A very bisexual Star Trek

The 1990s were a time

Friends, I did it: I finished my DS9 rewatch. I won’t bore you with tons of commentary on the show (if you want that feel free to email me directly), but I will say that one thing that really popped out to me this time around was how bisexual the show really is.

Not overtly, of course, this was a show that aired on broadcast TV during the 1990s, any overt queerness had to be packaged in a ton of context and explanation (Jadzia is just attracted to women sometimes because in previous lifetimes she was a man; everyone is gay in this episode because they’re actually different versions of themselves from the evil Mirror Universe, etc and so forth). But there’s definitely a vibe (one that several actors have confessed was intentional) that I felt more strongly this time around.

There’s one season 7 episode in particular that floored me with the bisexual culture of it all, and that’s really the reason why I was motivated to write to all of you about DS9 in particular right now. It’s called “Chimera” and — okay first let me just give you little bit of necessary backstory. One of the main characters of DS9 is Odo, a shapeshifter who grew up separated from his people. He lives among humanoids (aka “the solids”), and dates a woman named Kira (this is relevant), and gets increasingly distressed over the course of the whole show as he first a) reconnects with the rest of shapeshifter kind and b) must turn his back on them as they start a war with the humanoids.

(No nitpicking from actual Trekkies, please, I know I glossed over a lot but I’m trying not to bore the normals.)

Anyway. In “Chimera,” Odo comes into contact with another shapeshifter (Laas) who’s grown up away from their people. Only Laas is much more suspicious of solids than Odo is. As the two of them hang out, Laas becomes convinced that Odo is ashamed of who he is: he won’t take forms that might make the solids uncomfortable, like fog or fire or other things that push the limit of the imagination. He won’t “link” (it’s kind of like shapeshifter sex but maybe not, they just merge their whole selves into one basically) with Laas in front of the solids. Odo, Laas insists, is hemming himself in order to win favor with the solids.

Does this sound familiar?

The thing that is particularly interesting to me here is that because Odo can’t, or at least won’t, go back to his people, he exists in a kind of in between state. If you were so inspired (as I briefly was), you could argue that there’s a read of this episode in which the main group of shapeshifters are monosexual queers, living at a remove and refusing to trust the heterosexual solids*, and Odo and Laas and all the other baby shapeshifters who grew up away from their people (there’s a whole in-world explanation for why this happened but it’s not necessary to explain I don’t think) are, you guessed it, bisexuals.

And how, exactly, are bisexuals — these shapeshifters living in an in-between state, accepted by the solids so long as they appear functionally identical to solids, who could return home but do not feel comfortable there, either — to do, exactly? Laas proposes what could best be thought of as a kind of bisexual separatism — he wants Odo to go off with him, to find the other shapeshifters who were sent off on their own and build a new community with them — but Odo opts not to. He’s in love, you see. He’s in love with a woman who, despite being a solid, despite her inability to truly understand what existence is like for Odo, still loves him enough to want him to be happy. She even cosigns him running away with Laas to do the whole bisexual commune thing, if he wants. Which, of course, is why he chooses not to go.

The final scene of the episode is a really beautiful one. Odo and Kira are alone, and she gently coaxes him to show her the part of himself that he felt he had to hold back, to be the weird and incomprehensible — dare I say, queer — version of himself that he’s been too afraid to be before. Odo transforms into — I want to say it’s light, maybe? or sparkles? — something shimmery that takes over the entirety of the air around Kira, surrounding her, and the smile on her face, it’s just —

That whole moment made the episode for me.

I’m not opposed to the whole bisexual separatist commune thing. There’s a part of me that loves the idea of Odo going off with Laas, who, by the way, was totally and completely correct about Odo holding himself back, trying to fit in, being ashamed of the ways in which he is different. But I also love that DS9 offers the possibility that, rather than like automatically having to go off with like, rather than bisexuals having to hide a part of ourselves from monosexuals in order to be accepted, we can be our full and whole selves with monosexuals, even if they cannot fully understand us. Monosexuals can appreciate us, can find beauty in our difference, even if they, themselves, are still firmly rooted in monosexuality and always will be.

It was just a nice message to be reminded of. Kira, smiling like the straight girlfriend of a bi boy who is finally letting her see the entirety of his identity. Kira, smiling with love because she knows her boyfriend’s queerness makes him more beautiful, not less. Sure, it’s not explicitly about bisexuality and I’m sure you can read it as a variety of different things. But I still love to see it that way.

I think it’s beautiful that way.

* Okay not to get too in the weeds but there’s also a whole thing by this point where the main group of shapeshifters have some disease that’s killing all of them off, and if you want to get really into queer parallels here I’m just saying that… you could do that

PS Still trying to figure out where to move this newsletter since I’m not really thrilled with Substack’s content policies anymore. I’m probably going to start posting them on Patreon as well as Substack for the time being, and am looking into other newsletter platforms as well (I claimed the username bisexuality on Buttondown, but they charge a monthly fee which I’m not thrilled about), and will keep you posted. If people have suggestions, feel free to let me know. The B+ Squad will continue, that’s for sure.