If there are any trans people here, did that scene mean a lot to you when you saw it?
Both of my teenage children and I happen to be non-binary. The scene in Discovery where Adira is semi-asleep at a console and Culber comes in using the wrong pronouns to refer to Adira, and Stamets corrects him and tells him Adira uses they/them pronouns, and Culber shifts seamlessly into it and the two of them have an entire conversation about them…that scene legit had me squeeing. I’d never seen such an exchange happen in any show, and it was perfection. It was meant to show well-meaning allies who struggle with gender-neutral pronouns how simple they are to use and how meaningful and important it is to honor them because the people who use them are important.
So apparently this is a trans meme…
I was confused for a while
It is. Dax was at one point in male when Kor met him then Dax got a new host that was female, and Kor, without hesitation, accepted her.
It may have been a bit oblique (it was the mid-90s), but this is the essence of accepting trans folk: accepting people for who they are, not your preconceptions of what they are.
They are two different people though.
Two different hosts— still Dax. Same 350+ years of memories and experiences… hardly a different person, just a new incarnation of that person in each host.
350 years + all the years of Jadzia’s life. It’s like asking if you’re the same person at age 20 vs age 50. Well yes, but also no.
DAX was joined with the Jadzia for six years before she died. Surely a rich life, like that of Torias (1 1/2 years), but worthy and memorable nonetheless.
Ok, so, clearly you’ve never seen or heard of Star Trek before (if I’m wrong, I apologize), or you’d know and understand all of this, so I’ll explain:
Trill society has a subset who can be joined with Trill symbiots. These work/slug-like creatures can live for centuries, even longer. They “join” with the humanoid Trill and become a unified “person”, different and unique from either the host or symbiot which came before the Union.
So, once Dax (the symbiot) seperated from Curzon when he died and joined with Jadzia, was that a “new person”? Well… that’s debatable. Jadzia, the new host, was certainly changed, and Dax, the symbiot, certainly had some ”newness” to contend with. But… Jadzia was still Jadzia… plus Dax. It’s like having a new person, deeply nestled inside of your mind and soul. Does that, indeed, constitute a “new person”? Well… it would certainly demarcate many new and notable differences… but also much that remains the same.
It complicated. It’s not black-and-white, and it (probably) depends on individual experiences rather that a general rule.
Didn’t they make a point of her being a new person when she was on trial for crimes the previous host had allegedly committed?
