Boldly Going (And Being Gay)

Written by: Natalie Finander | Illustrated by: Kelly Vines and Kit | Layout by: Cami Miceli & Martha Cabot

Science fiction has long been a part of popular culture. From the first science fiction novel Frankenstein to cult classics like Forbidden Planet and The Fifth Element, the theoretical extensions of man’s scientific knowledge have fascinated writers and fans for decades. One particular sci-fi franchise, however, stands out from the rest in popularity, volume, and longevity: Star Trek. Beginning in 1966 with the series now referred to as Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS), there have been a total of seven different television series, thirteen major films, and over 750 episodes set in the world of Gene Roddenberry’s utopian future. The most recent Star Trek series, Discovery, is still producing new episodes, so discounting the breaks between movies and series, Star Trek has been in the world of popular culture for 54 years and counting. Much has been written about Star Trek’s impact on society, but there is another, lesser known influence on today’s society that Star Trek is largely responsible for: the creation of the “slash fiction” genre. The genre grew from the strong community of TOS fans writing and sharing fanfiction, featuring Captain James T. Kirk and Commander Spock in a loving, homosexual relationship.

In The Original Series, the captain of the Enterprise is James “Jim” Kirk, played by William Shatner. Always by his side is second officer Commander Spock, a half human, half Vulcan scientist, portrayed be Leonard Nimoy. Other members of the crew include Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy (DeForest Kelley), communications officer Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), helmsman Sulu (George Takei), chief engineer “Scotty” (James Doohan), and assistant helmsman Chekov (Walter Koenig). A typical episode involves the crew attempting to perform what should be a simple task, something going horribly wrong, and Kirk, Bones, and Spock having to remedy the situation with the assistance of the other senior officers. Unable to rely on well-made costumes or well-constructed aliens, the show often focused on a thinly-veiled moral dilemma of the time period, viewed through the fictional eyes of these characters living in the 23rd century--more specifically, through the eyes of Spock and Kirk. Spock, being a Vulcan, always approaches issues from the most logical point of view, while Kirk sees the situation from an emotional angle: the two compare these viewpoints before proceeding forward with a plan. It is through these ideological conversations and quips that the two grow a deep, profound friendship--and for other viewers, something more.

Though it is true that a first officer must be close with their captain and that mutual dependency is expected on a starship, Kirk and Spock take this partnership to such extreme levels of tenderness and concern that it is common for modern TOS fans to comment that there is no heterosexual explanation for their behavior. The most famous example of the bond between the two men is this quote from Spock to Kirk: “I have been, and always shall be, your friend.” Spock says this to Kirk as Spock dies saving the Enterprise crew in the movie The Wrath of Khan, and again when Spock miraculously comes back to life at the end of the next movie, The Search for Spock. Leonard Nimoy even reprised his role as Spock in the 2009 reboot film Star Trek starring Chris Pine as Captain Kirk, and Nimoy repeated this line to Pine when he recognized him as this universe’s Kirk. Even ignoring the possible platonic interpretations of “friend,” the statement is profound in its implication of lifelong support and partnership, and significant in its repetition during emotional, heart-wrenching scenes. No matter what else you believe about the relationship between Kirk and Spock, this line proves that the connection between them is powerful and true.

