Where No Man Has Gone Before?

The hot gossip in Star Trek circles is that James T. Kirk, the legendary captain of the USS Enterprise, will be appearing in the upcoming series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and that, in a big change to the character, he will now be bisexual. This has, unsurprisingly, sent some corners of fandom into apoplexy. But do those of use who want a more LGBT-friendly Trek universe want this change to Kirk's character?

To begin with, I'm not sure it's even necessary that Kirk should appear in Strange New Worlds. This is, after all, Captain Pike's series. Anson Mount's take on the good captain was a huge success in Star Trek: Discovery and led to this series getting the green light. A young Jim Kirk, still starting out in Starfleet, would detract attention away from Pike on his own show.

Let's for the moment assume the rumours are true. Daniel Richtman, the insider who broke the news on Twitter, has a decent track record on these snippets of info. Now, SNW is being touted as a return to a more traditional, episodic, optimistic Trek, and some fans have concluded that this will mean a return to the very white, very straight, very masculine Original Series. There's absolutely no reason this has to be the case. SNW will likely be set around 2258, four years after the original pilot episode “The Cage” and seven years before the second pilot, “Where No Man Has Gone Before.” While Pike, Spock and Number One are confirmed and Kirk seems a dead cert, the rest of the crew can include completely new faces, who will have joined the Enterprise since the events on Talos Four and will leave before Kirk's command.

I want SNW to throw caution to the wind and be the boldest, queerest Trek we've ever seen. I want the future it shows to be an optimistic one for gay, lesbian, bi, trans, NB and queer folks. I want as varied a mix of characters on the crew as possible. But does this mean making an iconic character bi all of a sudden? Trek has tried this before, when Sulu was revealed as gay in the most recent film, Star Trek Beyond. He was briefly shown with a husband and daughter. While original Sulu actor George Takei disliked this, having said he always played the character as straight, there was little to suggest any particular sexuality for the Sulu in the Original Series. He was revealed to have a daughter in Star Trek Generations, but this never precluded a non-heterosexual lifestyle.

Kirk, on the other hand, is a famously sexual character. William Shatner's dashing young captain had dalliances with beautiful women throughout Star Trek's three seasons and had several female romantic interests in the Trek movies. The reboot movies have Kirk as even more of a womaniser. At no point did we ever see him express any interest in a male character. Well, OK, maybe one. Kirk's friendship with Spock has often been viewed with romantic undertones by some fans. Indeed, the term “slash fiction” originates with Kirk/Spock fanfic, which was a significant genre in the fan community as far back as the seventies. Other fans merely see Kirk and Spock as the ultimate Trek bromance. There's not really anything to suggest attraction to men on Kirk's behalf.

Of course, we could say that Kirk was bi all along, we just never saw the evidence since earlier iterations of the franchise were unable to show it. The common response by people in favour of making Kirk by seems to be, “Well, he'll screw anything that moves, won't he?” Aside from this being a crasser, more recent version of the character – the original Kirk was never quite that much of a letch – it's an unfortunate characterisation of bisexual people. In so much media and many people's opinions, bisexuality is synonymous with promiscuity. Bi people are greedy, they're sex-obsessed, they're cheaters. We here this all the time. Of course, some bi folk are like that, just like in all sexualities, but too often this is the default characteristic.

Whether the showrunners decide to go down this route remains to be seen, but if they do, then a bisexual Kirk risks perpetuating a destructive stereotype and rewriting a beloved character with little justification. There's plenty of scope to make Number One or even Pike bi – while we've seen opposite sex attraction by both of them, there's so little known of them so far that almost anything could be added to the characters. Or better yet, create new, proudly queer characters to carry the future of the Star Trek universe.