Note: Sources for this article include Franklin Hummel, "Science Fiction Audiences: Watching Doctor Who and Star Trek" by John Tulloch and Henry Jenkins and members of the Gaylaxians, particularly Noel Welch, Director of Publicity for the Gaylactic Network.

"Star Trek celebrates its 25th anniversary in 1991. In that quarter century, one of the most important aspects of the series ... has been the vision that humanity will one day put aside its differences to work and live in peace together. Star Trek, in its various television and motion picture forms, has presented us with Africans, Asians, Americans and Andorians, Russians and Romulans, French and Ferengi, Hispanics and Hortas, human and non-human men and women. Yet, in 25 years, it has never shown an openly gay character."--Franklin Hummel, Gaylactic Gazette, 1991

"It is time to end your policy of avoidance and de facto discrimination through the red-lining of positive gay and lesbian characters. It is time to live up to Gene's vision by embracing diversity and tolerance in the tradition established by the original series"--Voyager Project Visibility Petition, 1995

"During the course of our production, there have been many special interest groups who have lobbied for their particular cause. It is Gene Roddenberry's policy to present Star Trek as he sees it and not to be governed by outside influences."--Susan Sackett, Executive Assistant to Gene Roddenberry in a letter to Franklin Hummel dated March 12, 1991

"We have been the target of a concerted, organized movement by gay activists to put a gay character on the show."--Michael Piller

"In the late 1960's, a 'special interest group' lobbied a national television network to renew a series for a third season. If those networks had not listened to those with a special interest, Star Trek would not have returned and today Star Trek might very likely not be all of what it has become. You ... owe much to a special interest group: Star Trek fans. Perhaps you should consider listening to some of those same fans who are speaking to you now."--Franklin Hummel in a letter to Gene Roddenberry dated May 1, 1991

It is safe to assume that gays and lesbians have been a significant constituency among the core audience of Star Trek since the first episodes of the original series were televised in 1965, four years before Stonewall. There has always been a special relationship between gays and lesbians and science fiction. It is not unlikely that Gene Roddenberry began receiving letters from gays and lesbians suggesting that he consider including a gay/lesbian storylines and characters almost as soon as the philosophy of the program became clear.

Although I cannot confirm when Roddenberry received his first letter from an openly gay man or lesbian, I can confirm that letters encouraging lesbian/gay inclusion began to arrive at his office almost as soon as the production of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" was announced a decade later. The history of the interaction between Roddenberry and the producers at Paramount who inherited his creative legacy on the one hand and the lesbian/gay Star Trek audience on the other is unfortunately a sad story --a story of frustration and disappointment, disinformation and deceit.

A year before "Star Trek: The Next Generation" premiered in the fall of 1987, Franklin Hummel and John Dumas of Boston, Massachusetts, founded the Gaylaxians, an organization for gay, lesbian and bisexual science fiction fans and their friends. (And that organization's birth, in turn, is linked to the gay liberation movement and a series of events prompted by the appearance in 1983 of a book entitled "Uranian Worlds: A Reader's Guide to Alternative Sexuality in Science Fiction and Fantasy", written by Eric Garber and Lyn Paleo, which pointed out a link between "alternative fiction" and "alternative sexuality".) Various members of the Boston Gaylaxians began to write informal, individual letters to Roddenberry almost as soon as they learned of the upcoming production.

As the organization prospered and grew, so did the number of letters on the subject.

And it is clear that the organization grew quickly. The Boston club was formed in February of 1986. Later that year, a second club was formed in Albany, New York in August, and a third club, created specifically to represent geographically isolated individuals across and outside the U.S., formed at that year's World Science Fiction Convention in November. (Today, the Gaylaxians have eleven chapters in North America, including one in Canada. The majority are on the East Coast, though there are chapters in St Louis, Minneapolis and Milwaukee. Although there have been chapters in Los Angeles, Denver, and Chicago, they have ceased to function.)

For the next four years, during which affiliate organizations appeared in five more cities and the network began sponsoring its own convention, the informal letter-writing continued ... with little if any response other than form letters. Roddenberry didn't seem to be getting the message, causing some members of the group to begin to question whether or not his philosophy of inclusion was genuine.

