Star Trek Transgender Spec Script

I guess I wrote forcefem here. But Star Trek isn’t Star Trek without the fetishy parts.

A human separated and alone, raised in a distant colony, encounters the Federation for the first time…

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STAR TREK: CIVIL HANDS

FADE IN:

Medbay, to the rhythmic medical BEEPING of a monitoring device. A human girl of twenty or so lies in a biobed underneath a thin blanket. On the crown of her head and extending down over her eyes is a complex device of visibly jury-rigged technology, which begins to HUM.

The girl thrashes in the throes of a nightmare, her face in distress. The HUM intensifies. She HOWLS like an animal in pain and then SCREAMS like a human. The device splits in half; both halves fall aside to reveal her terrified eyes. She squints at the sudden brightness and tries to raise her hand in front of her face — but discovers that her hands are tied with medical restraints to the sides of the biobed.

GIRL

(with growing intensity)

Fuck fuck Fuck FUCk FUCK! (this last she nearly spits) Hell!

COMPUTERIZED VOICE

(inhuman in tone)

Doctor el-Fadil to ICB 4.

The girl goes still at the sound of the voice. The soft WOOSH of a door sliding open. She begins to buck at her restraints with renewed vigor, to no avail.

Through the door swishes Doctor Alexandra el-Fadil, in a strapless top decidedly not Starfleet Uniform standard. She holds up her hands as though to defuse anger.

ALEXANDRA

(To the girl)

One second. Please. (to the computer) 500mL 0.9 saline with one shot Raktajino. No, make that two.

She picks up her cup from the replicator and fumbles for two white pills, which she drops into the unholy concoction, causing it to fizz. When she has gulped it down she lets out a loud Ah of satisfaction before turning to the girl in the biobed.

ALEXANDRA

(As though to a small child)

It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.

GIRL

(Guarded)

I don’t know that.

ALEXANDRA shrugs.

I suppose you don’t. But it’s true. If I was going to hurt you, I would have done it while you were unconscious.

GIRL

(Guarded, but also mildly annoyed)

Why would you care if I was awake or not to hurt me?

ALEXANDRA has a response ready.

Well, it’d be a lot easier if you were asleep.

GIRL

So what, you’d only want to hurt me when I was asleep? That doesn’t make any sense.

ALEXANDRA makes a show of taking a second to think about this.

She looks up at the ceiling; gives a little frown.

(Affably) Well, if I only hurt you while you were asleep, then you’d want to stay up as long as possible, right? Did you know it’s possible to die of sleep deprivation? (She pulls up a chair; sits on it backwards, with her chin on the backrest). Historical human societies often used it as torture. Very effective. At least as far as torture goes, that is; torture in general mostly just makes people tell you whatever they think you want to hear to get it to stop.

The GIRL swallows.

(hesitantly, trying to put on a brave face)

What do you want to hear? Can you skip the torture please?

ALEXANDRA smiles whole-heartedly.

Oh, I like you. But no. It’s important that you feel a little pain because that means your nerves are linking up properly. It took me days to get all this tissue just right. A normal doctor would have taken weeks. You’re very lucky, you know.

GIRL

(sarcastically)

To get tortured?

ALEXANDRA, puttering about with vials and tricorder.

To be alive. What did they do to you down there?

ALEXANDRA, after it becomes apparent the GIRL is not responding.

Well, you don’t have to tell me. When we beamed you up, though, the scar tissue and lacerations on what was left of you were consistent with —

GIRL

(interrupting)

Can you let me out?

ALEXANDRA

Alright, alright. Sorry about that. Don’t attack me, okay?

The girl does not agree, but Alexandra takes her silence as assent. Presumably she is confident she can handle any attack that might come. She makes her way to the bedside and undoes the girl’s restraints: first her left side, then her right. When the girl’s final wrist is freed, she sits suddenly up; we see her bare back, slender and smooth, from behind.

ALEXANDRA

Huh.

GIRL

(peering suspiciously at her) What do you mean, huh?

ALEXANDRA

Your range of motion seems fine. And your musculature. I just thought you’d be a little more modest, is all. Coming from a colony that… regressive.

GIRL

Modest?

ALEXANDRA waves at the girl’s uncovered chest. The girl looks down and makes a strangled noise.

ALEXANDRA

Relax. I’m a doctor; it’s nothing I haven’t seen before. I literally put you back together.

The GIRL pulls the blanket tightly around herself.

ALEXANDRA

I’m not going to hit on you, if that’s what you’re worried about.

GIRL

(Confused)

Hit on me?

ALEXANDRA

Oh you do have a lot to learn. What Non-Interference sect were they, on Chanforan Synd? Catholic? Protestant? Neoprotestant? Neo-Genesis Evangelical? (to herself) No, they never would have abandoned their biotech. (to the girl) Humans end up outside the Federation sometimes. Usually it’s ideological: they want to practice some kind of cult that breaks Federation regulations or start up an entirely new system of government. The Federation puts their planets down on a list and leaves them alone. But basically all of those have medical tricorders or they die. Poor things. Well, the ones that don’t kind of do it to themselves.

