Not because they would be oppressed in any way or at least I assume so as we never actually see gay people in any of the shows. The future of Star Trek is so perfect that people really don’t have the problems we have now. I assume sex education and contraceptives are so effective that there are virtually no unwanted pregnancies. Because of super advanced medical science, and all people being so evolved and well adjusted, even in the vanishingly rare cases where someone dies young their children will be well taken care of by their immediate family.
All this means is that Gay male couples will have almost no chances to adopt children. I don’t think artificial wombs have ever been mentioned in any of the shows and we know cloning or any genetical engineering is illegal. I guess they could do womb rental but I can’t imagine that could possibly satisfy demand. Gay women don’t have this problem as sperm is probably easy to come by even in the future. The holodeck floor comes to mind.
There are probably a huge supply of transporter mishap duplicated babies to choose from. Just hope you don’t get the evil one.
There might be a fairly large group of people who find surrogacy a calling. It’s a really noble thing, and that’s the sort of stuff that gets Federation types out of bed in the morning.
The replicators can not duplicate Village People costumes due to copyrights being extended to 1000 plus years and a legal issue regarding said copyright.
Also, don’t even think about trying to get a legal download of “Its Raining Men”.
You can dress like Tom Seleck and listen to some Bette Middler but that’s about it.
Why go looking for the down side of everything? Homosexuals already get to have as much sex as they want with zero chance of it ending in pregnancy and a kid to drag them down. That’s like having your utopia with no need to wait for the twenty third century.
In a tie-in novel, cut plans to make a minor male character gay were “resurrected,” and it was pointed out that when a presumed male Ferengi (actually a disguised female) on Deep Space Nine seemed to have a crush on Quark, no one seemed to blink at it (although much of the reaction came from Dax, who, as a Trill, would have a different perspective on such things).
OTOH, one fanfic I remember reading proposed that by TNG, to-order genetics would have eliminated homosexuality centuries ago, to the point that the entire concept is wiped out (even, apparently, on Betazed, implying that it would’ve been done on most worlds with sufficiently advanced technology).
I think it would be difficult for gay starship captains. It seems from TOS that hot alien (hetero) space babes willing to sleep with said captain are a dime a dozen, but the same cannot be said for hot alien gay space hunks.
How will the captain solve the crisis of the week if he can’t find anyone to boink to get the necessary information?
As often as it fails, I would think the adoption of holodeck technology as a standard equipment on starships would lead to an abundance of suddenly orphaned children.
I don’t think they’d have a problem at all. The cloning in “Up the Long Ladder” (1) was never said to be illegal, just possibly immoral, (2) happened without the donors’ consent, and (3) produced fully formed adults that are implied (by Riker’s comment about losing individuality) to have the memories of their genetic parents.
We’re talking about raising kids, which would imply more traditional cloning. So it has the exact same problems of any other type of conception: the need for a womb. Surrogacy has already been mentioned, but what about an artificial womb? I can’t imagine that hasn’t been made yet. Or how about using hormones and such so one male partner could go through pregnancy? Or even putting an artificial womb inside a man–we’ve seen artificial body parts out the wazoo.
That said, cloning is not the best option we have. Yes, genetic engineering is outlawed except for correcting certain severe birth defects, but why should that include putting your genes inside an empty ovum, and then using in vitro fertilization? I suspect the same can be done for lesbian couples, too. This would then allow the child to biologically belong to both parents.
I guess it’s possible to treat genetic engineering so broadly as to exclude this. but I’d argue no actual gene changes have been made. And we’ve never seen evidence that this sort of thing isn’t allowed. The genetic engineering we’ve seen being “outlawed” has always involved genetic changes.
It’s not like there’s some ready pool of adoptable babies in the US today either. American couples who want to adopt basically have the options of older and special-needs American children, foreign adoption, or a commissioned arrangement with a gestational mother. The Star Trek universe would offer the same options within the Federation, perhaps with fewer special-needs kids.
Also, when a temporal polarity inversion incident leaves a ship mysteriously derelict or when the Borg assimilates all the scientists at a research station, the away team always finds a surviving kid cowering in a cupboard or some such.
I don’t see why, in the future, there wouldn’t be the possibility to create a child with the DNA of both, monogendered parents, plus a little extra. Edit: I see** BigT** already said this.
Why would they need an artificial womb? Male pregnancy is already theoretically possible; with future medical techniques, it could easily be routine. Also, why need a sperm and egg? There are ways of manipulating germ cells already.
Gay couples in Star Trek could easily be biological parents.