Some pointed to a series of compromises they thought Roddenberry had made in the program ideology as evidence of a certain duplicity. Others voiced the opinion that perhaps Roddenberry was a prototypical liberal --in the sense that 'liberals' were being criticized at the time for making superficial changes, but refusing to take the 'radical' or 'progressive' steps necessary to solve the problems of the day. In other words, they believed that Roddenberry wanted to convince himself he was open-minded, thoughtful and evolving, but he didn't have the experience and knowledge (of the gay community) that led to a true commitment to making changes that really mattered. Putting another spin on that idea, still others thought Roddenberry was sacrificing the concerns of gays and lesbians because he was afraid of losing money due to the potential negative reactions of advertisers or viewers. Many were very reluctant to criticize Roddenberry at all, wondering if he was actually receiving their letters. Most believed that if they were able to explain the depth of their concerns to Roddenberry, he would take action.

In 1991, the Gaylaxians decided to organize their informal efforts into an historic campaign to persuade Roddenberry that it was time to introduce gay characters.

When the campaign began, Franklin Hummel wrote, "In the four years that "Star Trek: The Next Generation" has been running, I and others have constantly written to Roddenberry and the Star Trek office asking them to introduce a gay character --not necessarily to show a gay-themed episode, though that would be good in addition to a character, but just to introduce a gay character in the show. Nothing came of it. Basically, we had heard that the show would probably last, at the most, six seasons. After four years of trying, we figured it was now or never."

The organized letter writing campaign began in May of 1991, and by July its effect was being felt. One of Roddenberry's personal assistants, Ernest Over, testified to the reach of the campaign in an much-quoted August, 1991 article in The Advocate, saying: "The production office has received more letters on this than we've had on anything else." In an interesting twist of fate or public relations, Mr. Over also "came out" in the same article.

Franklin Hummel and a man named Jay DeSort (a member of Lambda Sci-Fi, the D.C. chapter of Gaylaxians and the probable reason for various references to a mysterious "USS Lambda" group connected to the effort) were the primary forces behind the grassroots campaign, committing their own time and money to coordinating the letter-writing effort and generating publicity. Their efforts garnered stories from sources as various as Canadian National Radio and the tabloid "Star". Leonard Nimoy made a public statement in support of the concept of a gay character and Arthur C. Clarke wrote a public letter to his old friend Roddenberry endorsing the idea and encouraging him to respond. There were other allies on the production crew and in the original cast, including at least one gay actor who felt he would risk his career if he commented publicly on the campaign.

In July, 1991, Roddenberry released a prepared statement to "The Advocate" which was published in the August, 1991, article, saying, in part, "In the the fifth season of 'Star Trek: The Next Generation', viewers will see more of shipboard life in some episodes, which will, among other things, include gay crew members in day-to-day circumstances."

Although Roddenberry had stated that "Sooner or later, we'll have to address the issue" and "We should probably have a gay character on Star Trek" when confronted by members of the Boston group at a conference in November, 1986, prior to July of 1991, Roddenberry had met the flood of mail generated by the campaign with a stock response stating that "I've never found it necessary to do a special homosexual-theme story because people in the timeline of 'The Next Generation' will not be labeled." Leaving aside for the moment a discussion of what that says about Roddenberry's understanding of the concerns of the gay and lesbian community, it is clear that he decided that the time was right to make a commitment --a commitment to characters and visibility rather than a single theme-oriented episode.

In a follow-up article, published September 15, 1991 in the "San Francisco Examiner", Rick Berman is quoted as saying "We agree that dealing with this issue is an important thing to do." The article goes on to state that, according to Berman, the program's fall season would start the week of September 23 and gays and lesbians would begin to appear sometime later in the autumn.

The first few paragraphs of the August, 1991 article in "The Advocate", published after receipt of Roddenberry's prepared statements, interviews with Hummel and Ernest Over, read as follows:

"As Hollywood scriptwriters put finishing touches on shows for the fall television season, participants in a grassroots campaign to add gay and lesbian characters to TV's most popular science fiction series are celebrating. This season, after four years on the air, Star Trek: The Next Generation will finally portray gay and lesbian crew members on the USS Enterprise, according to the show's producers.

"The inclusion of gay and lesbian characters will expand on the tradition of minority representation that the first Star Trek series established in the 60's. The earlier series foresaw a universe where all beings were equal, and the crew of the starship Enterprise bore witness to that goal, with members of Asian, African, and Eastern European origins and a small number of aliens. The program also featured the first interracial kiss on American network television.