There is another popular example in season one of TOS, though it’s more silly than profound. In the episode “Shore Leave,” Kirk is shown on the bridge of the Enterprise frowning and adjusting his position in his seat. Spock, who had been discussing various ship’s concerns with Kirk and is standing behind him, asks, “Something wrong?” Kirk explains that there’s a kink in his back. A female crewmember, who had just brought some documents for Kirk to sign, begins to massage that part of his back, wordlessly. Kirk says, “That’s it, a little higher, please. Push. Push hard. Dig it in there, Mr. Spo--” interrupting himself when Spock walks in front of him, revealing that it was not his first officer who was massaging him. Kirk looks confused and not a little disappointed at this revelation, and he seems positively sullen when he tells the woman, “Thank you, yeoman, that’s sufficient.” There is also the nearly infamous episode “Amok Time” from Season Two, where it is revealed as Star Trek canon that every seven years, Vulcans go into a sex-crazed state called Pon Farr, and if the need for sexual interaction is not satisfied, they will die. This is what happens to Spock in the episode. After a complicated plot of Spock introducing his previously unknown wife and then said wife demanding that Spock fight for the honor to marry her in the Vulcan tradition, Kirk and Spock end up wrestling to the death in the sands of Vulcan. Kirk is sweating, Spock tears Kirk’s shirt across the chest, Bones is cursing on the sidelines, and Spock is apparently extremely aroused the entire time. The episode is a feast of devoted love and horribly awkward dialogue, even including the first real, genuine smile to be seen from Spock: when he realizes that Kirk didn’t actually die from their desert death match. The ridiculous nature of the plot is rather common for TOS, but this particular wildness is a favorite for fans of Kirk/Spock because, in a sense, the two men had the Vulcan equivalent of wild sex in front of not only their friends and Spock’s wife, but the political leader of Vulcan herself. There are countless other moments in the series and movies where the two men look at each other with such pure tenderness that is nearly impossible to believe that they are not wholly in love, but I must add my own favorite scene. At the end of season one in the episode “A Taste of Armageddon,” Kirk has somewhat miraculously saved the Enterprise crew and stopped a century-long war on the planet below. Spock asks him on the bridge how he knew his plan would work, and Kirk admits that he only had “a feeling” that it would succeed. Spock is surprised, being a Vulcan, but then says (as soft music plays in the background), “Captain, you almost make me believe in luck.” This is an impressive statement coming from the logical Spock. The camera then switches to Kirk, who is bathed in romantic lighting, with the most affectionate look in his eyes and the most tender smile, and he responds with this: “Why, Mr. Spock. You almost make me believe in miracles.” Spock looks confused at first, but ultimately pleased at this response, and the episode ends. All of these examples provide plenty of evidence and subtext for both sixties and modern day fans to come to the conclusion that Spock and Kirk are in love.

Of course, it’s arguable that homoerotic subtext isn’t remarkable on its own. Scholars of all kinds have noticed gay-coded relationships in past works of media, some even going back centuries. But the influence of Kirk/Spock goes beyond an enticing reason for queer consumers to watch this old television show. The largely female fan base of TOS in the sixties and seventies is responsible for creating the foundation of a lot of modern fandom culture, including the creation of the first major shared queer fanfiction--featuring Spock and Kirk--that started the genre of shared fanfiction as a whole. The Star Trek fan base initially communicated with fanzines, a popular form of cultural sharing among science fiction and fantasy fans before the advent of the internet. Beginning in the nineteen-forties, fanzines were typed on typewriters, constructed by hand, and copied on mimeograph machines. Even the fanart was a labor of love: only ink drawings would be seen on the mimeograph, and the only way to get a reference photo was to find a piece of the actual film used to make the show. The first Star Trek fanzine was called Spockanalia, edited by female fans Devra Langsam and Sherna Comerford, and ran for five issues from 1967 to 1970. The publication had much of what an internet fan base would produce today: fanfiction, fanart, and essays on the nuances of the Star Trek universe, such as explanations of Vulcan culture. Spockanalia was especially known for exploring the sexuality of Star Trek, including the Vulcan behavior of Pon Farr. Pon Farr, in fact, became one of the most popular discussion points for Star Trek fans--especially among women. The concept featured strongly in the story of the 1967 fanfiction “The Ring of Soshern,” the first published fanfiction to show Kirk and Spock in a sexual relationship. Those same fans who believed that Spock and Kirk were in love developed a shorthand for works or essays that included the idea: Kirk/Spock. This made it easier to imply a romantic relationship, especially when fanfiction was manually typed and personally delivered at conventions (which the Star Trek fandom also helped create). However, the use of the slash to indicate love spread far beyond the world of Star Trek. The first major fan base to adopt it from Star Trek was Starsky & Hutch--who used Starsky/Hutch to imply romantic or sexual feelings between the two main characters--and the symbol eventually grew to represent the entire genre known as slash fiction. Sometimes simply called “slash” in the modern vernacular, the genre generally involves two established characters from a piece of media (often explicitly or implicitly straight) falling in love and beginning a relationship. Though early slash was mostly two men discovering their sexuality for the first time, current slash writing could include women loving women, polyamory, and other fanfiction tropes. It is still the prevailing practice of fanfiction writers and internet fandoms to use the slash to indicate romantic attraction, whether the couple is canonically in love or not, and it all began with the women who saw the love between Spock and Kirk.

