Did Riker "out" himself in "The Outcast"?
Remember "The Outcast"? The ostensible story was that the Enterprise had encountered a planet inhabited by the Jenai, a race of single-gender androgynous individuals. Riker falls in love with a Jenai named Soren. Unfortunately, Soren's race outlaws sexual contact with beings who have a gender, like Riker. They consider her to be "sick" because Soren feels that she is a woman and she is attracted to Riker because he is a man. She is tried in court, found to be mentally ill, and then brainwashed (presumably with psychoactive drugs, or the 24th century equivalent) to "want" to be non-genered again. When Riker sees her again at the end she expresses relief at being "cured" and marvells that she was so "sick" to begin with.
This episode covers a lot of ground in a very short period of time. First, consider the reaction of Riker's shipmates when they learn he is in love with Soren. They all seem very supportive, even though they know that Soren is a non-gendered individual. But it's more than that. Soren mentioned that she reproduced by "inseminating a fibrous husk". That, at the very least, would indicate that she has some sort of male genitalia. Whatever else she might have or be, Soren is a man, and so Riker is having a gay relationship with him/her.
In other words, Riker's shipmates, and by extension the Federation, and by extension the show is saying, finally, that gay relationships are perfectly acceptable. What a long way the show has come since Dr. McCoy zapped the suction cup monster!
But there's another larger message here. The intolerance of the Jenai towards people with gender is a metaphor for our society's intolerance towards gays. The Jenai thought that Soren was mentally ill for wanting to have a man-woman relationship, just as some in our society think that men who want relationships with other men are also mentally ill. In fact, some people believe that gays can be "cured", just as the Jenai believed about Soren. Some states like Georgia have anti-sodomy laws that are aimed against homosexuals. In fact, the US Supreme Court, in a famous case called Bowers v. Hardwick, ruled it was permissible to have such laws!
Ironically, the unisex Jenai society is a society that persecutes heterosexuals. It was meant to show heterosexuals a little of "the shoe on the other foot", how they would feel in an oppressive society ruled by intolerant gays.
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