GIRL

We’re good people, and damn you if you say otherwise. But I-I don’t understand… This isn’t my body. What did you do to me?

ALEXANDRA

If they had medical tricorders, they’d scan you at birth and give you your childhood vaccines and check if there were any illnesses you were predisposed towards. And that scan would have caught… this. Due to a genetic anomaly you ended up with a male body that you never should have had. So I fixed that.

GIRL

(speechless)

I.

ALEXANDRA

I can change you back, if you want. It wouldn’t be difficult.

GIRL

(with a vehemency surprising herself)

NO. Well. Maybe a little bit. That’s complicated.

ALEXANDRA

(A little smug)

I didn’t think so. You know, there hasn’t been a case like yours recorded in hundreds of years. Usually we catch this very early and the child grows up without ever knowing something went wrong. Actually, I know a fellow who was once in a similar case. Alok Sahar; maybe you’ll meet him someday. The literature says exposure to others in your situation may help but of course we don’t have any. Would you like to talk to a Trill?

GIRL

A Trill?

ALEXANDRA

The Trill carry their memories in external symbionts, which they pass down between hosts. Sometimes an insufficiently prepared host experiences a bout of this gender dysphoria but that usually clears itself up pretty quickly.

GIRL

(shocked)

Like aliens?

ALEXANDRA

Well that’s not very polite. They’re a different species, yes.

GIRL

Then you’re the Federation. I am in Hell. This is, a temptation. No, torture. You’re going to make bread out of my blood, and cut out my heart, and usury me. That’s why you’re not wearing your uniform: you want me to trust you. And once I trust you, you’re going to make me forsake everything I’ve ever believed in.

ALEXANDRA

Your stereotypes are severely out of date, and offensive to a completely different group of people. I’m not wearing my uniform because I wanted to be there when you woke up, so I could see my work and help you get used to things without you getting upset. More upset, I mean.

GIRL

I can’t trust you.

ALEXANDRA

(gritting her teeth)

Here is the truth: you were almost dead when we beamed you up, and the people you’re trying to defend are the ones who did that to you. You trusted them, right? Do you have any idea what the readings on your pathology scans looked like? Any of the parasites that were infesting you? Forget your gender incongruence syndrome, you had cancer! (at this the girl looks confused) Do you even know what cancer is? For most of human history, that was a death sentence. (pause. Alexandra is really affected by the fact that humanity has managed to beat cancer; she considers it a point of pride for her species — insofar as she considers herself human).

(more quietly) I’m not asking you to trust me. I understand you’ve been through a lot. I can put you back, if you want; back on your home planet, where they very nearly killed you. But I have not tried to kill you at all, and I have given you decades of life, and I would appreciate if you would listen and try not to be prejudiced against the many kinds of people here on this ship. If you want.

The GIRL nods, her eyes downcast.

ALEXANDRA

Besides, we’re not Federation. Not exactly. Well, it depends on who you ask. Sloan would say we’re the most Federation of all, but I disagree. I picked you up because I thought you deserved better, and if you agree with me, that everyone deserves better, that the galaxy deserves better — well, someday maybe you’ll be able to do the work I do. Welcome to the Themis, miss — Sorry. What was your name, again?

GIRL

I never told you my name.

ALEXANDRA

Well, you can’t blame me for trying. That suspicion will serve you well. Still, I have to call you something. You don’t have to name yourself right away, you know—

GIRL

Amity.

ALEXANDRA

Then Amity it is. I’ll get you registered. Welcome to the Themis, Amity. And welcome to Section 31.

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NOTES

Alexandra was presumably cloned without consent from Doctor Julian Bashir of Deep Space Nine, who Luther Sloan attempted to recruit for off-the-books Federation Intelligence unit Section 31 (DS9 6x18, Inquisition). Section 31 was responsible for various crimes committed during the Federation-Dominion War, including the use of tailored species-targeting bioweapons and the circumvention of the Federation ban on the use of genetic augmentations put in place in the wake of the Eugenics Wars. Section 31 often sought out individuals with non-Federation backgrounds for recruitment, with the reasoning that those who had seen the alternatives to Federation rule would understand the morally challenging lengths they went to in the Federation’s defense.

I was very upset in middle school about the death of Gul Dukat’s daughter Ziyal, and thought she should have gotten to live and join Section 31. That’s where the seed of this idea was born. That, and Sahar being a girl’s name. Transgender is a natural fit for spy fiction.

… I guess I inadvertently wrote forcefem here. But Star Trek isn’t Star Trek without some kind of fetishy episode.

Other characters would include: a Ja’naii interested in gender who doesn’t really understand that it’s more than a performance; a Betazoid who isn’t a woman, a Vulcan who is really just sick of all this gender stuff and wishes all the other Vulcans wouldn’t do something so patently illogical.