elenilote:

linnealurks:

ritchandspace:

tardiswanted:

Ladies and gentlemen, and variations thereupon

You know, I’m amazed that in all my time on tumblr, I’ve never seen a single post appreciating this lady. I mean, do you realise what is happening here?

This is clear and casual acceptance of gender non-conformity in mainstream media. And not only is this in Doctor Who, with an audience of millions and millions of people worldwide, but it’s also set in the future, implying that progress is not only spaceships and interplanetary colonisation, but also in the way of acceptance of identity outside the gender binary.

So yeah, let’s take a moment to appreciate the awesome lady in Doctor Who that was totally chill about trans* folk without making a big show of it. You go, girl*!
(*or gentleman, or variations thereof.)

Russell T Davies wrote these episodes, with these lines:

• End of the World: Ladies and gentlemen and trees and multiforms…
• The Long Game: Ladies, gentlemen, multi-sex, undecided or robot…
• Midnight: Ladies and gentlemen, and variations thereupon…

In Russell T Davies’ futures, gender is always more complicated than today.  

Davies also created Jack Harkness, from a future (the 51st century) where sexuality is fluid (also Jack and the Face of Boe have both been said to carry pregnancies).  

On the other hand the Moffat years gave us this line:

“We’re the thin/fat, gay, Anglican marines: why would we need names as well?" 

Because its so funny and weird that out of hundreds of “anglican marines” in Demons Run in the 52nd century, that a fat guy and a thin guy would be a couple…ok….

And they’re literally credited at the end as “Fat One” and “Thin One”.   They’re purely a joke.

Is that how straight people see us?

Anyway, in the meantime (bringing us back to the original post), the fact that no one knew this Hostess’s name in “Midnight” is considered a major tragedy, because she is a hero.

(The episode also features a character named Sky who mentions her ex with she/her pronouns, and no one makes a big deal out of it.  Its entirely normal, and not a joke at all.)

I’m still wary of taking the media-friendly, chattering-classes stance that labels don’t matter, that we should chuck them in the bin; I’m labelled gay, and I love that label, I need it. Equally, if you’re working in a car factory and you’ve been closeted for the entire 50 years of your life, you’re carrying an awful and important label. They aren’t easily shrugged off. But maybe we need more labels. Like, five million more, and that’s just for starters.

We need a vocabulary that will fit the sheer complexity of ordinary men and women.

—Russell T. Davies

source (in sidebar)

this is why RTD needs to be recognised and celebrated and SM should go jump off Tower Bridge