"In Star Trek: The Next Generation, which debuted in 1987, one main character is both black and blind; aliens, including former arch-enemies the Klingons, are more common in the crew of the new Enterprise; and even the series' famous mission statement: 'to boldly go where no man has gone before,' has been changed to a gender-neutral form. But in over 150 episodes of both the old and new series, not one openly gay or lesbian character has been featured. That's about to change.

"Adding lesbian and gay roles is an opportunity to expand on Star Trek's theme of utopian equality, according to Franklin Hummel, director of Boston's Gaylactic Network, an umbrella group of gay and lesbian science fiction fans. 'From the very beginning, the show was always very racially and ethnically mixed and very positive in its presentation of minorities,' Hummel says. 'It came out during the 60's, which was prior to Stonewall and the gay liberation movement. When the new series came along, this struck us as an excellent opportunity to introduce a gay character as a crew member, possibly one of the main character of the show.'

"Though all the primary and secondary characters have been decisively portrayed as heterosexual, the new series has twice made allusions to homosexuality. In one, a male android who serves on the Enterprise is kidnapped and forced to change from his uniform to the clothes his abductor wants him to wear. The thief, who is depicted as unctuous and unscrupulous, tells the android, 'Personally I'd be delighted to see you go around naked. I assume you have no modesty.' Even more troubling was the episode titled 'The Host', in which the ship's surgeon, a woman, falls in love with a alien-humanoid symbiot whose humanoid host dies. While the doctor engages in an torrid 24 hour affair with a fellow officer to whom the alien creature is temporarily transferred, she reacts with stiff unease when the permanent host turns out to be another woman, not even rising from her desk to kiss her good-bye."

However, other than articles in "The Advocate", "The Los Angeles Times" and "The San Francisco Examiner", Roddenberry's announcement received surprisingly little coverage. Unfortunately, Gene Roddenberry, who was seriously ill at the time of his statement, died in November of 1991. And Paramount immediately began back-peddling away from Roddenberry's commitment to include gay characters. Within a month of his death, everyone who worked directly with Roddenberry, including his secretary, his executive assistant, Guy Vardaman, Ernest Over (who came out in The Advocate article), and Richard Arnold (who, though gay himself, wrote a series of letters bitterly denouncing Hummel and DeSort), were fired.

When the Gaylaxians sought confirmation of Roddenberry's statements from his successors, they received no response. When the "Washington Blade" called, they received only a tape recorded message from executive producer Rick Berman: 'The writers and producers of 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' are actively exploring a number of possible approaches that would address the issue of sexual orientation."

No anonymous gay crewmembers were ever shown that fall, nor on any succeeding episode of The Next Generation. Instead, "The Outcast", written by Jeri Taylor, aired the week of March 16, 1992, eight months after Roddenberry's statement.

Referring to "The Outcast", Michael Pillar said, "(Roddenberry) had discussed with us before his death the possibility of having two men hold hands in some scene, which was totally irrelevant to the issue of homosexuality ... So we decided to tell a story that was about sexual intolerance."

The Paramount publicity machine cranked out its own viewpoint about the story, reflected in the following article by Matt Roush that appeared in "USA Today" on Wednesday, March 18.

"The question arose again at last weekend's Museum of Television and Radio salute to Star Trek: The Next Generation in Los Angeles: Is it true Trek will spotlight a gay character, thus showing how humanistic the future can be?

"The answer: No, and yes.

"Executive Producer Michael Pillar wisely noted that just showing two guys holding hands on the Enterprise would be a condescending nod to the gay activists who've pressed the matter. Instead, this week's show --most will air it this weekend-- takes on the bigger issue of sexual intolerance.

"The Outcast", by Jeri Taylor is a mind-blowing and resonant episode, making great use of the allegorical nature of futuristic fiction. It asks us to wonder what it would be like if just declaring one's gender would render one "unnatural" in the eyes of a repressive society. "The episode introduces us to the androgynous alien race of J'naii, which has evolved beyond considerations of male and female, treating anyone who's different with scorn, abuse and forced therapy. When Cmdr. Riker (Johnathon Frakes) falls for the curious but frightened J'naii pilot Soren (Melinda Culea), she risks all to follow her heart.

"The sentiments are obvious, but undeniably dramatic. When Soren pleads for compassion, declaring "I am female. I was born that way ... I do not need to be helped or cured," it's likely to startle many viewers into a new understanding of just what it means to be a sexual being, in all its tremendous variety."