It’s exciting to note that Star Trek fanzines were not rejected by the creators and actors. Writer Gene Roddenberry notably referred to Spockanalia as “required reading” for his staff, and both cast members and writers would commonly contribute to the fanzine with interviews and letters. Spock’s actor Leonard Nimoy actually wrote the foreword of the first Spockanalia issue. Though Spockanalia didn’t actually contain any explicit Kirk/Spock content, Roddenberry and the cast were also generally aware of the theory and its popularity. In an interview for the 1979 biography Shatner: Where No Man, Roddenberry was asked what he thought of the idea that Kirk and Spock were in love. His response was considerate, if not explicitly affirming: “Yes, there’s certainly love overtones. Deep love. The only difference being, we never suggested in the series [that there was any] physical love between the two. But we certainly had the feeling that the affection was sufficient for that, if that were the particular style of the 23rd century.” This ambivalent statement and other, similar statements from Shatner and Nimoy were affirming enough to continue the fan support of Kirk/Spock into the modern day--although, in truth, even an outright denial from Roddenberry wouldn’t have destroyed the belief completely.

Unfortunately, it seems that queer Star Trek fans must often remain in the subtext, because in the 750 episodes and thirteen movies of the franchise, there is a pitifully small amount of canon queer representation. This fact is made more frustrating because the Federation is supposed to be a human utopia, and thus should include queer people. But, even without the explicit queer content fans desire, there are a few moments resembling true representation, and many more homoerotic interpretations of the many characters. Star Trek: The Next Generation (TNG), beginning in 1987, mildly explored gender expression in the episode “The Outcast.” First officer William Riker (Jonathan Frakes) falls in love with Soren (Melinda Culea), a member of an entirely androgynous alien race. After developing feelings for Riker, Soren reveals to him that she actually identifies as female, which is considered unthinkable by her race. Soren is forced to experience “psychotectic treatments,” brainwashing her into forgetting her desire to be female--a clear reference to gay conversion therapy. This possibly powerful representation falls flat both because Riker doesn’t succeed in saving Soren from the treatment (implying that even in a society without a gender binary, cisnormativity is still firmly upheld), and that Soren is portrayed by a female actress in the first place. Frakes himself has said that he wishes that Soren had been played by a man, and that such a change would have made the moment more impactful. Another disappointing moment was the promise of a gay character in “Blood and Fire,” an episode which never aired--despite Roddenberry’s pledge that there would be at least one canonical queer Starfleet officer. The episode was meant to parallel the AIDS epidemic, as the Enterprise-D encountered another Starfleet ship infected with a disease, and it became necessary for the crew of the Enterprise to donate blood to save the lives of everyone aboard. Two of the men infected were Lieutenants Freeman and Eakins, who were in a romantic relationship with each other. “How long have you two been together?” asks a random crewmember of the Enterprise. “Since the Academy,” Eakins answers, and that’s the end of it. Despite the fact that Freeman and Eakins only appeared in that one episode, and that the actual acknowledgement of queer love is nearly a throwaway line of

dialogue, the matter-of-fact tone given by both Eakins and the curious officer was refreshing in a time period of over-dramatic queer reveals. Or it would have been, if the episode was shown. And, if there had been any hope that Roddenberry would continue trying to fulfill his promise, he died only two months after the episode was supposed to air, leaving the less responsive Rick Berman in charge of the series.

