ao3sburbanite:

penrosesun:

hunterinabrowncoat:

So like I get that people have this issue with Star Trek taking so long to have a canonically queer principle character, and I get that people kind of take issue with there being a sort of ‘qualifier’ on Jadzia/Lenara as they were husband and wife in their previous lives, but I also feel like a lot of people don’t appreciate how incredible this story was?

The Jadzia/Lenara story revolved around two characters who were forbidden from being together by the taboos and laws of their culture. And it wasn’t just a metaphor - they actually used two women. This is a queer story about two women who aren’t allowed to be together because of their cultural norms. Any signs of affection between them were seen as inherently wrong, risky, dangerous etc. Lenara works under the constant, watchful eye of her brother, who continually makes his opinion about his ~concern~ for her known. And eventually Jadzia has to choose between the woman she loves and the life she wants because she won’t be allowed to have both - if she begins a relationship with this woman, her life as she knows it is over and shew ill be ostracized from her society, never allowed to re-enter it. And every moment of it is believable and full of beautifully painful affection…

Originally posted by concreteangel1221

In 1995 they shamelessly presented a wlw love story complete with longing, affectionate looks, confessions of love, and kisses. And like Kira Nerys says “I don’t understand how two people who’ve fallen in love and made a life together can be forced to walk away from each other because of a taboo!” Like… they weren’t be subtle about this at all.

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As for the “qualifier” that somehow makes it less queer….? These two people carry the memories of a man and woman who used to be married, so I guess a lot of people saw this story as a second-hand het love story, but to me that was a really important part of the story because it presented this wlw relationship as totally equal to a het marriage. Their love is intense, believable, and on par with a male/female relationship.

Also, choosing to see this as somehow a second-hand het love story is, quite bluntly, transphobia.

There are tremendously unsubtle trans implications throughout Dax’s entire character arc, complete with multiple scenes that handle deadnaming and pronouns. For many trans people who grew up with Star Trek, the Trills in general, but especially in DS9 were a revelation. Dax is a character who everyone acknowledges once was a man, and who everyone also acknowledges is now a woman. That’s huge, and it needs to not be erased in the conversation about wlw representation in Star Trek in general.

A woman wanting to be together romantically with another woman is not het, regardless of whether one of them was once a man. That’s true whether the women are real or fictional. End of fucking story.

This episode is a genuine love story between two women, and especially when compared to the first ever episode with a Trill in it - a TNG episode where Beverly falls in love with a Trill and breaks up with them when they take a female host instead of a male one, when she’d previously been able to get over the Trill passing to Riker as an intermediate host and continue the relationship - it’s a revelation.

The fact that its a tragic love story is less than ideal, but for 1995 it’s incredible it was broadcast.