Franklin Hummel responded on May 11th with a letter to USA Today that said, "I am extremely disappointed to learn the idea of including gay people as characters was thought to be "condescending" by Star Trek's Executive Producer Michael Pillar. In fact, what most gay Star Trek fans found condescending was "The Outcast" which, while preaching against "sexual intolerance," hypocritically continued Star Trek's own twenty-five years of failure to show openly gay crewmembers on the starship "Enterprise".

"The Advocate" ran an editorial cartoon with a caption that read, "Big deal! The alien was oppressed for being hetero! Now that's science fiction!"

Jonathan Frakes was quoted as saying, "I don't think they were gutsy enough to take it where they should have. Soren should have been more obviously male."

To quote Henry Jenkins, co-author of "Science Fiction Audiences: Watching Doctor Who and Star Trek" in his chapter titled "Queers and Star Trek":

"If allegory depends upon the reader's abilities to fill its silences with their own voices, to complete the statements the text has left unfinished, the fans saw only the gaps and the evasions. Nowhere do any of the characters make explicit reference to the possibility of homosexuality nor do they directly confront homophobia. Homosexuality remains a connotative ghost, still that form of sexual desire that dares not speak its name." Especially onboard the Enterprise.

"The Gaylaxians recognized that what made this episode particularly dangerous was its insubstantiability, its refusal to state directly and explicitly what its message was intended to be.

"The depiction of Soren's (alien) society seemed to be something taken right from Rush Limbaugh's show or Pat Buchanan's campaign literature. If you listen to those people, you'll hear them talking about how the feminist and homosexual political agendas want to destroy the traditional family and make society into a sexless, genderless collection of politically correct clones, and if you don't toe the line, you'll be censored. Soren's society was a depiction of those people's worst nightmares. It seems to be that if you were of that mindset to begin with, this show did nothing but confirm those unfounded fears, and nothing to challenge them ... It was so ambiguous, so valueless and empty, as to leave it open for this interpretation.

"What appears on the screen ... is an 'outspoken' defense of heterosexuality, including that daring moment when Riker and Soren, Jonathan Frakes and Melinda Culea, break all social taboos and kiss each other on the lips, right there on television. What we see is a man and a woman thumbing their noses at a conformist, sexless society of androgynes (or perhaps given that the J'naii are all played by women, lesbians) who want to restrict the expression of straight sexuality.

What lessons can be learned from watching this one episode devoted to "the issue of sexual orientation"?

Jenkins goes on to quote the answers provided by a number of Gaylaxians he interviewed:

"If I were a gay teenager trying to come out, this episode would have done nothing for me. I would have left with exactly what I came in with. Yeah, I suppose there are gay people out there. I don't know how or why I'm going to find them and I don't have any kind of sense that things are going to be okay."

"This show told me to shut up or ...."

"This will happen to you if you try to come out of the closet."

Jenkins says "Homophobia speaks loudly here, while homosexuality whispers, never quite naming itself, offering a glimpse of how to survive as an outlaw in a heterosexual society." And you survive by never revealing yourself.

Some people missed the point altogether. One interviewee describes going to work the next day and listening to straight co-workers discuss the episode without connecting it to gay issues at all. "They were outraged by what was done to Soren. They felt it was a generic freedom of choice issue. She wasn't allowed to live the life she wanted." When the interviewee pointed out that this might be treated as a gay-related issue, it was quite a surprise and the people who had been discussing the issue argued that it was more a human rights issue. They apparently did not perceive gay rights as human rights.

Gay fans compared the situation with the way the series had tackled civil rights issues in the 1960s.

The TOS episode "Let That Be The Last Battlefield" was a statement against racial discrimination that there was no need to make. Star Trek had been making a statement against prejudice since the very first episode when they featured a multi-racial crew. If they had done "Battlefield" exactly as they did it as a single episode statement against racial prejudice, but every regularcharacter in the crew had been white, it would have been insulting --rank hypocrisy. But that's exactly what 'The Outcast' did."

Basically, the producers were saying "we will produce one episode in which the 'lesson' is that we should be accepting and tolerant of people who have different sexual preferences, but we aren't going to show anybody like that on this program ... or any other program that we produce."

Since that time, writers and producers have played games with the gay and lesbian audience, spreading and encouraging rumors that a gay character was about to be introduced, deliberately making the sexual orientation of certain characters --like Ro Laren-- vague. But that only lasts so long before a definitive statement of heterosexuality is made, such as the episode where everyone on the Enterprise loses their memory and Riker and Laren become lovers. Or as one lesbian wit described it, "The --oops, I forgot I was a lesbian-- episode."