In addition to TNG, there are mild overtures to queerness in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (DS9), beginning in 1993. Jadzia Dax (Terry Farrell), an officer aboard the space station Deep Space Nine, is a trill: a kind of alien composed of a host body (Jadzia) and a 700-year-old symbiote (Dax). Dax the symbiote had been implanted in both male and female trill, and Jadzia has no issue discussing her previous lifetimes as a man, or her attraction to women--pushing the boundaries on the previously conservative Star Trek sexuality. This is most dramatically evidenced in the Season Three episode “Rejoined,” where she is reunited with a wife of Dax’s previous male hosts: Lenara Khan (Susanna Thompson). Though it is illegal for Lenara and Jadzia to rekindle feelings from previous hosts, they are unable to resist their mutual attraction, and kiss--the first queer kiss in all of Star Trek, and the fifth lesbian kiss to be shown on television. However, Lenara doesn’t stay on the station, and she is never seen again on the show. Jadzia is also never seen kissing another woman. Then there was the Season Seven episode “The Emperor’s New Cloak” which showed two female villains kiss each other (the eighth lesbian kiss on television), but their relationship is never explored afterwards, and it seems like yet another example of queerness equalling villainy. The last and possibly most subtle struggle with queerness in DS9 was in the character Elim Garak played by Andrew Robinson: a Cardassian tailor and ex-spy for the Obsidian Order. Robinson confirmed in an interview with Amazon in 2012 something that fans of DS9 had noticed about his character: that Garak has an “inclusive sexuality.” He specifically noted that Garak had always been attracted to the character of Dr. Julian Bashir (Alexander Siddig), a pairing that was already popular among fans and referred to as “Garashir.” However, this attraction never grew into anything more than that, and Robinson lamented that the writers were not able to support his character choice in the overall plot.

And finally, there is the crown jewel of canon queer Star Trek representation: Lieutenant Paul Stamets (Anthony Rapp) and Dr. Hugh Culber (Wilson Cruz), a happily married couple with a rich backstory in the newest Star Trek series Discovery. According to Cruz, the two of them “were moved by how seriously this relationship was being treated by the show, that it was being held up as an example of true love.” The love between Culber and Stamets is also not awkwardly overstated, or surrounding taboo social issues like the love between Jadzia and Lenara: they are no different from any other kind of relationship. They are an example of something that is becoming slightly more common in recent media: a gay couple whose problems rarely ever revolve around their queerness, and both of their characterizations go beyond “The Gay One.” Unfortunately even this victory comes with a major flaw: Culber dies in the first season of the show. The “Bury Your Gays” trope is all-too familiar to the queer community, and though its prevalence in media is always painful, it feels like an extra twist of the knife for Star Trek to kill literally half of its canonical gay characters--because there are only two. Culber was actually miraculously resurrected in a surprise episode of season two, but he and Stamets are having an awkward time being a couple again after Culber was dead for so long. Perhaps the Discovery writers will repair their relationship, or even introduce more queer characters, but until then, Star Trek fans are left to ponder these small instances of true representation, as well as the festival of homoerotic subtext.

As is the case with so many aspects of popular culture, there isn’t enough diversity in Roddenberry’s idealistic Federation to represent the boundless variety of the human race--let alone the countless other alien races that are a part of the Star Trek universe. But, where the writers fail to include the queer, disabled, neurodivergent, and other different variations of people that should exist in their world, the creativity and resourcefulness of Star Trek fans can and will prevail. Rich communities connected throughout the internet share queer interpretations of any and all characters of the series and movies, theories of how true diversity would function in the Federation of Planets, and just generally gush about their mutual love for this cheesy, profound, seemingly everlasting space opera. And, if it weren’t for those avid Kirk/Spock fans of the sixties and the genres they helped to form, Star Trek likely wouldn’t have lasted into the modern day, and the prevalence of fan sites, fanfiction, and fan conventions might have never come about. Even if the writers for the many iterations of Star Trek won’t give the queer community the representation they deserve, there is nothing stopping us from imagining Kirk and Spock kissing each other tenderly on the bridge of the Enterprise, and any other characters we choose sharing the affection that so many fans see. Maybe being gay can’t save the world, but being gay did save this particular galaxy. To paraphrase Captain Kirk, we will “boldly be gay, where no gay has gone before.”