Sexuality in Star Trek - Sexuality in Species With Alternative Genders

Sexuality in Species With Alternative Genders

Star Trek has occasionally centered plots around species who have more than two, or fewer than two, distinct genders. Sometimes, dual-gendered species have been portrayed as having distinctly non-human assignment of reproductive responsibilities.

A notable example is that of an Enterprise episode titled "Cogenitor". In the episode, the Enterprise crews meets a new tri-gendered alien race, and finds out that, according to T'Pol, "tri-gendered reproduction is not uncommon" in the Star Trek galaxy. The "neutral" gender of which the cogenitor is a part produces an enzyme necessary for males and females to reproduce. Despite the crucial function the cogenitor performs, it lives in conditions Tucker believes are akin to slavery. His struggles to get the cogenitor to understand that it can have a more independent life meet with some success, but ultimately the imposition of human, dual-gendered attitudes on the situation merely serve to throw the cogenitor into mental chaos. It ends up committing suicide at the end of the episode.

Androgynous species have been seen in Star Trek as well, as evidenced by "The Outcast". The people featured in the episode are a single-sex species who find distinctions of gender inappropriate. There are also a number of instances in which a species' androgyny has a less central role to the plot, as with the Axanar of the Star Trek: Enterprise episode, "Fight or Flight".

Another Enterprise episode, "Unexpected", introduced the Xyrillian. They were a species who separated the functions of reproduction differently than most dual-gendered species. Males had no role in conception but were responsible for pregnancy and childbirth. The fertilized egg was transferred to their bodies in a way that did not appear sexual to humans. Commander Tucker thus became involved in the first inter-species pregnancy in the Star Trek narrative chronology. He was, according to T'Pol, also the first human male to become pregnant.

Trill sexuality is complicated. Although Trill hosts clearly are a part of a dual-gendered species, the gender of the symbionts, and indeed their method of reproduction, has never been made explicit. Joined Trill that have bonded with male and female hosts have some commonality with transgendered humans, but are in fact the precise opposite of the species in "The Outcast". They are pansexual, with clear memories of what it is like to have been the opposite gender, or to have had a different sexual orientation. Sanctions are shown to be in place against "reassociation" of a symbiont with lovers of a previous host. Symbionts in a new host are encouraged to cut off any contact with an old familiar life, be it lovers, families or friends.Trill society emphasizes variety of lovers, and not gender, as the matter of highest sexual relevancy.

In the TOS episode "The Trouble With Tribbles" Dr. McCoy describes the tribbles as "bisexual". Further dialogue establishes that tribbles are hermaphroditic, possessing male and female sexual characteristics, and are born pregnant.