) check in with palestinians you're in contact with 2) help them submit support requests if needed 3) keep these campaigns circulating while the beneficiaries are being silenced. these campaigns are life or death, this isn't just social networking. do not let these fundraisers languish.
They/Them pronouns please. About and image IDs in pinned post.
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