The writing staff of Trek has been less than candid, less than bold, less than imaginative, when it comes to exploring the potential sexual and reproductive habits of even alien races, where the possibilities are wide open, as indicated by the variety in science fiction literature. Instead, we continue to see human heterosexual pairing and sexual reproduction as a supposedly universal condition. The scientific odds against this must be considerable. Not to mention, that it's not even true for our own species.

One by one every character on Star Trek Voyager has declared their heterosexuality. Janeway in the very first episode, lest this "new female captain" have to deal with issues surrounding her sexual orientation in addition to being female. Kim, who produced an incredible amount of hopeful posting on AOL with one scream in "The Caretaker", has said he has a girl back home and is supposedly involved with a Delaney sister, although reluctantly. Chakotay's affair with Seska was revealed in another episode, though here again the producers leave room for speculation about why he ended it. Torres began another episode by admiring a male crewman's ass as he walked by her table. Tuvok has stated that he has been married for 75 years. Paris is determinedly heterosexual, creating his bevy of beauties in the holodeck bistro and coming on to the Betazed who is transporting him to the station in the first episode. In addition, he has an affair with the alien female in the atrocious "Ex Post Facto". Neelix and Kes have been a devoted couple since the premiere. Even the holographic doctor is implied to have shared the bed of a holographic shield maiden.

As the Voyager Visibility Project petition states, the substitution of one or two episodes that inadequately deal with the "issue" of sexual orientation for the inclusion of an fully-developed dramatic character is cynical and unacceptable window-dressing. This is an insult to Roddenberry, the gay and lesbian fans who took the time to meet with him and explain the importance of acting on his vision, the gay and lesbian community at large, and all Star Trek and science fiction fans who embrace his vision of a positive future in which there is infinite diversity in infinite combinations.

Clearly, it is far past time for the producers to end what amount to a policy of avoidance and discrimination through the red-lining of positive gay and lesbian characters. Clearly, the producers have exhibited no willingness to act on the legitimate concerns of gay and lesbian fans by providing for lesbian/gay inclusion. A number of persons concerned about this problem believe it is unlikely that the producers will respond to a petition, no matter how many signatures are gathered. As for what kind of action they might respond to, that is open for speculation and discussion. And you can count on the fact that we will be discussing it in the near future

What is at stake is the credibility of Roddenberry's and Paramount's oft repeated claims about the utopian social vision of Star Trek. Michael Pillar, Jeri Taylor and Rick Berman's joint refusal to include queer characters in Star Trek, points to their personal failure to understand and respond to issues raised by gay and lesbian people.

About the Historic Relations Between
Science Fiction And Gay Culture

(Excerpted from "Science Fiction Audiences: Watching Doctor Who and Star Trek" by John Tulloch and Henry Jenkins, published by Routledge (ISBN 0-415-06141-5)

The historic relations between science fiction and gay culture are complex and varied. Eric Garber and Lyn Paleo's "Uranian Worlds" lists more than 935 science fiction stories or novels which deal with gay and lesbian themes and characters, starting with Lucian's True History (AD 200) and ending in the late 1980s. While some of the stories they cite adopt homophobic stereotypes, they see science fiction as a genre which was historically open to gay, bisexual and lesbian writers who could express their sexuality in a disguised but potent form. As Garber and Paleo note, science fiction fandom in the 1950s was closely linked to the emergence of homophile organizations, with fanzines, such as Lisa Ben's "Vice Versa" and Jim Kepner's "Toward Tomorrow", among the first gay community publications in the U.S. Writers like Marion Zimmer Bradley, Joanna Russ and Samuel R. Delany were writing science fiction novels in the 1960s which dealt in complex ways with issues of sexual orientation and envisioned futures which held almost unlimited possibilities for gays and lesbians. These writer's efforts opened possibilities for a new generation of queer authors, working in all subgenres, to introduce gay, bisexual and lesbian characters within otherwise mainstream science fiction stories. A key shift has been the movement from early science fiction stories that treated homosexuality as a profoundly alien sexuality towards stories that deal with queer characters as a normal part of the narrative universe and that treat sexuality as simply one aspect of their characterization. Many of these new writers, such as J.F. Rifkin, Melissa Scott, Susanna L. Sturgis and Ellen Kushner, have been actively involved with the Gaylaxians and have been featured guests at their national convention.